Wootz ingots, where do they all come from?

[Jens Nordlunde]

Jeff, what you write, and show, is most interesting, and I am sure it is new to most, if not all, the readers of this thread. The word wootz has, to collectors of Oriental arms, had an almost magical spell to it, you have however made the magic spell evaporate, and leave us with ‘Wootz is not wootz, unless it is wootz – of course’.

We, the collectors, should have been able to figure out, that ‘industrial trash steel’ in some case would produce a ‘kind’ of wootz if treated the right way, although I think few of us have thought along this lane.

Your explanation, about the way the pattern show, is very good and easy to follow, even for a layman, who has never worked with iron/wootz/steel. The pictures you show illustrates very well what you write in the text, and the two blades are very nice.

Please show us pictures of the whole knives.

Jens