Jason's comments reminded me of an issue not often discussed in this community: The ethics of international trade. Some folks dismiss replicas of Indian, Pakistani or Chinese origin because those products often are assumed to be inferior to what Western manufacturers produce. That complaint is justified in specific cases, but a blanket condemnation of Third World manufacturing quality is overreaching. Nevermind that for a moment--the real point to consider is that so many replicas come from the Third World because labor costs there are ridiculously low, as Jason's figures suggest. That might suggest more valid reasons for avoiding reproduction arms and armour made in the Third World. There are arguments against that approach, too (such as diminished demand reducing even low-wage jobs).

I, for one, typically have been on the hunt for the best compromise between price and quality, and that often has led me to Windlass Steelcrafts. I never really gave much thought to the chain Jason described, which ends with the man, woman or child who made the piece taking home a couple of dollars a day. It's food for thought in the season of giving, and I'm still chewing on it. Thanks for the post, Jason.
Anyway, this just occurred to me while following this discussion and I thought I'd throw it out there....

Thanks for the info Jason.

Sean I think you bring up an interesting point. Of course that could be generalized to a whole lot of things... what sort of shoes or pants are you wearing today? It's a thorny problem and one in which self interests runs head on into morality. How much would our poor pakistani swordsmith be making today if his sword wasn't being sold down at the local ren faire?

Exactly. These are the dilemmas consumers of ANY goods face today. Plus, if we succeed in our goal of educating the world about historic arms and armour, the market for SLOs and cheezy armour is going to dry up, and with it lots of jobs in the Third World. If everybody stops buying cheap swords I guess, ideally, the cheap sword market dries up, Third World manufacturers have to pay higher wages for more careful craftsmanship, and the bottom end of the sword market rises to stay more or less where it is in relation to the middle and high end. Then people start buying Third World goods again and that supports higher wages, etc. But that's a perfect world and this world ain't perfect.

That's a nice altruistic way to look at the sword biz Sean, but it isn't very realistic.

I really don't feel like blowing my hard earned disposable income on a sub-par product simply to help out some laborer in a third-world country. In fact, that laborer probably sees very little of the total price of that item. If you really want to help the guy out just send him a ten dollar bill every month. That's probably more than he'll see off of your sale.

If they're making a sub-par product it's not because they can't make a good one because I've seen enough decent ones to know that they can. They simply choose not to because they're working within a set market nitch. That's their choice. My choice is to spend my money somewhere where *I* will get satisfaction. They're appealing to a nitch in the market not to our emotions. In the end it's all about business, not about supporting a "community" or forming a non-profit charity group.

And don't worry about the low-end side of the market drying up. There will always be a market for the low to mid-range stuff. IMHO that end of the market will always be larger than the high-end no matter who much educating we do.