Battara,
I agree that the first one with the carved hilt does look quite a bit better than the second but the second one to me seems like a more practical weapon to carry into battle.
The blades on both swords are almost identical. The main difference is the bevel on the top edge of the first sword. One other thing I might mention is that in the pictures of the first sword it looks like it has a fuller, but that is just an optical illusion caused by the camera and lighting. As soon as my daughter brings my camera back "again" I will take pictures of them both side by side. Hopefully I will be able to take better pictures of the hilt because like I said earlier these pictures don't do the carving justice. I thank you very much for your opinion on these.
Robert