Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

Lee · 11th April 2025, 11:51 PM

I think that the time has come that moderatorial duty requires that I close this thread.

Obviously, the more knowledge an aspiring collector has about their chosen field, the better. The more unquestionably genuine swords of a type that one has seen up close, the better they will become at separating the wheat from the chaff - and it does not hurt to have also seen and handled known fakes. I had the benefit of being along for most of the museum research trips involved in the research for Swords of the Viking Age. That gave me a large mental database and a healthy degree of suspicion, but often, as I proceeded with collecting, there were offerings that I could never be sure of. If I was 'afraid of something,' I would avoid it, even at the risk of missing a particularly important example. Even so, denouncing most of what I increasingly found in the market, I have made tens of thousands of dollars in mistakes buying fakes over some forty years. As has been said, 'tuition."

There have always been collectors much more financially well off than myself. In one failed attempt at an Alexandria Arsenal marked sword at Christie's, I 'ran the successful bidder up' the price of a minivan - a significant amount for me, driving a 7 year old machine at the time. The successful bidder - a collector of seriously good taste and monumental importance across several fields - was revealed years later. The price of a minivan would have been, to him, about as perceptible as would be a drop of mist falling on my wrist.

I did succeed on another Alexandria Arsenal marked sword several years later. The day after the auction my agent called relating that he had been called by the auction house with an offer of serious profit. Someone intending to bid seriously had mismarked his calendar. My lucky day? Karma?

11th April 2025, 11:51 PM	#14
Lee EAAF Staff Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Upstate New York, USA Posts: 931	Thread closed I think that the time has come that moderatorial duty requires that I close this thread. Obviously, the more knowledge an aspiring collector has about their chosen field, the better. The more unquestionably genuine swords of a type that one has seen up close, the better they will become at separating the wheat from the chaff - and it does not hurt to have also seen and handled known fakes. I had the benefit of being along for most of the museum research trips involved in the research for Swords of the Viking Age. That gave me a large mental database and a healthy degree of suspicion, but often, as I proceeded with collecting, there were offerings that I could never be sure of. If I was 'afraid of something,' I would avoid it, even at the risk of missing a particularly important example. Even so, denouncing most of what I increasingly found in the market, I have made tens of thousands of dollars in mistakes buying fakes over some forty years. As has been said, 'tuition." There have always been collectors much more financially well off than myself. In one failed attempt at an Alexandria Arsenal marked sword at Christie's, I 'ran the successful bidder up' the price of a minivan - a significant amount for me, driving a 7 year old machine at the time. The successful bidder - a collector of seriously good taste and monumental importance across several fields - was revealed years later. The price of a minivan would have been, to him, about as perceptible as would be a drop of mist falling on my wrist. I did succeed on another Alexandria Arsenal marked sword several years later. The day after the auction my agent called relating that he had been called by the auction house with an offer of serious profit. Someone intending to bid seriously had mismarked his calendar. My lucky day? Karma?