[tom hyle]

Hey, Radu, do you know of any websites of the Chinese manufacturers (other than Chen/Hanwei, who make swords, not fakes)? They may be less open; the "aging" appears to be factory-uniform on many pieces (especially the bronze/brass, for instance). In any event, though I haven't owned any of it, the new Hindoo folded/wootz (that's the stuff that was being referred to, no?) stuff seems pretty nice to me, and is certainly openly made and sold as new by the makers; what a dealer does after that can be another matter, of course. For that matter, a lot of the Chinese stuff looks fairly nice to me, too, but my sister brought me back a "chinese trouse" from China that would've looked fine in an ebay picture, but actually has an epoxy-filled tang-gap between the scales (who knows how long the real tang is?), a plastic sheath, and a blade I fear for. (mind you, a heartfelt gift though) I have just bought a Chinese almost certainly repro. mace from someone in USA who had a pile of Chinese antiques on ebay, looking like the usual fakes, but shipping for $15, instead of $65. I keep telling them to do this; now if only the'd sell 'em shiny and/or call 'em repros......There have been some sellers out of china charging realistic shipping rates, BTW. Still $20 or $30 of course, and the swords weren't $.99, but also $20 and $30. I'd probably rather buy a new Chinese practice sword or farm sword, than one made for the repro./fake market, anyway, but those aren't as readily available over here. I once worked with a person whose take on the whole antique market was that selling real antiques is for fools, and fakes are where the money's at....it was interesting in its own exasperating way.