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Here is a close up image of the inscription on the knife blade.

The other side has the same five symbols but in reverse order?



Can anyone help in identifying the markings on this jade guillotine or knife holder.

It is a Tiger with a deep groove or slot in its back and a seperate knife which sits in the groove.


It has five symbols on both sides of the knife blade and they are on both sides of the blade.

I have no idea what this object would have been used for and it looks functional rather than just a sculpture?

The Tiger is 7 inches long (17.5 cms) and the knife which sits in the groove on top of the Tiger is 7 1/2 inches long (19 cms).

much appreciated


Bill

Bill,

On the other picture the second character looks like Gong (公) and the last like Duan (斷).
But on this pictures the characters look as if they were scratched by an amateur, not a craftsman.
Also, even if scratching the material causes white fissures, after a long time they should be dark, perhaps filled with dirt. It could be that the characters were scratched recently.
Please consider this.

Do you own this "jade" knife? If you do, please use a needle or a pocket knife and try to make a very short scratch and see if you can leave a WHITE line just like that of those Chinese characters. I guess you will be able to draw a white line since all the carving lines on this "Tiger knife blad" appear to be white (per picture shown on your other post). That is always a BAD sign, that means your piece can be scratched and therefore not JADE.

Your piece is very MODERN, it has no function. The five Chinese characters were poorly "scratched" (cannot really call it carved) and the only purpose of them is to convince the buyer that this is an OLD or ARCHAIC piece. Its real color is probably light green and was probably made of cheap serpentine. You can probably recover it to its original green color by washing it very good with soap and water, dry it and then saturate its surface with vaseline and leave the vaseline there for a week or two.

If you pay more than $30 for this, I believe you should try to get your money back especially if the seller sold it as "JADE". The chance of this being jade is less than 1%. Sorry.

Bill

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