Explaining forgeries

ariel · 5th July 2007, 01:13 AM

I got several requests from the Forumites to explain why I thought a particular expensive Shashka from Georgia was a fake. I did it in PMs, stating that I was unwilling to help the forgers to understand their mistakes.
One Forumite argued with me that pubilicizing the info is safe: the forgers would be unlikely to change their routine and that it would be too expensive for them. An example was forgery of Nihonto, where all the tricks are known, but the real things are still distinguishable from the fakes.
My contrargument is that faking Nihonto is a well-established process and most of the bugs were already taken out of the system. Faking well-corroded and properly-signed tang is a major undertaking. In contrast, some forgeries are still in their infancy: Caucasian, Chinese etc. The problems there are so minor that fixing them would take no effort and the quality of the fake product would rise exponentially. Thus, even minor hints could have major impact.
Any opinions?

5th July 2007, 01:13 AM	#1
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	Explaining forgeries I got several requests from the Forumites to explain why I thought a particular expensive Shashka from Georgia was a fake. I did it in PMs, stating that I was unwilling to help the forgers to understand their mistakes. One Forumite argued with me that pubilicizing the info is safe: the forgers would be unlikely to change their routine and that it would be too expensive for them. An example was forgery of Nihonto, where all the tricks are known, but the real things are still distinguishable from the fakes. My contrargument is that faking Nihonto is a well-established process and most of the bugs were already taken out of the system. Faking well-corroded and properly-signed tang is a major undertaking. In contrast, some forgeries are still in their infancy: Caucasian, Chinese etc. The problems there are so minor that fixing them would take no effort and the quality of the fake product would rise exponentially. Thus, even minor hints could have major impact. Any opinions?