Authenticity ID help - Chinese dao
 

Last night a dao popped up on eBay and I worked out a deal with the seller to "buy it now". Unfortunately, as soon as he had changed it, someone had bought it before I could hit the button and buy it myself. I was of course angry because I had worked out a deal and was... usurped? ousted?

But I will take this as a learning experience. This sword has certain things I found suspicious and I wanted to see if I wasn't the only one who saw these attributes...

Since the auction is over I can post pictures...

I think the brightness of the blade is a bit concerning as is the upside-down end of the sheath.

Authenticity? well its a dao OK. In my opinion, I think extremely low mileage !
I had one that looked much like this once many years ago, acquired from a much fabled dealer of questionable character....had the same wire wrapped covering on the scabbard.Didnt keep it long. Sometimes we get lucky :)

Lucky you. Now somebody else has a headache :D Although I'm not an expert on these things I see clearly the small problems.

Nice clean piece
 

A nice clean old piece. I would suggest age as 1890-1930.
With regards to the scabbard tip, lets face it many who have these things don't know the first this about the ups and downs and lefts and rights...simply put on the wrong way as the 'glue' likely dried out and it fell off...I was emailed images of a very nice late Mamluk sabre and the throat fitting was upside down...don't know how they got the blade in but these things happen....I wouldn't let the blade brightness be a concern either, these things were made this way...it might even be in original polish in which case you'll see an inserted edge once in hand.

If it is a good piece, then I really missed out.
And in that case, somebody definitely benefited from my bargaining.


:shrug:

No good deed goes unpunished.

I have been wondering about these wire wrapped swords for a while. I think they are Republican pieces, though some may be very late Qing. What I am wondering about is the blade. I own a jian with a wire wrapped scabbard that appears about as modern as an antique can be. In some ways this is good. It is in good condition with a spotless blade in its original polish, but there are some things that can be less attractive about later Chinese swords. In particular, the blade on the jian I own appears to be mono-steel, and there is a nut on the pommel. I am not completely sure about the steel because I haven't wanted to etch the blade in case it is nickel-plated. Still it rings when you draw it in a way that none of my sanmei blades do.

So I would guess that the one you missed was of roughly the same era and quality as my jian. It may well have had a nickel-plated mono-steel blade of good quality, but not as nice as Qing inserted edge pieces. There is another possibility; apparently there was also a weird transition period where they were nickel-plating pattern welded blades. Unfortunately you can’t find out without ruining the plating. :rolleyes:
Josh

in my opinion a boxer period dao

I agree with Josh, seeing it as a Republican era piece. Examples like these with the highly polished blades/potential plated blades can sometimes be seen with characters etched on them as well. Their numbers, material composition and style suggest to me some measure of mass production. Of course that is a relative statement in the realm of Chinese swords. That being said, I think they are rather recent.

As always, dating Chinese swords is an imperfect science. I did see a sword of this type in some old World War Two related footage. Clearly more evidence with time points associated with them would give us a better view of the age of these weapons.

Here is a link with an interesting photo that suggests a possible date for the picture shown. There is a lot of good photos on the rest of the site too.

http://www.virtualshanghai.net/Image.php?ID=19458