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Originally Posted by Oliver Pinchot
Collecting anything, from pebbles to Renaissance portraits, is a matter of experience.
If you're collecting modern blades in "traditional" styles from Central and East Asia, you're in the enviable position of being able to take notes and snap reference images with your phone as you shop. This will allow you to make some comparisons at the end of the day. Compare details such as form and embellishment. Whatever you're seeing multiples of isn't likely to be the best work available.
Before you ever set foot in a market, bazaar or suk, you should be thoroughly familiar with what these "traditional" styles are. With this in mind:
--Examine as many originals as you can, ideally in museums and private collections. If there are none available near you, buy books. There are a number of Soviet-era Russian works with English summaries that provide good treatments on Uighur, Uzbek, Turkmen and other Central Asian general ethnic arts. These often contain edged weapons, you just have to look.
--Don't credit hearsay, particularly not from a seller, most especially one you don't know.
-- If you make a purchase and later regret it based upon your continued observations: Congratulations, you've learned something. Consider the cost of the piece a payment against your tuition.
Good luck and have fun learning!
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Oliver, thanks for that response. The idea of building up my own photo archive- especially with the way I use modern technology- is a great one! I'll have to start compiling what I've already got and be intentional about doing this in the future.
As for examining originals, that sort of gets to the whole point of what I was originally posting about- how do I walk into a booth in a bazaar and tell an original from an "original?" I visit museums when I can, but some of these in small knife making towns in 3rd world countries are stocked by modern pieces that I've been told by the curator could be bought for a hand full of dollars. Meanwhile, here in Taiwan (to say nothing of Mainland China) there are lots of things floating around in bazaars claiming to be originals, but many are obvious fakes, and those that aren't obvious to me may still be fakes. Many of these are things from relatively recent history (the last 100 or so years) that I have a deep interest in because of their unique styles and craftsmanship, as well as their historical value, but they wouldn't necessarily be represented in museums. How can I go about figuring out which ones are the real deal?
As for the Soviet-era Russian works with English summaries, I'd love it if you could post a few specific titles (and links?)!
On a related note, I'm fortunate to have at least one REALLY good blade museum, run by a master sword maker, here in Taiwan.
Here are a couple links about him (he's been called "Taiwan's last swordmaker")
http://www.jctravel.ca/post/view/vid...st-sword-maker
http://www.humansinvent.com/#!/9247/the-story-of-taiwan%E2%80%99s-last-sword-maker/
He's since gotten an apprentice, fortunately....
And here's his website, in case you're interested:
http://www.6989595.com/