Quote:
Originally Posted by Philip
When a well-known European auction house such as Hermann Historica regularly features new keris as "late 19th--early 20th cent." and purportedly Ming bronze hand-cannon barrels which are in fact brand spanking new, it gets scary.
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I think the auction houses, even christie's and sotheby's, do not put in enough effort/expertise to correctly identify arms and armour (maybe except for Japanese and Indo-persian arms) because they are not major money pullers, like paintings and jewellery. And whether they are identified correctly or not, they still get sold (Collectors "know").