[Robert C. Walker]

I received these old, twin Chinese broadswords as a gift about 15 years ago. I cleaned a lot of rust and tarnish off them at the time and removed old, deteriorated lacquer and wire wrapping from the scabbard prior to wrapping and painting it.

The blade is 66cm long. I am curious whether anybody has any ideas about them or any suggestions for resources to find out more.

Thanks for any help.

Rob

[Thom R.]

It appears from your photo that what you have is a nice mated pair of chinese sabers (dao) often called a duan dao, although with a blade length of 66cm, they are longer than most of the duandao that I have examined in the past. The form of the blade is similar to what is known as niuweidao, or "oxtail saber". These were not military weapons but rather personal or "civilian" weapons and if they are true antiques and I was to hazard a guess I would say they date to late Qing era (late 1860s-early 1900s). A number of different martial arts systems in China used two handed simultaneous sword technique at one time - although today Wing Chun is one of the few where it is still taught although generally with Wing Chun a pair of much shorter dagger type swords ("butterfly knives") or hudeidao are used. If the scabbard is en-suite with the swords (or at least the scabbard fittings) then you have a nice set. Finding complete pairs is relatively rare and often only one of the two swords is found.

[Robert C. Walker]

Thanks Thom. I trained in Chinese martial arts in the past and used one of these swords for single sabre forms. At their length, they are much heavier than the usual sabre used for forms. It was a good workout. Given the state that they were in when I received them, I expect that they are old.

The blades have obviously been abused over the years. There are various nicks and gouges. I am curious about restoration techniques that would not ruin the blade. I know how important it is to take Nihonto to an appropriate expert. Is the same true for Chinese blades or is it possible to work on them without ruining them?

[Thom R.]

As far as polishing older antiques, people on these boards tend to fall into two completely opposite and highly opinionated camps. in the end they belong to you and it is your choice. with these kinds of daos there is usually enough steel there to work with if you choose to take them to the stones. just looking at your photos there does appear to be some rust that needs arresting and attention no matter what you may decide to do in terms of grinding/polishing. the minimal approach is to get some breakfree oil and work in the spots/pits with soft wire brushes, the kind that you can find at a gun shop. you can work such brushes into the pits and get the active rust off without worrying too much about scratching up the rest of the steel. then a good oiling program with mineral oil should work to keep the process under control.

in my experience niuweidaos generally have a bit more of a forward balance than liuyedaos (willow leaf sabers). on the other hand they make for great cutters. your pair is one of the larger paired daos I have seen. if you are doing forms right handed - try taking out the left one and doing the exact same form but in a "mirrored" manner with your left arm - that would make for a great tai chi workout! would defnitely fine tune the hand/eye/motor coordination.... haha!