Posts: 805 Location: new orleans
Mon 22 Feb, 2016 1:53 am
| Dan Howard wrote: |
| Glen A Cleeton wrote: | | The best opinion you could actually offer is to know exactly what you are looking at before spending one's cash. |
Which is pretty hard to do by looking at an ebay photo. One can't make an informed purchase without personally examining it or getting an expert to personally examine it. |
| Dan Howard wrote: |
| A good rule of thumb is that if it is on ebay then it is either a fake or illegally looted. The chance of it being a genuine antique is so low that it isn't worth the risk. If you make a bid on something then the price shouldn't be any higher than what you would expect to pay for a replica. |
Dan, that is not entirely correct, many antique Ebay swords are adequately photographed and many sellers have a return policy as well so you can personally examine your purchase and return it for a refund if not satisfied.
Gernot was asking about Indo-Persian swords, you are not going to find "illegally looted" Indo-Persian swords on Ebay. Secondly there are many very nice, well priced genuine antique Indo-Persian swords sold on Ebay, but since Gernot has shown that he is not extremely knowledgable on these types of swords it would be best to purchase from a well known, experienced dealer with a return policy. The alternative before buying on Ebay is to ask someone knowledgable to look and see if the sword is genuine and what a fair price would be (as he did in his original post)
Just because there are a lot of fake/modified/repaired/deteriorated swords on Ebay does not negate the genuine antique swords sold there. You do need some knowledge, one problem is just finding a sword on ebay, they can be under several listing categories so you need to know how to search. Once found you need to verify that the sword is as described. Then you have to know the relative value before bidding. I can show you many examples of antique swords which have recently sold on Ebay.
Here is an antique sword that recently sold on Ebay for $860, it is Circassian shashka sword with Ottoman mounts and a European blade, the Circassians were forced out of Russian and settled in the Ottoman empire, Ottoman mounted shashka swords are rather rare. The sellers photographs are quite revealing, you can see the typical Ottoman style metal spiral stitching on the scabbard, the silver koftgari decoration on the mounts, and the markings on the blade, what else do you need to see? (Returns:14 days money back, buyer pays return shipping).
I can show many other examples of reasonably priced antique swords recently sold on Ebay.
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Posts: 3,652 Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
Mon 22 Feb, 2016 6:49 am
And the amount of fakes outnumber these by more than a thousand to one. If you don't know the reputation of the seller, the chances of purchasing a genuine antique is negligible.
Posts: 1,979 Location: Nipmuc USA
Mon 22 Feb, 2016 7:04 am
| Dan Howard wrote: |
| And the amount of fakes outnumber these by more than a thousand to one. If you don't know the reputation of the seller, the chances of purchasing a genuine antique is negligible. |
You are overstating an opinion. If you were to better categorize types with issues, you might have a valid point. Otherwise you seem to be broadly painting opinion with little experience in dealing with antique arms. In other words, reading as a little foolish yourself ;)
Cheers
GC
Posts: 805 Location: new orleans
Mon 22 Feb, 2016 3:00 pm
| Dan Howard wrote: |
| And the amount of fakes outnumber these by more than a thousand to one. If you don't know the reputation of the seller, the chances of purchasing a genuine antique is negligible. |
Dan, if you do not look at anything from China or India your chances of finding an authentic antique sword on Ebay increase dramatically.
Posts: 330
Wed 24 Feb, 2016 4:15 am
As I said in my original post, yes, there are a fair few genuine bargains in antiques ( swords or otherwise) on EBAY. BUT, and it's a big "but" the buyer has to know his subject before parting with their hard earned cash. Antique buying on Ebay is not for the trusting amateur. That old saying " A Fool and his money are soon parted" is so true in the Antiques World. :(
Posts: 805 Location: new orleans
Wed 24 Feb, 2016 8:09 am
| Ralph Grinly wrote: |
| As I said in my original post, yes, there are a fair few genuine bargains in antiques ( swords or otherwise) on EBAY. BUT, and it's a big "but" the buyer has to know his subject before parting with their hard earned cash. Antique buying on Ebay is not for the trusting amateur. That old saying " A Fool and his money are soon parted" is so true in the Antiques World. :( |
Very true, maybe someone will post some Ebay examples currently for sale that appear to be genuine antiques.
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