I have no bone in this fight, I am an edged weapons collector, but I am interested in manufacturing techniques.
The way Antonio is presenting his case on WAF is most confusing. His presentation is not very scientifically done, with poor descriptions of his testing and he is not saying much about his test method and what inaccuracies can occur for such tests.
His findings on the "inner band" is interesting in the fact that there is a different composition of silver there than on the rest of the ring. But there is (at least for me) just more questions arising about the way these rings were tested. -Were all rings tested at the same exact spot on the "inner band"? -Were more than one spot tested on each rings "inner band"?
My questions come up because the chemical composition he shows on the tested rings are so very different from each other. From 14% to 64% silver. Tin from 22% to 85%. Are these values consistent on all of the "inner band", from the back of the scull to the rear? For me these results are just showing that this is probably not a physical "Inner band" that has been made and in some way added to the silver ring. It is more like a smear of tin, uneven on the inside..?? Maybe the solder when finalizing the rings in the seam behind the scull run on the inside of the ring? If it was a seperate inner band added, I would assume the alloy was more or less identical in composition of silver and tin over time..
At least for me, until a lot more test data with accurate descriptions of how the data were extracted is presented, I do not believe in an "inner band", not yet.
