Pat, I have not seen any recently done personalized swords, but have encountered other earlier examples made after the war. I don�t know if there have been any updates in the last few months or not. But not too long ago I think that it was �wotan� a moderator from another forum who reported what he was seeing at German shows. My best recollection is that there were one or two dealers who had very some very questionable items like etched RAD hewers and I think a couple of other items. My recollection also is that he had some other things to say about the seller(s) which I don�t remember, but they were not favorable.
Something I saw not recently, but perhaps two or three years back was one of the small so called �DJ� knives having an aluminum hilt and stag grips. It had the HJ emblem in the grip, and an etched blade with an Olympic motif and paint filling in the etching. No knives of this configuration have ever been (from reliable sources) reported as being brought back by GI's, they are late postwar.
I would like to post an image, but it�s not my intellectual property, and it was from another source. In the image it can be very clearly seen that the blade has a perfectly done polish typical of many HJ knives. The problem is this: The blade has very obviously been damaged after it was polished. The damage is not just a single defect, but is in multiple locations. The etching is on top of the damage. Not underneath - but on top!! Which means that the one doing the very well executed etching (and painting) had to see that the blade was significantly damaged. In the 1930�s, on a supposed Hitler youth item??
If you reread Jim Atwood�s book he tells of thousands of parts and some assembled items leftover from the war in Solingen. His name has been linked to more than a few postwar creations. He and Roger Steele did not get their postwar blades from China, they came from Germany which is what JT is saying. Regards to you and JT, FP
