Diplomat's Dagger for Review

[plumbob]

True that, Cog...but it's more likely that the entire crossguard was replaced, in view of it's bubbly metal above the wings and the horrendous eagle details. If such a thing happened, I'm thinking that someone cast one from using the old de-nazified crossguard to form the main part of the casting mold and hand carved in the rest to include the missing bit. Unfortunately, the hand carving job was done by, apparently, a drunken grade schooler in shop class. None of the other metal parts exhibit any of this crude metal, so this is looking rather likely. So, unfortunately, this would leave us with a once original and quite costly dagger that was mutilated and extremely poorly "repaired". Where then would this piece be classified? Original with repro repair work? Or would this be, for all sakes and purposes, considered a parts dagger with a non-original crossguard? And what kind of value would be placed on it-if this was the case?

That’s what I was trying to say in post 26 William. Thanks for putting it into far better words than I could.
Rod

[Wagriff]

Personally, I think that I would almost prefer to have a well made repro crossguard installed and just keep the mutilated one, but some collectors think that even the smallest original part should be saved if possible. It might be something that can never be definitively proven for sure, but I think your theory is about as close as a person is going to come on this one, Rob! Good thinking!