I made a point of leaving personalities out of this Rob but since you cited me directly I'll respond directly. As just a mere collector; IMO there are valid issues with this sword. The provenance is important because who owned it in past years can speak volumes about it. I, like my friend Pat who posted above, are extremely suspicious of 3rd Reich items and the higher priced the item the more suspicious we become. I've been in this hobby long enough to know of or have heard about some of the incredible crap that has gone on over the years. Until recently swords were generally considered safe from "improvement" because the prices realized didn't warrent it and many models(not the Luft) were difficult to modify because of the construction. The biggest area of fakery was the converting of police degens into SS degens which was easy to do and reaped great financial rewards. My own collection is open and available to view by anyone in the hobby including you. I have posted many items that are in my collection on GDC over the years as have many other collectors. As far as that reversed swastika sword goes in the other thread IMO,and this is just my opinion, yours and others were in all likelyhood made up post war of rejected but original parts. Can I prove this? Of course not. Again since I'm just a mere collector I'm sure my opinion doesn't carry the weight of a dealer who can't prove it one way or the other either. Oh! And again just my opinion; But Fred Stephens has probably forgotten more about etching then anyone else on this Forum knows and ditto for Fred Prinz when it comes to metal construction.
