Quote:
Originally Posted by josh stout
Yes, that is also a new sword. The yellow orange ray skin is a give away, but also everything else.
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Excellent points in your post, Josh. I'd like to remark on the one highlighted observation above. Not only the color gives the rayskin away, but the manner in which it is finished is a giveaway as well.
Antique jian with rayskin grips are generally late, from the end of the Qing to the early Republic, although there are exceptions of course. The thing to remember, though, is that in the case of bona fide antiques (and I would consider swords made in traditional style and manner in, say, the 1920s to be antiques since they are part of a continuous tradition going well back into the imperial age), the rayskin on the scabbard is invariably polished, and that on the grip is left
au naturel , i.e. in the "bumpy" state that it was in on the live fish, and typically in the natural color as well.
I have seen a few old kid's size swords (very much scaled down in all dimensions proportionately) with polished and colored rayskin to match on grip and scabbard, but never on a full-sized adult version.
I agree with your comments on the one posted previously on this thread. Thanks much for sharing your knowledge and observations as well.