Boxer/Republican era dadao

Yu-Ming Chang · 5th January 2009, 09:18 PM

I bought this dadao about 4-5 years ago (the second sword in my then nascent collection). As far as I can tell, it is typical of civilian dadao used in China during the Boxer Rebellion and subsequent Republican era, so turn of the 20th century to 1940's. It is a fairly large piece 28.5in in blade length, 10in from pommel to guard of insert edge construction. The fullers, called xue cao in Chinese (which interestingly enough translates to blood grooves) were roughly added into the piece. Because of the lack finese in the manufacture of the fullers, it is tempting to think if they were added latter in the life of this blade. However, the state of oxidation in the fullers were consistent with the rest of the blade. At the forte is a flower motif on one side, and engraved characters (nan giang he cun) on the other. Nan = South, qiang = strength, He Cun = is a village name.

I actually posted this piece about 3 years ago:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=1548

I bought it intending to polish it myself but never had the time and as it turns out, won't have for the next few years. A quick window polish showed some typical, but to me, interesting pattern-welding. This quality of the piece didn't justifying asking Philip Tom to take a look at it, but I decided to ask a fellow collector, William Reinman who had shown a lot of talent restoring a niuweidao and jian purchased from Scott Rodell to take a crack at it (threads in SFI).

5th January 2009, 09:18 PM	#1
Yu-Ming Chang Member Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Boston, MA Posts: 21	Boxer/Republican era dadao I bought this dadao about 4-5 years ago (the second sword in my then nascent collection). As far as I can tell, it is typical of civilian dadao used in China during the Boxer Rebellion and subsequent Republican era, so turn of the 20th century to 1940's. It is a fairly large piece 28.5in in blade length, 10in from pommel to guard of insert edge construction. The fullers, called xue cao in Chinese (which interestingly enough translates to blood grooves) were roughly added into the piece. Because of the lack finese in the manufacture of the fullers, it is tempting to think if they were added latter in the life of this blade. However, the state of oxidation in the fullers were consistent with the rest of the blade. At the forte is a flower motif on one side, and engraved characters (nan giang he cun) on the other. Nan = South, qiang = strength, He Cun = is a village name. I actually posted this piece about 3 years ago: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=1548 I bought it intending to polish it myself but never had the time and as it turns out, won't have for the next few years. A quick window polish showed some typical, but to me, interesting pattern-welding. This quality of the piece didn't justifying asking Philip Tom to take a look at it, but I decided to ask a fellow collector, William Reinman who had shown a lot of talent restoring a niuweidao and jian purchased from Scott Rodell to take a crack at it (threads in SFI).