simple Tibetan saber for comment
 

This is a saber from the Tibetan plateau region of Western China. The blade is high quality, but the scabbard is quite plain compared to Tibetan things one normally sees.
Josh


http://s77.photobucket.com/albums/j6...rrent=00-1.jpg

http://s77.photobucket.com/albums/j6...rrent=01-3.jpg

http://s77.photobucket.com/albums/j6...current=07.jpg

I just can't figure out why I am seeing so many of these all of a sudden. It seems that either someone is presently scouring Qinghai for swords for resale, or someone is putting together old blades with new hilts.

Qinghai is being scoured for swords. Apparently the "Warriors of the Himalayas" catalogue created a huge market and pushed up the prices just as it was becoming easier to travel in the region. I have seen some pieces that make me wonder though. If this picture comes through (I am having some format problems), can you please let me know if you think it is new work or old? It is one I recently decided not to buy.
Josh

Great blade Josh, but i think the scabbard leather & timber looks rather fresh to my eyes?

Intersting one that you didnt buy, the Turquise has the rather an unusual colour as per are past discusians re. Howlite & yet again carnelian beads have been used as well. I do like the metal work though.

i must say other than hundreds of kukri kukri , dozens of kora & a few Bhutan swords the rest of the Himalayen pieces are not something I am expierienced with.

Spiral

Well for the one I didn't get, I was mostly wondering about the style in general. The parallel lines in the silver rather than flowing scrollwork is something I have only seen recently. It either is from a region that just opened up, or it is a contemporary from of metalwork. I have seen allot of it recently. Perhaps it is a technique that was used authentically in the 20th C. and was not collected? I see some age, just not allot.

On the saber I did buy, the leather is in very good condition, but does not look as new in person. Also the horn handle scale is missing a piece on the side I didn't photograph. I do not think it is a refurbished blade, or at least not recently.
Josh

Here is the side of the handle that looks older.
Josh

http://s77.photobucket.com/albums/j6...rrent=05-1.jpg

Thanks, I see your point. ;)

Spiral

Josh, sorry, I am just not familiar with this type, not having seen any before June--but since seeing five, I believe. In old photos of Amdowas and Horpas carrying swords, I have never seen that kind of hilt. I have seen similar chapes on Amdo swords (see, for instance, the circa 1930 photo by Griebenow in the Newark Museum, published in "Tibet: A Hidden World, 1905-1935), although photos are usually not terribly clear on that point, and hilts are often hidden by the bloused chubas worn by the subjects. But the visible hilts of such swords are of the typical trilobate type.

The scabbard of yours is not unusual in type, and the blade, of course, is standard, but having not even a vestigial guard is unusual. Even more atypical for Tibetan swords is having grip scales, the more so because they have to be pinned to or through the tang, something that I don't think one sees on any other Tibetan swords. Perhaps it's some sort of Mongol influence. I don't know.

Yes I had also wondered about a Mongol feel to the hilts, but it was just speculation. They are from Western China along the Tibetan plateau, but I don't know why they are not well documented. The silverwork that I posted also came from the same type of saber.
Josh

The shape of the pommel suggests possible influence of the Chinese fang shi style. Ashoka Arts presently has a Tibetan knife with a zhibeidao-type blade and fittings that are strongly Chinese influenced, including a fang shi pommel. Another interesting thing is that there are pins on one side of the rayskin-wrapped grip (which actually seems a little unnecessary in that instance).