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Originally Posted by ariel
Well, as we all know, there are literally hundreds and thousands of arms and armor pieces coming from India to e-bay, and from there being re-sold all over.
There are 3 major groups: rusty and often broken tulwar handles and daggers of unknown purpose; combination pieces, mainly old and rusty handle ( see above) and newly-made blade; and flagrantly new and pretentiously lavish objects that are presented as "old", "antique", "mughal" etc.
Yes, India just like China bans exportation of antiques. But being a democratic country, Indian laws and punishments are likely to be not as draconian as in China. Thus, it must be easier and safer for them to mail real antiques of lesser or absent historical value.
As to the "lavish" ones, one needs to remember that what seems to be lavish to us, is likely to be dirt cheap to manufacture in India due to their low labor costs. Also, there are plenty of highly qualified masters capable of doing really good job for very little money. And, finally, asking prices are rising like crazy: what was offered for $10 several years ago, nowadays is offered for hundreds and thousands. Although many items can be bought with an offer not exceeding 10-20% of the listing price, giving a good idea of their intended profit margin.
In my experience, 99.999% of really good and old stuff comes from Europe/USA ( likely originally also from Europe) as remnants of the colonial era. IMHO, buying antique weapons from India is foolish: one will end either with a piece of junk of with a newly-made souvenir.
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china .. you can pretty much export at will out of the country.. but there is little there. chinese mostly under the manchus were not permitted side arms..
mostly its ethic minority stuff or very crude all the good stuff was destroyed or in museums and government collections.. or the very old like bronze stuff.. risky to buy and no really knowledgeable collectors in china so no very good references..
ethnic minority items are the way to go.. sending them is easy . put in package and send.. no problems..but the areas where these are available are very isolated and in big chinese cities prices are.. humorous..
moving from autonomous zones where there is a large military presence into Chinese areas can result in seizure though, as things like knives swords ect in china are actually technically illegal and even their production needs permits. !!! crazy but its really ever enforce to outsiders or even locals. ..
india its the worst for exporting antique stuff. you never know if its going to get blocked.. if it looks nice there is a good chance it might. it is rought like the stuff on ebay mostly ok.
where as china dosnt care what people export.. drugs.. weapons.. organs.. anything you want.. disruption is bad for business. .. they dont care.
in india the customs people see it as a profitable business to check everything..