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6 5/8 in. (16.8 cm.) long; weight 76 g
C. T. Loo & Co., New York, before 1941. Dr. Johan Carl Kempe (1884-1967) Collection, Sweden, before 1953, no. CK36. Sotheby's London, Masterpieces of Chinese Precious Metalwork. Early Gold and Silver, 14 May 2008, lot 78.
No other double scabbard with knives appears to have been published. Referring to the present double scabbard and knives, Bo Gyllensv?rd in 'T'ang Gold and Silver', B.M.F.E.A., No. 29, Stockholm, 1957, states, p. 45, that the shape of the scabbards and their joined configuration "is mainly the same as during" the Han dynasty, and illustrates, fig. 8:b, a line drawing of such a double scabbard found at Lo-lang. Compare, also, a similar silver double scabbard excavated from Qiujiawan in Shimen County and dated to the Yuan dynasty, illustrated in Yang Zhishi et al., Hunan Song Yuan jiaocang jin yin qi fa xian yu yan jiu (The Discovery and Research on Gold and Silver Wares Unearthed from Caches of Song and Yuan Dynasties in Hunan), Beijing, 2009, pp. 196-7, pl. 394. As early as the Eastern Zhou period (770-256 BC) blades for swords and knives were being made in iron as well as bronze. The scabbards might be made of leather, wood, metal, or lacquered wood, and usually had a protective metal fitting at the bottom of the scabbard, the chape, which protected the scabbard's lower edges. By the late Warring States and Western Han periods, jade became the preferred material for use as a chape, though ones of gold, silver and bronze occasionally still appeared. The construction of this double scabbard is a continuation of those traditions, with the scabbards carved from wood and reinforced with decorative gold and silver mounts. The extensive gold mounts that cover and protect the lower section of the scabbards have a curved bottom thereby functioning as a chape.
