Quote:
Originally Posted by cornelistromp
in the current market 99% of the medieval swords on offer are recent reproductions.
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Having had the privilege of handling a number of medieval swords, authentic and not, I must concur with cornelistromp's statement above. Though the statistics strongly point in the unfortunate direction whenever the question is asked, as a practical matter I almost never can decide authenticity with adequate certainty from images alone and I do not wish to risk condemning the authentic with a 'knee-jerk' denunciation based on statistical probabilities. My own collecting days are probably over owing to old age and those discouraging statistics. The reproductions these days may be so proficiently prepared that I expect, more and more, old publicly published evidence of provenance, preferably with illustration, will become increasingly critical in setting a comfort level.