A Trio of Chinese Swords Joins the Accidental Collection

[Philip]

Originally Posted by Lee

Philip, thank you for your insights on these swords as well the notes on their provenance. .

I have attached an image of the pommel showing the peening of the tang in the sword with later cupronickel mountings as you have suggested.

You're most welcome. Odd how that ring pommeled knife that I did the extensive restoration / rebuild on went all the way from the Sandwich Isles to a rural sale in the upcountry Empire State.

Thanks for the photo. The appearance of the peened iron doesn't have the color and texture of something that's been accumulating patina over as many years as that blade is likely to have been around.

The brass of the pommel appears to be of fairly flimsy sheet. This spells "late" and possibly decorative or theatrical to me. A blade like the one on that's on there now would likely have had something more substantial.

The more I look at the suspension system, the stranger things become. Not only are the soldered/brazed-on bands highly atypical for a saber scabbard, but also I see that the tops of the loops are also attached to the bar itself in a similar fashion. In almost all cases the bar itself is a one-piece construction, either forged and drilled/filed in the case of iron, or cast to shape in the case of non-ferrous alloys.