I have decided to start a new thread to warn you about the presence of possible fake koftgari originating from India.
A few years ago (2009), while visiting India, I was looking for a good quality new Indian Pesh-kabz. So, with the help of an Indian friend, I reached a small workshop in the outskirts of Mumbai where they were producing "Mughal" knives mainly for export (mostly for Middle Eastern market).
There I was presented with a few lavishly decorated knives. As I was reluctant to buy any, the seller became rather persistent and went into lengthy explanations on how much labour goes into his knifes. During his explanations he said a couple of times that all his knives are decorated with genuine Koftgari and not painted.
At that time, I had no idea that Koftgari can be painted and I was rather surprised to hear that. So I decided to play stupid (which wasn't that difficult after all) and said that the koftgari on his knives appears to be painted. That made him go through the roof and explained me the following:
Genuine Koftgari is made by pressing thin wire or foil of gold into a criss-cross of very fine scratches into the base steel. This is a very labour intensive process that takes a huge amount of time and skill. Since it is made through pressing, the end result is flat in appearance.
As opposed to genuine Koftgari, painted/fake Koftgari is made by simply applying gold/silver paint with a brush over the criss-cross scratches of the base steel. This takes about 10 times less time to make than genuine Koftgari, and for the undiscerning eye looks almost the same.
However, as opposed to the genuine koftgari which is flat, THE PAINTED/FAKE KOFTGARI IS DOMED/ROUNDED/CONVEX IN APPEARANCE like a thick paint that dried out.
OBSERVATIONS:
1. Koftgari is subject to aging. When pressed into the scratches, the gold foil/wire doesn't fill the scratches down to the very bottom. Cosequently, at the bottom of the scratches, remain micro-pockets of air that foster oxidation. In time, the mere natural oxidation of the base metal will result in some losses of the gold application even without any mechanical wear.
2. In India it is a wide spread practice to apply Koftgary on older, mundane pieces to make them look more appealing and to increase their commercial value.
3. Gold has the highest ductility and malleability of all metals and that is the reason gold foils and wires were produced much earlier than silver foils and wires (since technologically they were much easier to produce). At the same time, silver oxidizes quite easily gaining a dark, dull apearance. These are main the reasons why silver was not generally used for damascening and Koftgari until much later (mostly in the 19th century, according to my knowledge).
4. Do not mistake new, recently made Koftgari with fake fake Koftgari. There are many skilled Koftgari artists in India who do make genuine Koftgari following centuries old techniques. Their work is by no means less valuable than the old/antique Koftgari and should be appreciated as a surviving artistic treasure of mankind. For more information on such a genuine living treasure you can follow the link below to another thread on this website:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=3168