Chinese Swordsticks

[Iliad]

Hello everybody,
I have had so much pleasure from my recent postings that I am encouraged to try again! I have a pair of chinese swordsticks (pics attached) about which I know very little. About a year ago a Chinese gentleman came to my home on another matter and I showed him the swordsticks. He was able to read the characters and he told me that in his opinion the items came from the Forbidden City and would have been a present from the Emperor to a trusted Palace official. On the opening up of the Forbidden City, many items were looted and sold.
He later sent me an email which said "They were made in 1876, the second year of the Guangxu Emperor of Qing Dynasty. The small individual words on the stick combined by four words and written in different font, they are blessing, salary, longevity and happy. The old man on the stick we called him the god of longevity. The two big individual words on the stick, one means longevity, and the other means blessing. There are also two sentences on the stick, with four words each sentence, they mean: bless the old that their happiness be like the East Sea, and longevity over the southern hill."
I have no idea if what he said is true. Do the experts have comments?
Brian (Iliad)

[josh stout]

I am not particularly familiar with sword canes. They don't look like they came from the forbidden palace though. They don't even look like they are the same age. One is much nicer than the other with a darker patina. It looks like one is cast from the other considering the loss of detail.

It would be interesting to see if the blades also show the same difference in quality. I have seen a few gundao (sword stick) with nice blades.

It is possible that the date for the older one is the one your friend mentioned, but if I had to guess I would say 1900-1930 with the other a later copy. Your friend probably made a good translation, but you can't believe everything you read I certainly recognize the god of longevity.

Do you know anything about where they came from?
Josh

[Gavin Nugent]

G'day Iliad,

Sword canes were my first love many years ago Iliad and I have studied them closely through literature and by dissecting poorer quality or damaged examples I came across. I have had a number of fine examples over the years and have made a number of period correct examples with old pieces I have sourced.
In this instance I would beg to differ with the age of these two items. The script may well say all these things and I would agree that it does but...a few years ago, these examples were very common on eBay with a large influx in numbers from mainland China.
The same sort of mass production is to be found in another style of cane that was produced in India and Pakistan in the 80's that many antique dealers succeeded in passing off as genuine old sword canes.
I will consult my reference books on the subject as these could well have been made in the image of a rare item that is within a museum or a famous collection and I will get together a few differing images of other canes both true and not.

Gav

[Iliad]

I bought these via internet auction and never met the vendor in person. To the best of my recollection, he said that he had purchased these in Singapore about 30 - 40 years ago.
The blades are 4-sided and the tips are needle-sharp. I suspect that the shinier one of the two may have been cleaned at some time, hence looking newer. The shiny one is 3 cm longer than the other.
I think that I will have to accept that these did not come from the Forbidden City, but are later reproductions. Sad about that, as I had hoped that they were long-lost treasures and that museums from around the world would offer me large sums of money for them. (Sigh).
Brian (Iliad)