Well, I am not sure about people losing interest in either history or historical items. Certainly there are plenty who are interested, but life is getting harder and other hobbies fill the vacuum easily and far cheaper.
I always liked swords since my childhood. But I was never able to collect so early so was satisfied with just drawing or designing swords. With time I forgot how much I liked swords, but I still would watch documentaries or read any information about them, just never thought of collecting them (there were some tries, where I would save and buy some Chinese made katana or a Syrian made ardha saif. But I knew these arent real and never gave it much attention) but only when I travelled to Greece in 2009 and visiting the military museum there did I get the bug back once again. When I went home, I bought my first 'real' sword and ever since I started collecting AND studying the field more seriously.
When it comes to jambiyas, my first real one was actually given to me as a gift from my uncle, he got it from his wife's family who live in Yemen. Its nothing fancy but an authentic dress piece non the less. Its one of the reasons why I developed an interest into Yemeni (and Arabian) daggers as a whole.
Sometimes I feel alone here when it comes to our hobby. There are people interested but not many willing to spend the cash on it. almost 4 years have passed and I have only met one Kuwaiti collector who is just a mere beginner, I rarely even hear from him. Saqir is another, he used to be in the forum but he no longer is interested in collecting swords though.
I reckon that we collectors are perhaps a part of why the hobby is not so wide spread, ofcourse that can be good and bad at the same time, but wouldnt the fact that we as 'private' collectors are a reason of holding historical items from the public? museums from what I read here seem to have an effect on alot of us which drove us to collect but as time passes and the more we collect, the more of history goes private for decades with only a selected (or overly interested) minority gets to view it.
Some people I know who tried to pick up the hobby felt crushed by the amount of fakes around. They never recovered from their mistakes and simply gave up on the hobby all together. Its their mistake though :-)
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