Posts: 5,981 Location: Birmingham, Alabama
Wed 11 Jan, 2012 8:42 am
It's hard to tell from the photos, but those blades have the look of some 19th c. pieces that were treated with acid to mimic the corrosion of centuries.
It's important to note that 19th c. arms and armour reproductions are collected for their own merits, and sometimes command high prices at auction.
http://www.myArmoury.com/feature_schmidt.html
Those that are done well can still be used to represent the given type in exhibits as long as they are correctly identified and, ideally, if their variance from originals is pointed out. Many a fine museum has composite armour and arms, with original parts long ago married to 19th c. parts for aesthetic or commercial reasons.
Wallace Collection, for one, still displays such but clearly describes these in published notes.
One of the shocking things about armour study is the realization that there are very few complete surviving harnesses. Of course, every great museum has many harnesses. They're composites--old matched to unrelated old, old matched to new, good restorations, bad restorations, significant repairs and replacements, etc.