u/BrentonLengel

As some of you may know, I recently was suckered into buying a cheap copy of the (Warder’s) Heron-Marked sword made by Fable Blades.

It arrived with huge scratches and scuffs on the crossguard, a ridiculously bad soldering job on the ring, and improperly sealed green-painted leather.

I was charged $230 for it because the (Pakistani) smith assured me it was “9260 Spring Steel” and was supposed to be “combat ready”.

Thanks to you guys, Etsy gave me my money back, so I decided to fix it up. Here’s the result of my work. I used gold chrome automotive paint, as well as black, red and White auto touch-up paint, painted and (properly) sealed the leather grip.

Honestly, the blade’s not that bad. It is a wall hanger (obviously) but I’m happy I was able to make something positive out of the experience.

Not sure if I’ll keep it, or sell it at a con.

So, a while ago I bought an alternative take on the "Heron-Marked Sword" from Wheel of Time (I *hate* the official one they made for the show) that looked very much like what I imagined when I first read the book.

I found a Pakistani sword maker on Etsy that was offering this one, which he advertised as:

"Hand-forged 9260 high carbon steel blade – oil-quenched & double-tempered for ~52Rc hardness" and later the guy I dealt with said it was "battle-ready".

Any tests I can do to verify this? At first glance the blade looks and feels of...reasonable quality, and I'm pretty sure it's full tang. I don't plan to battle with it, but as I have seen similar swords sold for less from other sword makers, I want to make sure I got what I paid for.

I also (unfortunately) found some serious scuffing on the hilt, and the soldering of the ring guard seems more than a little crude.

And I found that the blade was glued into the hilt, which is something I do with low-quality swords because I don't want them to rattle.

So, how best can I go about verifying that this sword is, in fact, as good as advertised?