An experiment

[ariel]

Having been extremely annoyed by the proliferation of Chinese junk on e-bay, I asked myself : How bad is the problem?
Well, the total number of items termed "sword" (titles and descriptions) was 49,866
When I removed terms "china, chinese, japan, japanese, samurai, katana, ninja, dy" (the most frequent descriptions of the junk), the number had fallen to 24,764
I realize that some legitimate katanas and japanese blades were also not counted, but their total number must have been less than 100-200 at the maximum.
It means that fully 50% of all swords on e-bay are Chinese junk. No wonder I felt bad..... Even paranoids have real enemies!

[Ian]

Seems to be getting worse by the day. How many of these "junk" swords do you think come from sellers in China?

Ian.

[Rick]

Would that these were the only type found on ebay .........
http://tinyurl.com/82tdm

That is not the only problem with China today ; the overwhelming amount of attacks on computers are routed through computers in China .
There is little we can do about it .

From MSNBC :

China is a convenient "steppingstone" for hackers because of the large number of computers (118,000,000 users) there that can be compromised. Also, tracing hackers who use Chinese networks is complicated by the lack of cyber investigation agreements between China and the United States, another task force official said.

[Rivkin]

As someone who used to be a high ranking outsourcer, I can say that I don't believe in "Chinese sydrome". Yes, 50% of swords are chinese fakes. Another 40% are most likely "western" repros - most of them nowadays probably also come from China, but that's not the point. The point is that >90% of swords on ebay is a modern junk, whether it's chinese, american ninja or XX century toledo does not really matter.

Sometimes it hurts, but we don't collect junk, so why should we pay attention to this crap ? Because one day they can start copying "real" swords ? Well, first of all, contrary to the popular belief, qualified, educated, not very corrupt and hard working people are _extremely_ rare in the third world (and they are actually rare in the first world too). They are also extremely expensive. It is possible to produce a top quality product in the third world and save lots of money, but it requires great skill and knowledge of the situation.
I can't even recount how many times I've seen long faces of our investors when they were asked to pay 6 figures salaries. It was usually taking them lots of time to come up with a polite way to say "but he is a third world scum, can't we give him some beads instead ?". Well, if you want performance of a savage, you can. That's why syrians and iranians pay 700$ a month to skilled mercenaries, while we think that iraqi "fast response" team members should be glad to have their 200$.

To summarize - it's cheap to produce crap in the thirld world, but it's not so cheap to produce quality. Chinese factory workers do not earn anything, but us or taiwanese managers and us educated engineers earn salaries that are very comparable with american ones. Making a good sword requires a very educated person, someone who can find a job in the first world as a restoration worker, or custom knife maker or something else like this, but chose to stay in China.

[erlikhan]

Rivkin, your logic -may be- correct if you mean a full new production form zero to 100 percent, as no master can have knowledge and skill in all fields of art which act role to form a complete old weapon. It needs a real big investment devotion and energy, to train and keep together enough number of different artists in a single workshop. But.. who cares about a undecorated simple blade and scabbard so much? Such a lets say shamshir is hardly worth of 500 dollars, but if it has just a little gold koftgari on blade and scabbard mountings with worked silver or iron with koftgari, it immidiately goes over 1500-2000 dollars. So some countries focus especially on koftgari and silverwork. Iran leads by far. I know Iranian dealers who have offered me to win some decorated Turkish pistols from an auction in Turkey, then they would take them to Iran, and produce exactly the same in numbers like 20 per piece. I know they can do it. Unlike India they can work very succesfully old looking koftgari too. I know dealers,who have been sending their edged weapons and pistols there,and they come back with very good,deep and old looking koftgari decorations on blades, barrels,locks elevating price of items hundreds or thousands of dollars. One must worry about not a totally fake Islamic arm but decorative tricks which are very desicive about the demand and price. Even the most respectful auctions dont mean a 100 percent authenticity guarantee.

[Ian]

Rivkin and Erlikhan:

You are both correct of course. On the matter of "doctoring" genuine weapons to make them more "attractive," I offer one tale.

Several years ago I purchased on eBay a Turkish sword (sidearm) from WWI. I believe it was a German pattern briquet, c. 1850s. Lightly engraved on the blade was an inscription that placed the sword at Gallipoli, a famous battle site where Australian, New Zealand and British soldiers were landed at the wrong place on the coast and were cut to pieces by Turkish defenses. It was a monumental defeat for the invading forces, but Turkish losses were also substantial. This was the birth of the ANZAC legend, and the event is celebrated annually by a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand.

However, the English dealer who sold me this sword said the inscription was almost certainly a fake, and in the style of a well known English forger. The script used for the inscription was unusual and apparently characteristic of this particular felon (who had not been caught by the authorities last I heard).

I purchased the sword for what it was, a WWI period Turkish sidearm, and paid a small amount commensurate with that fact. When I was in Australia, a dealer spotted the sword with its inscription and begged me to sell it to him. I told him the inscription was almost certainly phoney. He still wanted the sword, and offered me twice what I paid for it (knowing that the inscription was phoney).

Next thing I see it in an auction catalog with a reserve of five times what he paid me and with a claim that it was an historically important relic from WWI. Thank God there was no made up "provenance" to go with the item. It was purchased by a very experienced Australian collector who should have known better.

This whole story taught me a lot about fakes and the market place. Basically there is a conspiracy between the forger and the person who buys a fake. The forger just wants to make a profit. The buyer deparately wants to own this item of "value," and if it is "rare" and a "great deal" so much the better. They have a common interest. But it is the middle man/dealer who makes the real killing!

Ian.

[John]

Originally Posted by Ian

...The buyer deparately wants to own this item of "value," and if it is "rare" and a "great deal" so much the better. They have a common interest. But it is the middle man/dealer who makes the real killing!

Ian.

...so true!

[erlikhan]

Yes. All of us focus on the part which adds the item rarity compared to other samples of its type. And fakers focus on those parts too. Perhaps a collectioner must behave like this: if a collectioner's experience is not too much and can't exactly determine the offered item is fully authentic or not, he must just decide if the item would look to other people as much convincing as it looks to himself or not. He must depend on his experience just that much. If the item doesnt look really suspicious to me, it means it would not look suspicious to most of other average collectors who are in vast numbers too. So I would stay on the safe side, would be able to resell it without loss or with some or more profit when I want to. That is the main point of Ian's story too I think. The dealer considered that of course not in good faith-most dangerous character for collectioners-, but he knew it was authentic enough to convince most collectors, and the collector which bought it thought like I wrote above. He can still resell it to someone, and I am afraid there are so many pieces like that circulating in market.

The real problem starts if a real expert checks your new item and explains it is a fake. So you must hide the fact and lie to others, to be able to get rid of the item which you will immidiately start to hate and you will not stand to see it anymore. While offering it, what will you tell your friends or any potential customers if they ask you about its authenticity? Will you be honest or not? So,simply never show your already owned items to real experts for your brain and soul comfort. Do it in advance if you can, or hide forever.