Chinese meat cleavers...translation of characters on blade?

[Stagdag]

Hi there,

As you can see I have modified an old cleaver into a seax shape.

However I am curious as to what the characters/maker's mark stamped into the blade mean.

One fellow told me he thought it reminded him of the symbol next to the sweet and sour chicken at his local Chinese food joint.

Can anyone help me learn what they mean?

Thank you in advance,

PMZ

Edited April 14, 2010 at 02:18 AM by imron

[YingTao]

Not sure about anyone else but those pictures are very small for me. I can't see anything.

[trien27]

Could you make the words bigger? It's hard to see.

[imron]

Fixed link to use larger version (th stands for thumbnail people).

[Stagdag]

http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/9356/1002325zoomedcropped.jpg

I may need to take another picture.

Hope this helps,

PMZ

Thank you, Imron.

I didn't know it wouldn't show up...

PMZ

Edited April 14, 2010 at 02:34 AM by chrix

[creamyhorror]

Looks like "桑刀1", i.e. "Cleaver 1".

The 刀 is pretty eroded.