Chinese (or other country) sai/parrying weapon

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by josh stout

That is very interesting. One of them looks so much like mine that I think it may be the same one. As far as I know I have never posted a photo, so it would have had to come from the Indonesian seller and be several years old.

What do you think?

I thought they looked similar, it did not occur to me that the pictures may have been of the same sai, small world.

[Timo Nieminen]

Some more antique sai (mostly Chinese, including sai/iron ruler hybrids) at http://museum.hikari.us/weapons/

[estcrh]

Here is a modern example of Indonesian sai, you can see that the two pieces are welded together but the form is the same.

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by Timo Nieminen

Some more antique sai (mostly Chinese, including sai/iron ruler hybrids) at http://museum.hikari.us/weapons/

They have a lot of items but the site and images etc have not been updated for years, some of the descriptions are suspect, they have this sai described as being an

Okinawan sai. Iron with cord and fabric wrapping with small wooden inserts.

It looks just like a four sided Chinese sai, this is how the vast majority of Chinese sai are made, what would make this one particular sai "Okinawan".

[Neil]

"Neil, do you have any pictures of the Qing era Chinese prison guards, that would be interesting. I myself would call something rare when there are almost no images available online."

"Here is something I think we can agree is probably an indicator of Chinese manufacture, this particular four sided cross section. I have never seen a sai from either Indonesia or Okinawa that had this cross section."

Sorry for the slow response. I am putting my seasonal business to bed for the year and the hours are long.

I am also about to leave town for the weekend but I will share that image when I return. When I found it I was very excited. It is an important piece to the puzzle.

I thought I would also mention that I have owned a forked mace that I know was collected in China with a fully rounded percussion bar like a soda straw. With that said using the shape of the cross section of that area as an indicator of origin may not be the most reliable approach.

It might also be worth mentioning that the grip wrapping style on the mace pictured right above looks quite Chinese to me.

I am loving the actual pair example that Josh posted as well. To me that is rare and worth exploring further.

Lastly, I just want to say this is a great topic and discussion. I really appreciate hearing others thoughts and seeing pieces from their collections.

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by Neil

"Neil, do you have any pictures of the Qing era Chinese prison guards, that would be interesting. I myself would call something rare when there are almost no images available online."

"Here is something I think we can agree is probably an indicator of Chinese manufacture, this particular four sided cross section. I have never seen a sai from either Indonesia or Okinawa that had this cross section."

Sorry for the slow response. I am putting my seasonal business to bed for the year and the hours are long.

I am also about to leave town for the weekend but I will share that image when I return. When I found it I was very excited. It is an important piece to the puzzle.

I thought I would also mention that I have owned a forked mace that I know was collected in China with a fully rounded percussion bar like a soda straw. With that said using the shape of the cross section of that area as an indicator of origin may not be the most reliable approach.

It might also be worth mentioning that the grip wrapping style on the mace pictured right above looks quite Chinese to me.

I am loving the actual pair example that Josh posted as well. To me that is rare and worth exploring further.

Lastly, I just want to say this is a great topic and discussion. I really appreciate hearing others thoughts and seeing pieces from their collections.

Neil, without enough representitive examples its hard to accutately attribute origin to these type of weapons. To help out I have put together a Pinterest gallery of Chinese sai, mace, truncheons etc. There may be some replicas amoung the images but I have tried by best to weed them out. I think this is the largest collection of Chinese examples in the world.

From these images its easy to see that a four sided cross section whether rectangular, square, diamond shaped etc was very popular. As far as handles go wood, cord seem to be used.

http://www.pinterest.com/worldantiqu...ron-whips-etc/

[Shakethetrees]

As I recall, there are images to be found in the W.O. Oldman catalog.

They are not sai, but basically iron or bronze bars or tapering straight form with sword like hilts.

I will have to locate my copy and see if I can get a clear enough scan to use here. While the pictures are old and a bit faded, I believe the add a few interesting types that are scarcely seen these days.

In reading translated accounts of riots and crowd control during the 19th century's many upheavals I recall that they simply called these weapons "iron bars". This is probably due to translation issues as the Chinese term for them is never mentioned.

I will have a look around tonight.

[spiral]

Id guess these may be the weapons the Brits banned in Hong Kong & Shanghai as fighting irons?

It would be fascinating to see old photos of them in situ!

Given the mostly primitive black smithing structure of them Id guess we would have to assume there many fakes out there. Especially from China?

Ive heard hearsay of some being made & sold from Cornwall 20 to 30 years ago, by a fellow who collected & traded authentic Japanese swords....

spiral

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by Shakethetrees

As I recall, there are images to be found in the W.O. Oldman catalog.

They are not sai, but basically iron or bronze bars or tapering straight form with sword like hilts.

I will have to locate my copy and see if I can get a clear enough scan to use here. While the pictures are old and a bit faded, I believe the add a few interesting types that are scarcely seen these days.

In reading translated accounts of riots and crowd control during the 19th century's many upheavals I recall that they simply called these weapons "iron bars". This is probably due to translation issues as the Chinese term for them is never mentioned.

I will have a look around tonight.

If you can find any additional images of any type that would be helpful.