Ariel, you bring up my worst fears for the future to come! As a self-professed bargain-hunter and eBayer, it is sometimes very irritating to guess from a half-out of focus pic if you are getting a steal or getting robbed. The frustration of passing up on an item because you can't hold it in your hand! We're seeing this not only with Japanese weapons, but American "Confederate" items as well. Many of the fakes, with a little aging and fake patina, are hard to tell. To add confusion to the whole thing, then there are real weapons out there, but grossly misidentified. Many Spanish colonial swords look like Confederate D-guards, many Philippine bolos likewise. It has gotten to the point for me where I won't even look at the Japanese/Chinese/Tibetan stuff on eBay anymore...sigh.
