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Old 19th January 2017, 11:46 PM   #13
Jim McDougall
Arms Historian
 
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Route 66
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Actually I see both sides of the 'story'. As a historian, I see weapons as a kind of montage of distinguishing features and elements which represent the entire working life of the piece. In many respects, its disposition after being removed from its working life, whatever the case, sometimes presents interesting subsequent history in who might have held it as either trophy or collected.

I entirely see what David is saying though, in that this seems more a case of deliberate defacing of an otherwise extremely attractive sword in the too often seen deception of 'innovative' sellers. The often crude and ersatz character of Confederate weaponry has encouraged all manner of contrivances labelling many types of unusual arms as 'Confederate'.

Sometimes these ploys are almost bizarre, as in this case. We can think of any number of tenuous speculations as to how a Filipino sword might have fallen into Confederate hands but even as a novelty, why would someone insist on placing their name and unit info on the weapon. One of the most typical aspects of actual Confederate arms as I have often read, is that there are seldom such unit or personal data emplaced on them. Obviously there are exceptions, but few.

I think David is right, and this defacing should be removed if possible without causing further damage. If these persons trying to create deceptive historical identity for weapons were only intelligent or skilled enough to at least KNOW something of the history they are trying to allude to, they might be more of a threat.....instead they are just vandals.
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