China Knives, Scissors and Swords Museum

This guide to the China Knives, Scissors and Swords Museum in Hangzhou opens with a count: at the height of its fame, more than eighty-six shops across Hangzhou hung a sign reading Zhang Xiaoquan, and only one was real. You'll hear how a seventeenth-century Hangzhou smith built his reputation by forging steel into wrought iron and grinding the edge against local stone, and how the counterfeiters who copied that name onto cheaper blades set off a decades-long fight to prove which pair was truly his family's. Look closely at the rivet and hooped handle in the case in front of you.