https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYycjAYEODc

I think I quite possibly came across one of these frauds recently. I was in the renaissance faire in Texas about a month ago and there was this one shop, a sword manufacturer that I will not name which had an upstairs with rows of what looks like historical swords. The styles were from the late viking age up to the 19th century, from many different nations, European, Asian, Indian, all kinds. There were definitely some interesting blades, I will say.

However, one caught my eye, because it was the type I like. It resembled the albion reeve greatly and the price tag on this sword was astronomical at 100,000 dollars. The salesman told me it was an anglo saxon sword, I believe during the time of the norman invasion and then gleefully handed it to me. There was no way I could tell if it was real but I found it kind of suspicious that I could so easily hold a probably brittle antique sword that was as expensive as a house.

It is wise to be very cautious.
The market is ripe with fake swords and many are so well made that it can be extremely difficult to distinct them from genuine swords.
Fakes are to be found not only on internet auctions and with antique dealers, they can also form part of the permanent collections of well established museums.

Whenever a sword is to be focus for research or if it is a piece that is up for sale, it is wise to always start assuming it is a fake and then try to find reason for this not being the case, rather than assuming an ancient looking sword is in fact ancient. (the self proclaimed integrity of a dealer is not enough to go on. You need to check the facts put forward).

Producing a patina on a newly made sword does not take very long time. A sword that seems to date from anglo-saxon times may in fact only be a few weeks old.

There are also plenty of fakes that are being made from cheap Made-in-India reproductions. A little "battle damage" and a bath in acid or oven cleaner, maybe some carefully added crud to cover modern bolts or welds, and a $150 wall-hanger turns into a $50,000 museum piece. These are glaringly obvious to anyone who is familiar with Indian-made repros, but even museums have bought these things, thinking they are real antiques.

There's a whole series of "Roman" weapons that have identical red-brown patina on the blades and green brass hilts, all in exactly the same state of preservation, and all unlike anything you'll find in a real excavation report. Fakes!

Gotta say, with my own collection of relatively accurate repros, it's a temptation to quit my job and turn into an antiquities dealer! At those prices, I'd only need to find one or two suckers a year to live pretty well...

Matthew

Here's an example of 'excavation condition' swords that Darksword Armoury was selling at one point:

[ Linked Image ]

Not quite as decrepit as a proper 'antique' would be-- most likely this was just buried in someone's backyard for a few months-- but this could easily be sold as such by an unscrupulous retailer. Some extra work with a little acid etching or a little careful abuse, and it would be nearly indistinguishable without careful inspection by an expert. The art of falsifying antiques has been around for a very long time...

EDIT to add: I will say, that sword the guy got is pretty nice looking, I have no idea how it handles obviously but if that was mine I'd just clean it up, re-handle it and enjoy it. For a modern sword, and 1000 dollars, I'd say that's pretty decent.

Ha, yeah, a lot of real artifacts in "excavation condition" are just brown stains with a little attitude! Actually, I've always wanted to pick up an original bronze blade in decent condition, clean it up and rehilt it. That's heresy in the antiquities world, of course, but I don't see much sin in restoring an old weapon to its former glory. If I bought it and it's mine, what do I care about the resale value?

Matthew

Fake antique swords are quite common today, not just at flea markets and Renaissance faires but also on eBay.
Sickening! :mad: