As long as you don't go too too deep, etching is pretty much a surface thing. So it depends, I guess, on how much you like the current surface and how comfortable you are surfacing/polishing things in general, or swords from a given culture. (just addressing the issue general, as Justin has pretty clearly stated his intent, and I for one am not at all interested in trying to argue him out of it). Pretty good point that the dark patinas many of us (including me) enjoy are not the original surface, either, and wouldn't be approved of in the original culture, in many cases; in fact "rusty junk" is a very usual dismissive charactarization by N Americans of the kind of blades I seek out. I love it though; if everyone wanted old black swords I wouldn't be able to get them, probably.
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