Acid etched blade sold on E-Bay
 

It looks like acid-etched pattern to me. Any other opinions?
http://cgi.ebay.com/Awesome-18th-C-I...QQcmdZViewItem

Certainly looks that way......enhanced pic from the listing

Thanks for an enhanced close-up Katana. It is even more obvious now.
Nice sword by the way, even not being wootz :p

Yeah, definitely looks to be acid etched. That scabbard, though, is a beautiful piece of work.

It is a shame that such a nice sword should not have a wootz blade .....perhaps more ceremonial than a user :confused:

Oh yeah...definitely wax resist false wootz. I also question the scabbard as being more recent.. :rolleyes:

Put together piece
 

Another disassociated piece. Scabbard a an obvious mismatch, also more recent and the hilt, the blade with false damascus not showing near the wear as the hilt, all looks put together. Would be interesting to see closeup of where blade and hilt are joined, my guess would be recent.

There is a pattern of swords offered that raises red flags to me.

The tulwar hilts can be removed from blades by being placed in hot water till puddy softens and then pull blade out. The blade is surprisingly fixed and rigid in a Tulwar hilt when puddy is dry. By the way, think the word tulwar translates to "par excellance".

rand