Does anyone know if the crossbow in the link below is an authentic historical Chinese Crossbow?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Antique-Chinese-Qing-Dy-C...dZViewItem

Anyone have any information on this type of crossbow (provided it is an authentic historical crossbow)?

Thanks

Danny

Hi Danny,

If you notice certain things about this and other auctions, there are some flags that go up. No bidding activity, low starting bid, flat rate shipping and minimal insurance; all these are indicators of something that sounds too good to be true. I would hesitate to spend that much money even on a faux antinque. With their insurance cost quote, it seems unlikely the item costs much to produce.

There seems to be a lot of online resource about Chinese archery and crossbow use. Go to www.google.com and enter chinese crossbows. Interesting stuff. The Chinese had quite a lot of innovation and technological ability from the time of their bronze age.

Cheers

GC

There is a PC game that incorporates the "Cho Ku Nu" a supposedly Chinese repeating crossbow. From the culture that spawned the water clock, compass, and black powder, this wouldn't surprise me, though it sounds almost too clever to be true.

please do not miss so better chance to get it. Enjoying your bidding! It will bring you and your family happy and bless~

English is such a pain to learn if you're coming from outside the Indo-European linguistic family.

Oh, one of my books shows a picture of a Chinese repeating crossbow but I don't remember which at the moment.

The arrows have no fletching so accuracy may have been just so-so and power couldn't have been much more than something between 75 to 150 pounds, but I'm just guessing here.

Over the bolt track there seems to be a box holding a number of arrows like a top mounted gravity fed magazine.

A lever is pumped from front to back that cocks the crossbow string and somehow lets one arrow drop in place and releases the arrow when the lever is fully back: By quickly pumping the lever back and forth a quick succession of arrows are fired.

How fast I don't know: Maybe 1/2 a second to a second each ???

I think some of these were made to load and fire two arrows at a time side by side.

The exact details of the mechanisms I don't really know and I would guess there are some important details of how to put one together that would make the difference between an interesting curiosity and and effective and reliable weapon.

A hundred crossbowman pumping these should be able to fill the air with lots of bolts at the same time.

The game would be Age of Empire II by the way: I play it all the time.

III was just released ;)

Gavin;

AOE III just released: That means I will probably have to wait a year before a version for MAC become available. :(

Unless they made it compatible for both Windows and MAC from the start ;)

My only thought is that they have the same pictures up for another one. Interesting that they had two identical ones for sale...

I have seen these for sale so many times on ebay I cant count them on my fingers and toes. If this item is so unique, why is it 1) starting at such a low price and 2) identical to the ones I have seen for auction before. Its one of the many China scams on ebay. I hate to say it, but I dont trust ANY weapon seller from China. They all lie too much on ebay.

Mike