# Communities > Antique Arms & Armour Community > Chinese, South-East Asia (CSEA) >  Antique DAO, Real or Fake?

## Aleksey G.

PLz help... any/all opinions are welcome  :Smilie: ...
Thank you guys,
Alex

----------


## kevin.feng

it's a real DAO, but not old :Big Grin:

----------


## Aleksey G.

> it's a real DAO, but not old


Kevin,
Thank you,
any idea of what age approximately it might be?

Alex

----------


## josh stout

Does it have any age at all?

A better picture of the blade would help, but I think it was made yesterday.

Just to be clear, there are late (1920s?) dao that look like this that often fool me into thinking they are fakes.  Better pictures and other comments would be helpful.

Josh

----------


## Kenneth, H.

I really don't know what to say.

The fittings are in a very good state. In fact, there are mass-production fittings identical to these available today. Which first made me thing perhaps is a semi elaborate fake..
Also, the pattern welded steel is very similar to low-layered pattern folded iron blades that are still being made today.
BUT! .. The ray-skin seems genuine old. I've seen deteriorated ray-skin on antique dao before, and it looks very similar.

The groove in the blade though, looks somewhat poorly cut out. At least to my standard, and also to what I'd expect from a genuine Qing dynasty sword of this type.
As most of us know, this saber style was a standardized military pattern, and considering the fittings displaying dragons; I'd naturally assume that the sword must have been carried by at least a semi high ranking officer. I thus question the obvious lack of expected quality...

Also, there is a nasty black spot close to the tip, which I'd naturally assume is the result of a big piece of "clank" as the American smiths call it today. ("clank" is impurities from inside the kiln cough between the folds in the steel, creating a nasty spot like this).

As for signs of age.. The tip is rounded off in a fashion that we'd expect for such an old and obviously used piece.
Also, what cough my eye was that the pommel coming through at the pommel of the sword has been attached in a fashion that is consistent with the attachment method of that time.
A small piece of iron or steel, often resembling a flower covering the base of the pommel, and the tang coming through is then beaten flat on top of it. The underneath piece of metal also looks very naturally aged.
At a second look, suggesting that this IS a modern reproduction piece made to look antique, I guess there is a chance that the base piece of metal could possibly be a very flat lug-nut, shaped to look like just what it looks like.

I wish someone with more knowledge than myself could have a look at this piece and elaborate more on why its a modern reproduction, or why its a genuine antique / fairly new antique.

Best regards, Kenneth A.H.

----------


## josh stout

Well I think we can all agree to what it is not.  It is not a princely rank Qianlong peidao (I count four toes on the dragons), which is what it was made to look like.  It is all wrong for that.  

My question is, could it be a 1920s copy made for tourists, is it a 2007 copy made for tourists, or something in between?  The blade could be old with Qianlong style fullers added to match the fittings, or it could have been aged to match everything else.  

A good sized clear picture of the blade could help resolve this issue.
Josh

----------


## Aleksey G.

Guys, Im sorry for the delay, 
Im on a trip, Im driving home today, 
will take some better pictures.
Thank you very much for your opinions.

----------


## kevin.feng

brand new without doubt

----------


## josh stout

Thanks, that was my feeling, but there are still some parts that look older than brand new.

I guess people have figured out they need to make fake antiques look a little old.  So often they look brand new; this makes things easy.  If someone goes to the effort of rounding the tip, etc., then it is more difficult.
Josh

----------


## Aleksey G.

:Smilie:

----------


## kevin.feng

here's some fakes

http://hfsword.com/bbs/viewthread.ph...BB%A8%CE%C6%2B
http://hfsword.com/bbs/viewthread.ph...BB%A8%CE%C6%2B
http://hfsword.com/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=23678
http://bbs.hl365.net/thread-416983-1-1.html

----------


## josh stout

Kevin-

As always, thank you for your input.  With the better pictures it is easy to see the modern style pattern welding on the blade shown, and that is exactly the same as the pattern welding of several of the fakes you show.  Bold pattern welding like that can be attractive to those who haven’t seen many genuine blades.  At least these have telltale signs such as no edge plate.  Some fakes create what looks like an edge plate by polishing out the lines or making crude lines around the edges.  What is more difficult is when there is an actual edge plate of soft steel.  This takes more skill, but I have seen pictures that are somewhat convincing.  Testing the edge hardness is the closest to a sure test.

What really surprised me was how well aged some of the tangs looked.  
Josh

----------


## Aleksey G.

Thank you very much for everybodys input.
I really appreciate it guys  :Smilie:

----------


## kevin.feng

You are welcome!

Hv a look at the link.... it is made by my friend - one of the best sword maker in CN

brand new: 
http://bbs.hl365.net/thread-423850-1-1.html
http://bbs.hl365.net/viewthread.php?...568&highlight=
http://bbs.hl365.net/viewthread.php?...522&highlight=

He also helps to make odered sword "looks" really old;-)

Enjoy~

----------


## Liuxing Ma

> You are welcome!
> 
> Hv a look at the link.... it is made by my friend - one of the best sword maker in CN
> 
> brand new: 
> http://bbs.hl365.net/thread-423850-1-1.html
> http://bbs.hl365.net/viewthread.php?...568&highlight=
> http://bbs.hl365.net/viewthread.php?...522&highlight=
> 
> ...


gu  bing qi zhuan jia

----------


## Josh Fong

Hi All,

The short blood groove where it hooks around and back toward the tip looks to me is made with some kind of rotary tool.  There are couple rounded dips in sucession that appears if the tool is cutting into the material at verying pressure while moving back and forth in a straight line.  I've seen something like that when I'm working with my Dremel tools.... at least that's what I saw with my untrained eyes.  What do you guys think?

Josh

----------


## josh stout

> Hi All,
> 
> The short blood groove where it hooks around and back toward the tip looks to me is made with some kind of rotary tool.  There are couple rounded dips in sucession that appears if the tool is cutting into the material at verying pressure while moving back and forth in a straight line.  I've seen something like that when I'm working with my Dremel tools.... at least that's what I saw with my untrained eyes.  What do you guys think?
> 
> Josh


Yes, that is a telltale.  Sometimes an old blade will have a fuller cut into it to make it look more attractive, and sometimes an old fuller can be re-cut by someone who is not very skilled.  But either way you can tell the fuller is new.  The old method used a chisel and file.
Josh

----------

