to restore or not to restore...

[Battara]

I did that once where I made the restoration obviously different from the original. The collector/customer never came back to me again.

It appears that the weaponry collecting community wants restorations that meld into the rest of the piece in my experience.

[Sajen]

I personally see it like with old cars, either bring it back to former glory or bring it working and in a usable condition. Who wants to collect wrecks?

Some samples of my collection before and after, choice by self!

[Sajen]

A few more. I would be able to show several more examples.

[gp]

Originally Posted by Sajen

I personally see it like with old cars, either bring it back to former glory or bring it working and in a usable condition. Who wants to collect wrecks?

Some samples of my collection before and after, choice by self!

Thnx a lot for your input, highly appreciated.

As for preservation I fully understand the need. But that requires often (almost) professional level knowledge with many cold weapons.
Or like Detlef showed very well and nicely clean to remove dirt and corrosion.

As for working condition, I doubt if many collectors can use a blade, knife, dagger, bayonet, sword, saber, rapier, or foil as it was intended or is to be used...

No disrespect intended but when I see my daughter fighting with a foil or some friends with a sword and saber, that's a complete different ball game.
So did I had to learn a lot to very slowly and carefully "repair" and restore a few antique foils I bought her with original spare parts ( antique as well) into working condition
Cost me a lot of blood, sweat but luckily no tears at the end: just a fine result.


Nevertheless it might also differ also from type of weapon, use, country and culture ofcouse. Hence having grown up between guys from Moluccan and Indonesian roots and or background, I fully understand and acept without any doubt their criteria and judgement. Also the respect for these weapons in general through my pencak years.

Talking Ottoman cold weapons in the Balkans is a complete different issue as they are very strict ( when I talked to folks of museums in Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Romania and Turkey ):
here a master level ( like Jose showed us) with a good explanation is required.
Otherwise non restored but preserved weapons only are (mostly) accepted.

Again... the eye of the beholder .

Nice to learn all your points of view as it enriches my knowledge about weapons. No need to point out that coins are no weapons, that daft I am not and for you with knowledge of English humor: not pretending to be Delboy neither is my name Trigger....


So looking very much forward to more contributions !