my last keris

[Marcokeris]

Originally Posted by Marcokeris

Sorry David, but there must be a reason why these types of dhapur are depicted in old texts with the hilt pointing in the opposite side! ....If we agree with our geometry, the reason is extremely simple: as I have already written in many previous posts: the keris could not enter, into the sheath, correctly.

and are not rare case

[David]

Originally Posted by Marcokeris

and are not rare case

Of course it's rare. If someone like Alan Maisey states that "in over 70 years of handling & seeing keris I believe I have never seen an (apparently) professionally mounted keris set into its scabbard back to front" i don't know what else to call it.
You seem to be responding very defensively to remarks about this presentation. Obviously we aren't arguing with the fact that it exists and that others exist that are also mounted in this manner. The evidence is clear that examples exist.
I am not convinced that the reason is a simple as it could not enter the sheath properly if it wasn't reversed though. It still leaves us with the question of why is this the case and why do we have these blades that ignore the Javanese concept of condong leheh.

[A. G. Maisey]

The failure of a blade to enter an already existing scabbard is most certainly not any sort of a reason to reverse the correct position of a keris in its wrongko.

A halfway competent tukang wrongko or m'ranggi can always fit any blade to any wrongko, where a blade is so far outside the norm that it will not fit an existing wrongko, then a new wrongko will be made for it.

Now, this idea of "existing wrongko".

Yes, we can purchase low quality, premade wrongkos in a market, these pasar quality wrongkos are made with a very small hole, sometimes only a round, drilled hole, the fitting is done by first fitting the blade to the atasan (gambar), then the gandar is fitted to the atasan and the angle of gandar to atasan is fixed to accommodate the blade angle.

So we have a couple of examples of an incorrect blade fit.

I've never seen this, I've not heard of it, I cannot imagine its place in keris society. However, it does exist, so my only guess is that it was done to suit the personal philosophy of an individual.

Obviously an extremely rare variation, so I guess for some collectors whose knowledge of the keris is rooted in sources from outside Javanese keris society, this deviation in dress style might make this style of keris somewhat more desirable than would otherwise be the case.

[Marcokeris]

Could it be then that the scabbard suitable for receiving these dhapurs in the correct insertion (with minimal modification) is the sandang wailakat?

I write this because it is something that immediately catches my eye.

Furthermore, by rotating this scabbard by 180 degrees, as I had already written, could have a position of the kris in line with the tradition with which the kris is hung on a blawong and in line with the tradition with which the scabbard is held in hand correctly before to pull out the blade from the wailakat

[A. G. Maisey]

Marco, I am unable to comment upon your hypotheticals, but I can say that I have owned & seen a lot of keris of these forms that have been fitted in the conventional fashion to sandang walikat wrongkos.

Incidentally, we do not ever "pull the blade from the scabbard", we gently press the part of the wrongko that is in front of the sirah cecak, away from the blade, ie, the wrongko is gently removed from the blade, the blade is not removed from the wrongko.

[Marcokeris]

Yes Alan, I know well how to remove the wrongko.

I posted this topic because didn't seem so meaningless to me and it was light years away from the idea of disturbing some collector or scholar.
I also posted it to spice up this forum with new topics. A forum that, with all my respect, seems to me to have slowly gone into hibernation in recent years. A fall asleep perhaps also due to the reason that most of the Indonesian collectors and scholars have left without being replaced by new ones

[Gustav]

Radya Pustaka Museum

[Jean]

Originally Posted by Marcokeris

Yes Alan, I know well how to remove the wrongko.

A forum that, with all my respect, seems to me to have slowly gone into hibernation in recent years. A fall asleep perhaps also due to the reason that most of the Indonesian collectors and scholars have left without being replaced by new ones

I have to agree with you Marco, and not only the Indonesian collectors and scholars have left (with few notable exceptions of course)....

[David]

Originally Posted by Marcokeris

I also posted it to spice up this forum with new topics. A forum that, with all my respect, seems to me to have slowly gone into hibernation in recent years. A fall asleep perhaps also due to the reason that most of the Indonesian collectors and scholars have left without being replaced by new ones

The greatest of thanks from the bottom of my heart, Marco, for attempting to spice up the conversation in our sleepy little town.
As Alan has pointed out, much of the keris discussion has indeed moved to Facebook pages these days. I know this personally as i am also a moderator on not one, but two of these pages. The reasons for this migration are many.
On the language front, we are an English only forum, while FB pages allow their members to post in their native tongues. This is, of course, easier for Indonesian collectors, so they find these pages more accessible. Facebook has a built-in translation feature, though i must say that it does an awful job with Indonesian/Javanese languages. Unfortunately, our forum has no such bulit-in feature, so allowing folks to post in various languages is just not an option.
Secondly members of FB pages like the fact that there tends to be less, or less strictly regulated rules on these pages. For instance, even though the two pages i moderate do not allow selling, it is clear to me that many dealers use the pages just to display their wares and attract buyers. Of course, as a moderator i see a lot more of that than you and you may be surprised just how many on those posts never actually make it to the page. But clearly many of the posts that do are thinly veiled advertisements of keris for sale. That is obviously something we do not permit here and so we are not a friendly page for these particular members.
Thirdly, as Alan has suggested, these FB pages are far more social and less scholarly. That is not the fault of the Admins of these pages, who go to great lengths to have built up a couple of rather nice libraries of scholarly material in their "Files" sections. For me that is the best part of these FB pages, though i have a feeling only a very small percentage of members of those groups actually ever access any of these files.
Lastly, the levels of discussion on these pages rarely get beyond the cursory level. It is mostly just show and tell, often with the "tell" left off. I cannot even calculate the number of times i have asked members on these pages to elaborate on statements or support them with sources only to be met with either silence, or worse yet, indignation. Statements and claims are made regularly without any support and are simply expected to be accepted as fact without question. I am, of course, aware of certain members of good reputation that i know speak from a much deeper place of knowledge. But on a page that has more than 10,000 members it is just not possible to determine the veracity of claims that are not being backed up with anything further than "because i say so".
All this is to say that while i find these FB pages useful on many levels, i still come here when i hope to have engaging and thoughtful conversations that attempts to approach these discussions with some sense of scholarly review. And despite the possible use of different name handles, i do notice which members of the FB pages also feel the same and still post on this forum as well. You being one of them.
In the end, i am not sure there is really much that can be done to bring more collectors to our table if they are satisfied with the level of discussion they are finding in the more heavily trafficked FB pages. I do believe that it is the discerning collector who seeks as much knowledge a they can find that is wise enough to check out ALL the options for discussion they can find on the internet. It's really not too difficult to be open to all these different venues that are available as any of them are just a URL away and require just a stroke of the keyboard to arrive at.