Rapier with flaberge blade (Victorian?)

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by fernando

Comes to mind the (double) interpretation of educational; to enlighten viewers of how such imitations may be deceiving or to show them in good faith the idea of how originals would be. I wonder how these things were textually tagged.
I visited both the Higgins and the Met in 2014. I assume such specimens were not there by then.

It is a matter of period. In the time of Schmidt et al (1870s +) the interest in armor collecting (again focus was on suits of armor 'harness') was limited to those with considerable means. The early scholars who promoted the study of arms and armor were well aware of reproductions, and as authentic armor was not only not readily available, but terribly expensive.

The objective as I previously noted, was educational, so it seems that the examples of replicas were apparently placed noted as such, and where possible alongside originals. Bashford Dean, the first curator of the Met, was keenly interested not only in collecting, but educating on arms. This is why this original catalog of Schmidt was in facsimile presented to him in 1934.

John Higgins, who opened his museum in 1931 followed in much the same manner, with examples of replicas available at more reasonable prices in kind, to educate, so I would presume these were labeled accordingly. As noted, when the Hearst collection became available and many items were added which were original, most replicas were withdrawn aside from one or more select examples.

It appears that the Met withdrew many examples as well as authentic examples were acquired. As far as I have determined, these replicas, skillfully produced, served as examples to educate, not deceive, and were likely labeled accordingly.

As also noted, replicas shown alongside originals were intended to educate those with these interests to illustrate how to determine replica from authentic, so they would have to have been labeled as what they were.

The exception seems to have been the case with Laking, who included a photo of a replica of a famed harness, from a different angle adjacent to the original armor, again simply an educational situation, but did not label such photo as replica.

Given the museum situations in modern times, the numbers of exhibits of arms have dwindled, much of their holdings doomed into storage. I recall some years back researching a sword pictured in Stone (1934) buy they could not offer much information, noting the the photo in Stone was the last time it was handled and photographed, in 1911!

[fernando]

... and as we say in my neck of the woods: "He who doesn't have a dog, hunts with a cat" .