Is this an authentic Formosan Paiwan sword?

[Ian]

Originally Posted by milandro

... I believe, they are simply contemporarily made but that doesn't take anything away from they intrinsic qualities as a weapon or tool. They are well made and sharp and perfectly functional. ...

milandro, I think you have raised a good point about functionality. My experience with most of these contemporary Taiwanese pieces is that the blades are very poor and unsharpened. They probably would not retain an edge if they were sharpened. Such poorly made items are delegated appropriately, I think, as souvenirs for tourists. The (very) few that were of similar style and had decent blades with hardened edges may well be contemporary functioning pieces. What we see on eBay and other online sites are almost always of poor quality in my experience. I bought several when they first showed up online maybe 20+ years ago, just to see what they were like, and they all had junk blades that appeared to have been made by stock reduction rather than forged.

[milandro]

cheers, as shown above in my and other cases ( at the very least for the 3 tjakit ^ ) I can witness the blade is of a very good forged quality. I will take it with me when tomorrow I will go to see a master blade smith local to me, I am going there to ask for advise on another matter but I will also ask what he thinks of the blade of my Tjakit.