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Post by mrbadexample on Jan 5, 2019 14:35:39 GMT
Here’s a thought I’ve been mulling over. When did Civil War fakes start getting churned out in great numbers? I have a pretty good idea that it started earlier for bowies, but I’m not sure about swords, especially the less common ones. Back in the late 80’s, my family went to Gettysburg. There were a number of antique shops in town, and one of them had a jumbled bin of swords. There was a musician’s pattern 1840 in there that really caught my fancy. I was all set to shell out the whopping sum of $80 for it (it would have cleared out my 11 year old savings), but my father vetoed this decision. It was to be another 7 years before I started the collection, and it was with nothing even remotely as good as an 1840 musician.
I still regret not getting it. It’s a cool pattern, but I’m not ready to spend what good condition examples go for these days. I guess it would make me feel better if the one that got away was a fake. From what I can remember, it looked legitimately old, but I can’t really say. Were there fakes of similar patterns circulating already before the boom in Civil War interest of the 90’s?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 6, 2019 14:11:19 GMT
The centennial was when the first real push for ACW reproductions began. Even after WWII, there was still a lot of "stuff" around but the centennial brought demand not just for swords but uniform/regulation items. "The House Of Swords" was one such company that produced a number of sword types, from trooper cavalry swords to cutlasses and fancy presentation swords.
By the 1980s you have a greater presence growing with Atlanta Cutlery (before Museum Replicas was even born) and even Lynn Thompson (Cold Steel) dipping his toes in the import pond.
Post WWII saw another surge in general and GIs from WWII and Korea not only collected bring backs but ushered in the swords such as the Spanish made wallhangers of the 1950s.
$80 for an authentic period musician sword in the 1980s would have been a fair dealer price but premium for a reproduction at that point.
Fair condition musician swords without a scabbard can be found on eBay at about the $200 level (or less on a good day). Swords with sound original scabbards are getting scarcer and pricier.
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