Is this a Korean crossbow?

the last picture

The "T" shaped catch for the string is common in South East Asia. The stock is modeled on a modern rifle stock. My guess is that is a modern crossbow made by someone from South East Asia and possibly brought back as a souvenir.

I agree with Bede. Korean crossbows (at least trad ones) look quite a bit different.

Here are examples of Korean crossbows (images property of the Korean Army Museum; used with permission):

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Agreed. Looks like Hmong from Laos, modern and formidable, not a toy. Good find. -j-

Thanks, I knew it wasn't Korean, I didn't realize that it could be a functioning crossbow. The bow is 2 & 1/4" wide and almost 7/8" thick and tapers in width to 1" wide and stays about 7/8" to 3/4" thick most of the way. The tips have pin nocks and don't look that bad. The bow can slide out of the stock (but fits decently in it). I would think this bow would be over 100#. The bow is over 36" long.

Any idea what it's worth?

Jason

By the way there is no sinew on this bow. It doesn't look like there are any marks indicating that it was strung (no marks in the string grooves).

Thanks for the quick replies.

Jason

Bede wrote:

The "T" shaped catch for the string is common in South East Asia.

I saw that kind of mechanism before in some pictures on the net, but always wondered how it works. So, well, how does it work? :o

The groove in the stock holds the string. But the groove is faced forward slightly so the string wants to escape. The t-bar prevents the escape of the string until triggered. This mechanism is also common to continental target crossbows circa 16th century on.

Have a look at:

http://www.atarn.org/chinese/yn_xbow/yn_xbow.htm