Can you please help identify this chinese sword?

BluErf · 2nd June 2005, 01:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Philip

When a well-known European auction house such as Hermann Historica regularly features new keris as "late 19th--early 20th cent." and purportedly Ming bronze hand-cannon barrels which are in fact brand spanking new, it gets scary.

I think the auction houses, even christie's and sotheby's, do not put in enough effort/expertise to correctly identify arms and armour (maybe except for Japanese and Indo-persian arms) because they are not major money pullers, like paintings and jewellery. And whether they are identified correctly or not, they still get sold (Collectors "know").

Andrew · 2nd June 2005, 04:39 PM

Thank you, Philip.

One of the things that prevented me from opining more strongly about this (aside from my lack of experience

) was that the blade looked pretty good. It's really hard to tell from photos whether it is the real thing, or just a well-made contemporary blade.

A look at the tang would be interesting.

ariel · 2nd June 2005, 04:45 PM

It is getting scarier and scarier: the quality of fakes improves by leaps and bounds and spreads from one blade culture to another. This is not surprising: look what happens in the arts field. Major museums are regularly found to have fake Rembrandts, Rubenses and Picassos. A possibility of profit always attracts fakers, and this was true for as long as people started to collect things: even ancient Romans were known to make fake Greek sculptures .
We can try and defend ourselves, but the offense always wins....

fearn · 2nd June 2005, 09:04 PM

Hi Ariel,

Personally, I'm not quite as worried, simply because a high quality fake is still pretty expensive to make. Part of the trick for the forgers is having a big enough profit margin to make accuracy profitable. The nice thing with many of these weapons is that we're paying for quality in the antique, as well as age and authenticity (not always, I know, but often enough).

Personally, I'll worry when metallurgy (or nanotechnology?) gets to the point where fakers can cheaply afford to produce quality weapons, using silver, rhino horn, or whatever. I'd also pont out that, if wages get high enough in China, we might see a sudden end to this flood, at least for a while. Much of this is only possible because skilled labor is still reasonably cheap over there.

I also wish that there was a good market for "high quality reproductions," but I suspect that enough people were just born crooked that this will always be a dream. It could also be Gresham's Law at work, I suppose (bad swords drive good swords out of the marketplace).

Fearn

2nd June 2005, 04:39 PM	#2
Andrew Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: USA Posts: 1,725	Thank you, Philip. One of the things that prevented me from opining more strongly about this (aside from my lack of experience ) was that the blade looked pretty good. It's really hard to tell from photos whether it is the real thing, or just a well-made contemporary blade. A look at the tang would be interesting.

2nd June 2005, 04:45 PM	#3
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	It is getting scarier and scarier: the quality of fakes improves by leaps and bounds and spreads from one blade culture to another. This is not surprising: look what happens in the arts field. Major museums are regularly found to have fake Rembrandts, Rubenses and Picassos. A possibility of profit always attracts fakers, and this was true for as long as people started to collect things: even ancient Romans were known to make fake Greek sculptures . We can try and defend ourselves, but the offense always wins....

2nd June 2005, 09:04 PM	#4
fearn Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 1,247	Hi Ariel, Personally, I'm not quite as worried, simply because a high quality fake is still pretty expensive to make. Part of the trick for the forgers is having a big enough profit margin to make accuracy profitable. The nice thing with many of these weapons is that we're paying for quality in the antique, as well as age and authenticity (not always, I know, but often enough). Personally, I'll worry when metallurgy (or nanotechnology?) gets to the point where fakers can cheaply afford to produce quality weapons, using silver, rhino horn, or whatever. I'd also pont out that, if wages get high enough in China, we might see a sudden end to this flood, at least for a while. Much of this is only possible because skilled labor is still reasonably cheap over there. I also wish that there was a good market for "high quality reproductions," but I suspect that enough people were just born crooked that this will always be a dream. It could also be Gresham's Law at work, I suppose (bad swords drive good swords out of the marketplace). Fearn