Dear All,
thank you very much for sharing your knowledge and your thoughts! Regarding the described possibilites by Lee to somehow determine in a scientific way: I would have access to an x-ray, but it is made for humans. As far as I know the power might be too low. I will check possibilities for a material analysis.
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In any case I would try to find the previous owner or finder.
A medieval sword doesn't pop out of nowhere.
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The sword was found 1977 by some workers in a river in the former GDR. A communal building officer, who was a collector, bought it from them and cleaned it. A friend of mine knew this this guy since childhood and bought the sword from him over ten years ago. That is the story but it is not possible to talk to the building officer anymore as he moved to another country and meanwhile he might have already passed away.
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The black patina in water finds is goethite, which is glass hard and difficult to remove, even mechanically.
You could have the patina tested for hardness and chemically with, for example, acetone or other chemical solvent. If it gives off black, it is a recently applied patina.
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The patina is resistant to solvent chemicals. But it is not super hard. I compared it to the remaining patina of my sword fragment (an archeolocial documented river find -
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=21669) and it behaves pretty much indentical. It also looks very much the same. The patina in my eyes is surely not artificially added. But I donīt know if there are methods to get metal rapidly aged and patinated in a natural way?
Iīd like to draw your attention to this "chip" mentioned by Teisani in the first reply. as explained this chip is undermined by black oxidation and sticks out. I tried to catch it in a better image and did a small drawing
In my eyes this could not only be an indicator for folded steel, but also for some age. But I might be wrong.
The outer edge of the crossguard wasnīt cleaned propper and remains some brownish-orange adhesion. To me it looks very much like what I know from metal found in a river (I do often search the Rhine for relics when it has low water
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I added some more pictures that hopefully gives a better image of the oxidation / patina.
Regarding the condition: I think it very much depends on the composition of the water (content of oxygen, soil composition etc) as well as when the sword has fallen into it. There is this drawing from Albrecht Durer 1497, showing a person wearing a much older sword (
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showpo...28&postcount=6). I think swords where used for a very long time.
here are two examples from the Wallace Collection, where it seems to me the patination is similar:
https://wallacelive.wallacecollectio...p=F&sp=T&sp=94
https://wallacelive.wallacecollectio...lBlockKey&sp=0
Kind regards
Andreas