Spartan sword and not only

[Matthew Amt]

And if you would make fakes, would you not make fakes with more "typical" appearance? :? wink:

Not necessarily! Remember that "Roman Trooper" helmet that got posted here on RAT a while back? It had been "aged" rather severly, with holes corroded in the metal, etc., and bought as an antiquity by some known dealer, apparently for something like fifty thousand dollars! Yet anyone who knew anything took one look at it and said, "Oh, a Windlass Trooper helmet! Piece of junk!" Another dealer had a Deepeeka Attic helmet similarly aged and on sale as an original--you could just about make out the screw in the top holding on the crest knob, even in the photos. I've seen things on ebay that seemed to be old files or drill bits being sold as Roman spearheads. There was that whole run of "Roman" swords all showing up over a couple months, all with (surprise!) solid cast bronze hilts and very similar blades, all remarkably well preserved.

So no, there is no incentive for a fake-maker to make his fakes realistic or in line with general expectations. Practically any piece of rusty junk will sell, for BIG bucks.

I've also seen an original patera handle being sold as a mirror handle. Lots of dealers mislabel their stuff simply out of ignorance, though it can be surprising just how little they know, at times. For all we know, these "Spartan" swords could be World War I trench knives, or something.

When I hear about a legitimate archeological dig that has turned up something new and different, I'm all ears. I LOVE new finds that make us say, "We were all wrong!" But when I see something for SALE (or has already been sold) that just doesn't look like anything I've seen before, and the story of its origin is a little vague (or a lot vague), I'm immediately going to suspect a fake.

Bottom line, Caveat Emptor. Valete,

Matthew