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Bloodshit repro

shedonwanna

Active Member
A lot of leather chits were made in Pakistan and often had Chinese characters that weren't accurate. I am not Chinese or Pakistani but have painted a few chits. I don't sew so had my local boot maker do the thread work. Here are a couple of mine.
chit_aged_sized.jpg
chitsd_sized.jpg
 

Brettafett

Well-Known Member
Beautiful work...
I also understand that many chits during the war, were also put together by Indians who were copying material given to them to make the chits. I don't know any facts, just what I've heard...
 

Ken at Aero Leather

Well-Known Member
Brett

Take another look, the text and flag on the ELC are one piece on a backing canvas not two seperate pieces with a border between them as on the repro
 

Garylafortuna

Well-Known Member
Why the masive border? I've never seen one like that before in the flesh or in photos, original or repro?????

Ken, I need to take the blame for that. What I did was separate the upper and lower pieces and sew them onto a piece of hemp cloth. It is not period correct I know, but the look really
appealed to me. Do you think that I deserve to be keel hauled for taking such atrocious liberties?
 

Thomas Koehle

Well-Known Member
well finally they all look like the menue of my preffered chinese restazrant around here in Germany ... :)

"Calligraphy" is an art in China - i learned that during 7 years livin' there. Is off course not only the writing of the characters but also the meaning - this Information may not make sense in Terms what and which Looks more authentic but just as a reminder that exactly those "calligraphy-artists" have surely not been the ones to write the mass-product chits anyway

and like all westerners all asian induviduums have their own handwriting which is sometimes sloppy, sometimes pretty accurate

another thought that i have is whether really all of them had been hand-written or maybe simply stamped or replicated in any other technique like printing or something else????

bottom line for me: do not care that about how accurate and nice the characters are written but check the meaning or maybe otherwise you are having an advertisement for a lawnmower sewn to your jacket
 

Brettafett

Well-Known Member
Sean's wife is Chinese. Whether she can read and write Chinese, well email Sean Collins and ask the man himself.
I'm sure he has a ton of reference material also, that he'd be willing to share.
I'm no expert for sure, but from what I understand, and been told by a number of sources... is that as Thomas says, many of these chits were not actually made or written by Chinese. There was something made that was used as a template, that was then copied by other, non-Chinese... Indians, US personal, etc who drew, painted and made these chits in theatre, etc... Not in all cases, but in many.
So, many of the originals we see are actually copies, sometimes copies of copies... not that accurate themselves. Works of art for sure...
In any case, so much variation. I have many pics of original chits and repro chits and they are ALL different.
Not being able to read or write any Chinese dialect leaves me simply being happy with the 'aesthetic'... For me the chit is a homage to this particular theatre, that I find so interesting and colourful.
 

Thomas Koehle

Well-Known Member
Sean's wife is Chinese. Whether she can read and write Chinese, well email Sean Collins and ask the man himself.
I'm sure he has a ton of reference material also, that he'd be willing to share.
I'm no expert for sure, but from what I understand, and been told by a number of sources... is that as Thomas says, many of these chits were not actually made or written by Chinese. There was something made that was used as a template, that was then copied by other, non-Chinese... Indians, US personal, etc who drew, painted and made these chits in theatre, etc... Not in all cases, but in many.
So, many of the originals we see are actually copies, sometimes copies of copies... not that accurate themselves. Works of art for sure...
In any case, so much variation. I have many pics of original chits and repro chits and they are ALL different.
Not being able to read or write any Chinese dialect leaves me simply being happy with the 'aesthetic'... For me the chit is a homage to this particular theatre, that I find so interesting and colourful.

You nailed it Brett!

As Long as i do not stand in the subway of Hongkong and a random Person wants to order "menu 21" off my back i'm fine with the aestethic
 

zoomer

Well-Known Member
95+ per cent of patch wearers/makers don't know the fine points of English language typography in the period, so maybe they ought to nail that before they tackle a whole other language...
 
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