Caveat Emptor
 

E-bay always had a sprinkling of dealers selling fake swords.
Several years ago they became almost insignificant vis-a-vis an onslaught of
fakers from China: brazen, greedy, totally tasteless but , fortunately, pretty predictable and, often, pathetically stupid.
Then there was a new influx: India. Those were much more sophisticated, sold higher quality fakes and occasionally even hinted at truth. Those were "half-fakers".
It seems to me that we are in the middle of two large waves: Georgia (pushing gaudy , stamped "Cossack" shashkas and kindjals) and Malaysia/Indonesia/Philippines , with arsenal quantities of Panabases, kampilans, Mandaus etc, etc.
Some of them are so pathetic that even a non-specialist like myself can detect the fake. Some, probably, are good enough to fool an expert (after all, how sophisticated one needs to be to forge a "primitive" weapon and to make it look worn and dirty?)
Am I missing any other wave ?

Ariel

I have seen some fake African tribal stuff as of late on ebay.

Lew

By 'fake,' do you mean made by someone other than the respective tribe of origin, or more-or-less mass produced tourist items like the piles of stuff you can buy when you visit places like "The Bomas of Kenya," or from street hawkers in Nairobi (which might have actually been made by a Kikuyu, or whatever, just not for real use)?

Spoken like a true lawyer....
By fake I mean a low (or lower) quality weapon produced en masse or in small series, using contemporary techniques and with the purpose of presenting it as a real antique item and selling it for a price appropriate for a real item.
A "fake" can be :
-"total" (Witness Chinese " eximious Japanense samurai commanding officer katana in a rosewood vagina"
-"partial" ie old blade in contemporary scabbard etc
There may be others.
Quoting Bill -the -Prez, " it depends on what your definition of is is"
Did I pass the bar?

I mean fake as in making it look old by rusting the blades and trying to give the wood a distressed look or old looking patina. The prosecution rests!

Lew