How Can I Determine The Authenticity Of A Sword?

It was important for each officer to make swords and sabers handy with their dress code on both sides of the Civil War as these were traditional weapons on that time.

All sergeants, cavalrymen, artillerymen and musicians who were enlisted in the Union army wore these swords rather than plain ones; design of these swords was made specifically for fighting purpose than dress.

Reputable smiths made extremely valuable well preserved antique blades that are very high rated in their market value that is why art of sword making is considered very worthy. Second quality swords are forged today that are actually counterfeits because of this world wide increasing number of enthusiast novice collectors have two most serious concerns to antique blades.

One is supposed antique that they want to purchase made by reputable smith and they need authenticity for that one. Second main concern is price of that classic style swords which they actually want to buy.

These are actually counterfeits because of hidden fatal flaws that are made by known smiths who are producing second quality product considered as supposed swords. The large market of these supposed swords have increased the risk of buying.

This article also explains the issues about how to determine the authenticity of the blades, because our academic study and keen observations of our artist can now detect these fatal flaws.

Authentication:

The whole process is given below to determine the authenticity of a sword;

Many modern smiths are mostly using aluminum blades to reproduce the swords. You can detect these aluminum blades by using magnetic effects that attracts the steel but not showing any effects on aluminum. Blades of handmade swords are made of purely steel. This difference can clearly determine the authenticity of real one or antique sword.
Machine made blades has stamped serial numbers on the sword that are not real.
Blades of traditional swords were not much sharpened all the way but these swords has sharpened blade all the way to the base where it joins the hilt.
As the time passes, tang appears to by rusty and ages, it becomes smoother from brown to deep black and less distinct that is the sign of original old sword but you can see sharp and crisp file mark of tang on these supposed swords.
Replica swords and rapid increase in machine made swords during world war time have an etched temper line that is not similar to real tempering; you can examine it with magnifying glass.
Handmade swords also have visible grains in the steel of blade that caused because of forging; while manufactured, this blade passed from different forging methods. Old Japanese swords are also recognized by these visible grains. You may not find this sign in old swords and it would be difficult to recognize for the beginners but still this visible grain is actual recognition of handmade swords.
Mostly old handmade swords need repeated polish.