All collectors are individualists; some clean their weapons and try to take them back to former glory, while others don’t do anything, or only clean a blade, reluctantly, if it is in a real bad shape. I guess I am in the middle, as I don’t mine some patina on a blade, but if it is too much I will clean the blade, and etch it if it watered. When I got my first tulwar (see Rawson: The Indian Sword. Danish Arms and Armour Society, Copenhagen, 1967. Page 46) it was patinated very patinated and not even evenly, only faint watering could be seen here and there. So to persuade myself that I had to clean the blade was fairly easy, and to try and etch the blade was a logical consequence of the cleaning. For those of you who have the above-mentioned book, it will be clear what a difference it made to the blade.
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