Hello Gene, I'm glad you had a chance to take a look at this. I'll start with the wooden grip. If you look closely at the sixth picture down right above the steel collar you can just see where wire was once wound around the wood. When I originally removed the friction tape that had been wrapped around the grip (only to find the wood had also been given the paint treatment too) a few broken coils of rusty braided wire fell out from between the collar and wood. The wood has been roughly sanded before they painted it
probably after the wire had started falling off. After stripping the paint off of the wood I put a preservative on it to try to keep it from further damage. The parts of the guard that look like knots do look to be soldered in place while the rest of the guard is one piece of worked steel. Where would the POB on a sword like this be? Right now it is 4-3/4 inches from the cross guard. If you would please tell me what parts of the blade you would like to have pictures of and I will post them as soon as it quits snowing. Thank you again for your interest.
Robert