photos from an temporary exhibition hosted in Arts&Crafts Museum of HangZhou,China

[sakimori]

Another less-fancy one.This type of guard did not exist till Qing's Dynasty--inspiration from cutlass and sabers of Europe.
Long sword with European guard,like the sample,is not very common--in China,these guard appears in the hilt of long knives&daggers more often:Refers to "butterfly knives" or"paired knives"if two knives were crafted to hold in one sheath."Short knives" or else,if they were not.I'm sure you are familiar with this part.

[Philip]

Originally Posted by sakimori

Another less-fancy one.This type of guard did not exist till Qing's Dynasty--inspiration from cutlass and sabers of Europe.
Long sword with European guard,like the sample,is not very common--in China,these guard appears in the hilt of long knives&daggers more often:Refers to "butterfly knives" or"paired knives"if two knives were crafted to hold in one sheath."Short knives" or else,if they were not.I'm sure you are familiar with this part.

Yes, the knucklebow on the guard of this saber is clearly a Western influence, probably from the cutlasses carried by sailors on foreign ships. You find this hybridization also on some important weapons from Southeast Asia. The guom carried by Vietnamese military mandarins is an example. Even more marked is the guard on the parang nabur used in North Borneo; the form is almost exactly like the knuckeguards on north European military and naval swords from the 18th cent. until the First World War. Many examples of both have been posted on various threads of this Forum so I won't bother putting any here.