Chinese Sword Museum - Hangzhou

[CutlassCollector]

On a recent visit to China I found this sword museum tucked between - the much less interesting - Scissor Museum and Umbrella Museum. It concentrates almost exclusively on Chinese swords from several hundred years BCE up to modern times.
There was very little information translated into English from Mandarin but here are some photographs.


Below:
From years BCE to 1368 start of the Ming Dynasty.

[CutlassCollector]

Ming Dynasty 1368 to 1644

[CutlassCollector]

Qing Dynasty 1644 to 1911

[CutlassCollector]

Republic of China 1911 to 1949

I include these from the 20th century (hopefully allowable) for interest and to show the continuity of some features
These were issued to troops fighting the Japanese in the 1930's.

[Ian]

CC:

Thank you for posting these. This museum seems like a good place to visit. It's a shame they have not preserved some of these swords in better shape. They all look as though they need a good clean and some rust prevention.

Do you have any further pictures of older swords from this site?

Ian.

[CutlassCollector]

Hi Ian,

Yes, I agree the swords do not appear to be well preserved. The museum is still fairly new so hopefully they will catch up with that and with the translations.
For obvious reasons the display of early swords was limited but I attach the other photos from that period.
CC.