Intersting African? short sword

fearn · 7th December 2004, 05:19 PM

1st thought: Blade looks like a Masai seme. Waitaminnit, that hilt looks Chinese!

2nd thought: that blade could be chinese too. Their daggers (shou) are often leaf shaped.

3rd thought: maybe not a fantasy piece, but I'd simply say that it's Chinese. I disagree that it's a fantasy piece, but I suspect it's of relatively recent (i.e 20th century) origin. BTW, that scabbard is a bit unusual. Most of the weapons made for kung fu artists tend to have metal fixtures over wood (with some jians having a leather over wood with metal fixtures). This looks cheaper.

The other thing is that I know a bit about kung fu and wu shu, and it's a nonstandard weapon. To me, that's a sign of authenticity, since if you look at pics of martial artists from the 1900's, they have all manner of weird stuff, rather than the standardized things you see today.

Final verdict--it's somewhere between a long shou and a short dao, and it can be used as a butterfly dao from wing chun, as long as you can use that s-guard to do a reverse hold (flip the blade around your thumb to lay the blade along the inside of your forearm).

However, if you wanted an African blade, I'd be happy to relieve you of the burden of owning it..... :-)

Neat!

7th December 2004, 05:19 PM	#4
fearn Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 1,247	1st thought: Blade looks like a Masai seme. Waitaminnit, that hilt looks Chinese! 2nd thought: that blade could be chinese too. Their daggers (shou) are often leaf shaped. 3rd thought: maybe not a fantasy piece, but I'd simply say that it's Chinese. I disagree that it's a fantasy piece, but I suspect it's of relatively recent (i.e 20th century) origin. BTW, that scabbard is a bit unusual. Most of the weapons made for kung fu artists tend to have metal fixtures over wood (with some jians having a leather over wood with metal fixtures). This looks cheaper. The other thing is that I know a bit about kung fu and wu shu, and it's a nonstandard weapon. To me, that's a sign of authenticity, since if you look at pics of martial artists from the 1900's, they have all manner of weird stuff, rather than the standardized things you see today. Final verdict--it's somewhere between a long shou and a short dao, and it can be used as a butterfly dao from wing chun, as long as you can use that s-guard to do a reverse hold (flip the blade around your thumb to lay the blade along the inside of your forearm). However, if you wanted an African blade, I'd be happy to relieve you of the burden of owning it..... :-) Neat! Last edited by fearn; 7th December 2004 at 07:06 PM. Reason: removing typo