Chinese Sword advise

Hmm ,all iv been told is its been in the family for a while and was originally bought in china .It looks like folded steel .Other than that ,not much more that i can say unfortunetely .Now if it were a katana ..............

Not much I can actually tell from the pics. You obviously have a Jian (Chinese Straight Sword). It looks to be decent quality but very hard to tell from the pics. If you really aren't interested in it, there's plenty here who would love to get their paws on it.

Hi guys , no plans to sell at all , especially since its been in the family. I am new to the chinese sword thing so i was just looking for some insight or opinions on the sword . I do have a sword collection , but my interest generally lies with katana

Base on the picture alone it is difficult to tell, but it looks pretty from the pics

I would not claim that I know much about jian, but here is just a few rule of thumb for a decent jian

Is it light or heavy? Most chinatown or so called tai-chi SLO that cost $30 is relatively light and has weight towards the handle. An authentic jian around 28" blade weights from 1.5 to 2lb (give and take) and has POB between 4 to 6 inch from the guard. However, by the looks of this jian the POB maybe 4 inches or less from guard since the guard looks beefy.

Just like a katana, does it has decent fitting? From the pic, it looks like the fittings are made from brass, hence it should feel like brass. The SLO jian I have looks like brass but it is made from cheap alloy and feels plasticky.

How does the sword handles? Is the sword well made in your opinion? Does it cut well? Unlike a katana, you will be surprise that a lot of Chinese jian in production are not design for cutting, which is a darn shame . Of course, you might not want to cut it since it belongs to the family.

From the looks of it, I have my doubts that it is a han dynasty jian (I could be wrong). If you ask me, it resembles more like KC gim II from KOA, which takes a resemblance of jian by Emperor Qianlong from the Qing dynasty.

kultofathena.com/product~item~KRSGMII~name~Kris+Cutlery+Gim+II+Sword.htm

Come and think of it, it looks very similar to Cold Steel jade-lion gim

kultofathena.com/product~item~CS88RLG~name~Cold+Steel+Jade+Lion+Gim.htm

Just my $.02
Edit can't get this links above to work... oh well its in KOA under Chinese swords

The quality of the fittings is too high to be your run of the mill fake.

Looks like it's peened which is another good indicator. The fuller is European influence and would probably make it Republican early 20th century. The fittings look to be drawn from Ming influence.

Can't really comment further without seeing a closeup of the blade.

You'll have to use intuition. How does it feel? Does the wood look aged? What material is the scabbard covered with? What's the story?

More pics would help, and do heed Garrett's advice, he is the resident expert. Personally is makes me think of something that might have come from Dragon Well forge at some point in time, but is not one of the current production models.

If you try and handle the sword bear in mind Jians and kats are worlds apart in their handling. If you don't know much about using a Jian (you said you were a Katana guy so I'm assuming you lean more to JSA than Chinese Sword) you could look around and see if you can't find instruction in the Beijing 32 step sword form. That is probably the simplest Jian form to learn and if you can't find lessons locally I can tell you where to get text instruction.

Yea and it has a nice clam-shell blade geometry close to an antique jian. If this is a reproduction jian, it is a mighty fine one. Most reproduction swords today have a flattened diamond blade geometry, except arms and armors jian... they are not cheap and doesn't come with a scabbard (why the heck would they do that) .

Thanks all , I must admit I have never been a huge fan of Chinese swords ,Iv always preferred katana ,But having said that this sword has grown on me .I think the fittings in particular look really good (might be because I love Dragons ,ha ha )

aragon13: If I were you I would be very proud to own it too. If I had a choice between choosing a $500 Huanuo jian, $500 Arms and armor jian (doesn't come with a scabbard...big con IMO) and yours, I would pick yours anytime because it has a more historically accurate blade geometry compared to Huanuo (hope I am correct with that) and much better fittings than both of the other jian.

You might also want to visit this link below:
thomaschen.freewebspace.com/photo2.html

Scroll down to the middle of the page and you see a Ming dynasty jian which looks pretty similar to yours.