But, I was not suggesting that the new hilt job would be done in a shop in the west, western shops stock all bamboos and it is not a hard job to do for someone who knows how and there are plenty here in UK who do including myself, you do not have to be Asian to build a simple hilt like this, being a knife maker and smith for 35 years I could do this with ease, no problem at all, I just need a picture of the original to work from.
Tourist and non tourist.
You are taking tourist in the wrong context, tourist knives swords etc have been made since the pre Victorian period in countries all around the globe wherever early tourists went, many early tourist knives came in different qualities depending on the smith, some were very well made by traditional methods some not.
Also just because a blade shows a few cold shuts along its length it does not actually mean it is a laminated blade, those cold shut's are often seen on mono steel blades to, many kukris from Nepal have such, they are also hand made by traditional methods and many for tourism for many years now, and especially tribal blades from Asia both old and newer, a simple water quench to make a cutting edge hard is no problem to do for any smith with the skills to do it, as the makers of these were smiths then it is likely they would make a real blade, no reason not to make it with a real live cutting edge back then.
Also tourist knives and swords in the 60s and 70s and even 80s in native regions were not made as they are today in factories with rubbish steel blades, many were hand made in styles that were like the old ones and by traditional methods, some as I already stated were far better than others,
Yes they were bought by tourists to take home as trophies as was common practice for westerners for at least 150 years maybe more, but these 60s and 70s pieces likely were used by the native peoples to for general use as well and for festivals etc, I am not poo poo'ing your sword, I am simply saying that many are real with real blades, but from the early tourist times of the 60s and 70s.
Today there is a revival of these knives in the country of origin, you can still buy an exact copy which is made by traditional methods if you know where to look on line but they are not cheap, proving that some of the makers kept the old skills and passed them down through families.
Again I mean no offence at all by my remarks I have made here, I am just speaking from experience of having seen many of these early tourist types in the uk, which truly is a country still filled with heaps of old weaponry due to our warring colonial past.
