Our co-worker Rick recently picked up this sword at an estate sale. From what we can tell it has iron fittings that were made with hand tools. Real ray skin handle and scabbard. Distal tapered forged blade with hand scraped fullers. The one major thing that is throwing us off is that the top fuller is devided into three sections with what looks to be modern weld. The story is that Rick's friend's grandfather traveled around the world and picked this up in China years ago.

Any info on this would be helpfull.

Here are some pictures. I thought that even if there is no info on this that it was worth sharing.

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Nice find!! Post it over at Scott Rodell's forum and you'll get some good information. Going from memory, the style is that of an oxtail saber which was a civilian weapon in the latter parts of the 19th century and early 20th century. I may have the dates a bit wrong but it's the most recent incarnation of the dao.

http://forum.grtc.org/