Unusual Chinese knife / Dao

Over the years, I’ve seen a remarkable variety of different blade shapes,  but this one is really quite unusual for a Chinese knife.

Chinese Dao

overall length                   755mm

blade length                     615mm

grip length                       140mm

weight                             1088gr

p.o.b                               180mm

The blade is 5mm thick at the forte, tapering to 2.5mm at the tip, and is sharp along the full length of the bottom edge.

In contrast to the blade, the handle is typically Chinese in style and construction.

Brass coin motif and lanyard hole

The wooden grip scales are made from a kind of dense hardwood frequently used for Chinese sword handles. They have been attached to the tang using 4 brass rivets. The handle also has a brass coin motif through it and a brass lined lanyard hole. 

Tang

The tang is quite thin and the grip has strips of steel riveted between the wooden scales and the tang, perhaps to increase rigidity. 

Riveted copper discs

Instead of having a guard, the front faces of the grip scales are covered by copper discs. These are held in place by two copper rivets passing through the blade.

The front face of the above wooden scale is cut at quite a different angle from the one on the other side of the grip. No real attempt has been made to fashion a symmetrical handle. The crude nature of this workmanship is quite normal for such functional weaponry. 

Brass end cap

The end cap and lozenge-shaped washer are both brass, and are peened to the end of the tang.

Overall, it is moderately heavy and forward weighted. Quite comfortable to hold but one would require a reasonable strength to wield it accurately and effectively. 

It is very likely that this knife was made using a recycled blade, perhaps from a pole arm, or maybe from a farming implement. Quite unusual though, never seen a Chinese blade of this shape before…….so,  does anyone have any ideas where this blade/shape might have originated from?

Iron mace head

 This a rather odd item. It is a Chinese mace head of archaic form. Date of manufacture is uncertain, but given the extent of the patination, I would say that it is not a recent item. I am not aware of other examples that would help to date it. It could be from the Qing dynasty or it could conceivably be much, much earlier. Surprisingly, it is made of cast iron, a material which is notoriously brittle and unsuitable for tool or weapon manufacture. The picture below shows some damage, the most likely cause of this is that the points have chipped off due to impact damage. Possibly suggesting that this mace head has been used to strike with.

Chinese iron mace head of archaic form

Why would a mace head be made in an unsuitable material like cast iron? Well, one can only wonder, perhaps it was a test piece? perhaps it was a decorative item? Whatever the reason, it is a very nicely made item, and much time and care has gone into its manufacture.

Oblique view showing arrangement of 'panels' and points

Irrespective of why it was made, it stands on its own as an inherently beautiful sculptural item.

View through the eye of the mace head

It weighs 360g. It is 60mm in diameter and 40mm tall. The eye is almost perfectly circular, 27mm in diameter. The head would have been mounted on a wooden haft.

 For comparison of form, bronze mace head.

 Reference: ' Zhong Guo Gu Dai Leng Bing Qi'  -  ISBN 978-7-807040-220-6

Bronze mace head

Cast brass guard

Commonly, Chinese sword guards were fabricated from sheet metals and brazed or forge welded. The following example is of a one-piece casting, and probably dates from the late Qing. The four lobe design was a popular one in the Ming and Qing Dynasties and it can be found on both jian and dao.

The hole for the tang is a trapezoidal in shape, indicating that this guard was once fitted to a dao blade.

Dao guard with casting defect

 The top lobe of the guard (above), has a void in the brass where the molten metal didn't fill the mould completely.

The guard has been roughly fashioned without taking time to make it truly symmetrical, and the thickness of the rim is quite variable. This is normal for the fittings of ordinary Chinese swords. In contrast, modern reproduction fittings are usually pretty neat and pretty accurate in their symmetry. I prefer the crude, rustic charm of the old ones.

The cast surface on the inside of the rim is quite irregular

This brass guard was not brightly polished, it had been covered with black paint/lacquer. In the left lobe (below), there are two patches where the black coating has peeled away. The parts in the centre where the brass is showing bright, were caused by the loose hilt rubbing away the coating and patina.

Dao guard covered in paint / lacquer

      Dimensions:

Length - 3 6/16" (85mm)

Width - 2 1/4" (56mm)

Depth - 1/4" (7mm)

Weight - 105g

Precious wood jian hilt

Here a few pictures of the previous jian hilt. This hilt was made later than the blade, and is of a fairly rustic manufacture. It is difficult to the age of the blade, but given the amount of polishing it has had, I would estimate it to be mid-Qing or earlier. This is a well forged blade that has obviously been treasured, and has been re-hilted with precious wood, probably in the late Qing. The wood is very dense and very hard, and is most likely to be a Huali, but if anyone can positively identify it, I would be most grateful.

Huang huali wood?

The brass guard is ellipsoid in shape, and has been made from two pieces: a flat piece forming the body of the guard, and a strip bent around to form the rim. The picture below shows the join where the two pieces were brazed together, and also shows the diagonal scarf joint in the rim. The ferrule was formed from one strip of brass. The strip was bent to shape leaving an overlap and then the overlap was brazed.

The wooden pommel was made from one piece and the wooden grip was made in two halves. The grip sections may originally have been glued together. There is now a visible gap between the sections of the grip. This has been caused by corrosion of the tang forcing the sections apart.

The brass ferrules help to bind the two sections of the grip together and the decorative end cap serves to keep the pommel securely in place.

Carved decoration on the pommel cap

Not only is the hilt beautifully designed and very nicely made, it is also extremely comfortable to use.

Chinese sword stands

I'm always on the lookout for different ways to display swords. These days, there are more and more Chinese-style stands on the market, but so far I've not been tempted by any that I've seen. Also, I must confess that I've never felt right using Japanese sword stands, they somehow seem inappropriate for displaying Chinese swords. However, with a bit of imagination, one can find other solutions....

Qing jian supported by two Pi Xie

These stands are Shiwan ceramic Pi Xie. Beautiful quality. They are a nice size, very stable, and hold blades at an ideal angle for table-top display.  Bought from an online Feng Shui supplier. 

The sword is a Qing dynasty jian. It has a 26 1/2" blade, brass fittings and a precious wood handle. The blade has numerous battle scars and it has been re-polished many times over it's working life. A very nice sword with superb handling.

Shiwan ceramic Pi Xie

I'm not sure that Feng Shui masters would approve of this particular use of Pi Xie, but they do make very attractive and dramatic sword supports!

Knuckle-guard jian

This is a rather unusual sword. Chinese jian blades can be found with a wide variety of hilt fittings, but this is the first time that I've seen one fitted up with a knuckle-guard.

Overall length - 26" [ 660mm] 

Blade length - 21 3/4" [554mm] 

Weight - 627g

The blade is very worn and shows unmistakeable signs of combat. The knuckle-guard is probably not original to the blade. Surprisingly, the sword does play quite well, but of course it is limited in movement by the guard. This somewhat restricts the flexibility of the wrist and has an effect on the balance so that the sword behaves more like a straight bladed zhibeidao than like a jian.

The short grip is made of a dense, light coloured hardwood with a thin coating of lacquer. The wood has been crudely cut to size and no attempt has been made to achieve a smooth finish or to remove any tool marks. None-the-less, the grip is quite comfortable to hold, and the irregular surface seems to be an advantage here.

The fittings are typically Chinese in style. Nicely functional, iron, wrought by hand.

Striking with jian

Chinese jian are single-handed forged steel weapons that were used both for offence and defence.

Jian

The top jian [cf. Japanese sai ] is lozenge-shaped in cross section and the bottom one is square.

The orientation of the guard suggests that it was used to strike with the arris [edge] rather than the flat face of the blade. This approach would be likely to cause more damage as the impact energy would be concentrated along the arris [left pic above], whereas striking with the flat face would cause the energy to be dissipated over the larger area of the flat face [right pic above].

From this it would follow that the most effective way of using any such jian is to strike with the sharp arris. The following examples though, have cross sections which are rectangular [above] and circular [below]. Octagonal cross sections are also found.

These do not have a sharp arris to inflict damage but were no doubt still very effective as testified by the  many antique examples still in existence.

Chinese wooden axe head

This antique wooden axe head is a substantial item, it weighs 1.4 kg and measures 560mm [22'] across.

Originally, this would have been fitted to a short haft, or given the large size of it, it may well have been fitted to a long shaft to make a pole arm. A decorative piece, possibly used for feng shui in a building, possibly used as a prop in Chinese opera. Made of carved hardwood with a thick red-brown lacquer finish:

The motif is Yazi, the seventh son of the Dragon. He is always described as being bloodthirsty and ferocious and so has long been associated with Chinese weaponry.

Yazi, the seventh Son of the Dragon

This particular Yazi is slightly unusual because it has a a fish-like body and tail.....similar to Chiwen, the second son of the Dragon, who has a fishes body and tail but no horns. Also interesting is the snout of this Yazi, which appears to be a long thin proboscis curled in a tight downward-pointing spiral.

Chinese knife

I think this is quite a beautiful example of Chinese recycling. Fashioned from a section of dao blade. Length is 11.5" [292mm] overall, 3' [75mm] between guard and pommel. Originally, the handle would have been wrapped with cord or cloth.

Chinese porcelain box

This Chinese porcelain box has been handmade to a standard pattern. Cobalt blue underglaze decoration. Probably of 19th Century manufacture. Outside dimensions: 120mm x 90mm x 50mm.

The colours of the decoration on the lid and the body are slightly different. This is not unusual. It is quite likely that the lids and bodies of these boxes were crafted independently and then matched up before sale. In this example, the lid is a pretty good fit to the body.

On the lid of the box is a depiction of a bat. The Chinese bat is an ever popular motif representing good fortune, and consequently, it is often found on Chinese swords.....but this particular bat is quite unusual in that it has large googly eyes. Big, staring eyes like these, are more usually encountered on Chinese dragons.

The overall shape of this creature is quite bat-like. Significant features which identify this as a bat include the scalloped wings,  the cloud shaped tail and the cloud hooks at the wing tips. The bats snout and body are depicted by a row of short arcs.

Red papered grip wrap

I'm very pleased to say that Peter Dekker's tigersden jian is still going strong. After several years of sparring it now has a well dented blade but still no chips or cracks.

tigers den wooden jian

Peter has recently replaced the grip wrapping, and this time he has used an olive-green, coarse cotton cord over a red paper backing.

Old and new Chinese grip wrapping papers

This is a traditional wrap that is technically difficult to do well, but as you can see, Peter has done a really excellent job:

Wraps of this type can be found on late 19th century jian and dao.  Here is a backing paper from an old jian that Peter has refurbished:

Grip wrapping paper from a period jian

The paper is much degraded, but you can still make out remnants of the calligraphy. Sadly, we can no longer decipher what it says though it was almost certainly designed to affect the fortunes of the person wielding the sword. It may well have been a blessing or very likely a wish for long life, but a hidden message like this could just as easily have been a curse. This sounds rather like the stuff of Kung Fu legend, but it was not unusual for charms like this to be used in China.  There were even arcane manuals on the subject.

Quite thought provoking......it makes me wonder how many of us possess antiques that are cursed or charmed?



Information and pics in this post are courtesy of Peter Dekker,  mandarinmansion.com

Wire and lacquer scabbards

I have a liking for old scabbards that are bound with wire and coated with a thin layer of black lacquer. I'm sure that I shouldn't really like them, because they are often not of the best quality....but none-the-less, I do. Usually considered to made in the late Qing and Republican eras. It quite normal for surviving examples to have lacquer missing and the the wire detached and displaced.

Period jian with wire and black lacquer scabbard

In the next pic, you can see that the lacquer has worn exposing the copper wire, and without the lacquer to hold it in place, the wire moves around.

At the top centre of the pic, the round mark underneath the wire is a knot in the wood. Just below that you can see a groove in the lacquer where the copper wire sat. So, this scabbard was first coated in black lacquer, then bound with a single copper wire from mouth to chape, and then lacquered again before the fittings were added. The surface of the underlying wood is quite rough. This was probably done on purpose to give the lacquer a better key.

Here is another jian scabbard from the same era. This one has had the wire and black lacquer removed and it has been re-coated in a brown lacquer.

The brown lacquer has chipped away to reveal marks left by the original wire wrap. What is interesting about this one, is that the black lines are grooves that have been burned into the wood. This wire had not been applied over a coating of lacquer, but must have been heated up as it was applied to the bare wood.

I imagine that would be quite a tricky job to do well. It's hard to know if burning a groove into the wood made the wires more secure, but this one certainly didn't survive.

The cord has fade to a rather nice blue-ish, purple-ish colour, but I suspect that it was originally black. The grip is bound in the same cord but it is not original to the jian.