I believe I recall Blazer and Arim saying that they do this and if anyone else happens to do so that would be nice to see. Though even if there aren't 3 people is a pretty high number in a place like this.
Spoiler
Considering that I only have two swords in possession and don't actually intend on buying more of them it may seem somewhat strange that I would even consider myself a sword collector but just these two give me enough to talk about as-is.
The first sword I bought was the British Royal Horse Guards 1832 Officer Dress Sword which at the time I had thought by far to have the best aesthetic within my preferences relative to the price, as at the time it was on sale for a little less than $150 IIRC. It was also priced in that way primarily because it was not actually a high quality production but rather a defective product that was still worth selling.
And...to be honest, as someone who almost never goes online shopping I had mistakenly took the advertised image too seriously. I'm not claiming that the website that sells this stuff has low credibility or anything because the sword does seem to be what it's supposed to be, but the use of particularly marketable lighting and more specifically the omission of a certain angle that hides a certain feature it possesses caused me to make a purchase that was not quite as well-informed as I would have hoped it would be.
Spoiler
As you can see in the close-up photo, it looks a lot less appealing in comparison to the advertisment when in less specialized lighting conditions and it has a particular engraving in it that I really wish wasn't actually there. It looks like something I would have attempted on a whim in a college project (since I have actually engraved in silver before) rather than anything professionally done.
Overall the sword does lack a certain elegance to it that I would have expected from the advertised image, but I really can't get mad over this because when I am both stingy and picky about what I purchase for obvious reasons my options are severely limited. I think part of the reason for why I couldn't tell how nice it would look in real life is because it had been too long since I had seen a sword in real life, which made my estimate of the actual size of the weapon quite inaccurate.
One serious issue I do have is that the guard appears to only be brass plated rather than fully made of brass because trying to sand off a particularly oxidized place revealed to me that it was colored silver beneath. Why they actually did this I do not know as brass is not a particularly expensive material from what I can remember.
For all its problems though, which should be expected from a cheap sword, the blade etchings are better than I would have expected them to be, with little that can be said to be crude about it. If I recall correctly in jewelry class there was this one indian girl who told me engraving is all the rage back in her home country and I would presume the similarities in the purpose of etching and engraving explains why the company(based in India) that manufactures this stuff can afford to do so and sell their swords at a fairly low price alongside criminally underpaid workers and for all I know outright slave labor.
This sword has no optimization whatsoever for actual use and the size of the handle truly taught me what it meant for a sword to be one-handed. Both because I only do minimal exercise and because the sword was not balanced for use as a weapon, not being able to reliably two-hand this makes it impossible for me to use it without very awkward movements unless I hold it in reverse grip(far less pressure on the wrist), which it was obviously not intended for as my knuckles are exposed with the direction the guard faces if I do so. The reverse grip does have an advantage in that it decreases the range of the weapon, making it less difficult to use inside my house against thieves and date rapists should the need arise, though I seriously doubt the latter is ever going to happen again as I rarely leave the house(or start unnecessary relationships in real life to begin with) or let others in now. It also just feels less natural to use it that way which is a very important factor given that I do not actually know any specific techniques for striking someone with a real sword outside of using my body's momentum to get as much force out of it as I can.
The second sword I bought is the British Midshipman's Dirk for $120 (same conditions as the first, defective product for a lower price) and I made this choice mostly because of my experience with the first purchase. I bought this sword because it felt awkward having only one sword on a three sword stand (which was an old gift from someone who didn't realize I did not actually possess any swords at the time), because of the contrast it had with the first sword with the white rayskin handle and the black scabbard, because I had actually used this type of sword before in an MMO where getting a better weapon than the default was both fairly difficult and not particularly beneficial, and because if it was going to be poorly balanced and heavier than it should be anyway a short weapon would suffer a lot less from the drawbacks and be significantly preferable for use at home in situations where I should defend myself against someone in my home with non-lethal violence.
Originally I was the type of person who would prefer a gun for home defense simply for its high effectiveness but guns have their drawbacks for situational reasons. It is far less accurate than a close range weapon if actually shot in the dark and the mere presence of it being there even if I don't actually fire it increases the seriousness of the situation extremely, meaning things could get a whole lot more dangerous than they should. It is also extremely difficult to give a justification for using it to society if I were to threaten someone I know, that entered my house with some level of permission, that does not intend to do a crime that warrants retaliation with the use of an extremely deadly object. There is no way in hell I am getting away with claiming I used a weapon as particular as a gun (outside of using it as a blunt weapon) without deadly intent. The sound of firing alone makes you far more suspicious to anyone in the neighborhood that doesn't know what is going on; alongside bullets, blood, and corpses, there are just too many social consequences in any case I am not facing someone who is straight up intent on assassination and full of incriminating evidence.
However, because I do not possess much strength, having a fairly long, blunt, durable steel object that was designed to be comfortable for the wielder to hold but not particularly inciting for an enemy to grab (it still looks like a blade, grabbing onto it is not an intuitive thought) gives me a sufficient advantage over anybody that has less reach, which should be the case almost every time outside of ranged weapons like guns. It being an ornate sword in the first place probably makes it less threatening but considering the rarity of the situation I don't think I should buy one for practical use only.
I have also tried using the former sword with half-swording, however this significantly reduces the range of my weapon for obvious reasons and significantly limits what I can actually do with it. It also tells people that you can, in fact, grab the blade. I have also tried using the sword inside of the steel scabbard, but this makes it particularly heavy and the weight distribution either favors trying to use it backwards which is not a particularly great idea with this specific kind of weapon or if I try to use pretend to use it like I'm half-swording the weight distribution is just way too awkward to use effectively, in both situations the weight simply makes striking with it far too slow. The scabbard alone can be used as a relatively efficient bludgeon but it is hollow and can presumably be dented with too much force and is obviously the easiest thing to grab. It also loses the advantage of the point of the sword which, while not sharp, still allows for very concentrated force in one location.
Anyway, onto the actual sword.
When I looked at the advertised images, there was a certain feature that I thought would persistently annoy me, those being the acorn-like ends of the guard. However, to my surprise, when the dirk arrived it was even smaller than I had expected it to be (cameras just make everything look bigger I guess) which minimizes how clearly I can recognize its details and the S-like curve looks much better as well. The brass of the sword also appears much less crudely shaped than the first and to my surprise the handle, in spite of rayskin being harder than I thought it would be, alongside all its bumps and the like, is not actually that uncomfortable. One thing I am somewhat puzzled by though is how snugly the hilt fits onto my hand, specifically when my hand is raised to the bottom of the guard. It seems like something anyone with big hands would have a lot of trouble trying to use.
The crown over the anchor symbol on the guard (which I presume is the symbol of the Royal Navy) is part of the reason I bought the sword in the first place, and I'm very glad it looks about as nice as it was advertised. I'm not sure why, but there's something about swords that were used in naval combat that appeal to me a lot more than ones that were meant for land. On that note, I must say that the length is incredibly well-suited to combat use indoors (it was meant to be used in a ship after all) and that I have a much higher appreciation for shorter weapons as a result of actual experience handling something like this, though I still have a hard time actually finding knives and daggers cool.
As expected, while the weight of the sword is probably heavier than it should be and not balanced that well, it is far lighter than the previous sword (which, I should mention, is an exceptionally long one-handed sword at over 39 inches of blade) and I can actually swing it with so little encumbrance that the speed is more or less equal to how quickly I can swing a fruit knife. It is a little more tiring, but the force behind it when I wield it certainly makes me feel fairly confident in the weapon. The exception, however, is when I am trying to thrust with it, which I can't really seem to do very well unless I switch to reverse grip (and that only applies to striking directly below me) but whether this is because I lack the technique or if it just wasn't meant to be very good at that, I'm not sure. It's probably the former.
Of course the lowered price has its drawbacks and upon taking the sword out of its sheath for the first time, there was one thing I have to say I was not by any means happy to see.
Spoiler
There is a crack in the blade that runs so long you can't miss it. If it wasn't for how the steel used in this is fairly soft, there would be a part of me concerned over its structural integrity and it is easy to see just why this was discounted. That said I can't really see any particular flaws elsewhere on the sword, and this issue isn't visible on the other side of the weapon, essentially meaning that this one crack saved me about 40 dollars on it, which sounds like a fair deal for a low-end product that was specifically mentioned as having defects. Overall I feel like both purchases were good enough to warrant the money spent, but if there's one thing that won't stop bothering me, it's that both of the swords I own are straight when I actually prefer curved swords.
For comparison, this is the sword I want most out of the selection the retailer I buy from offers, but it's also twice as expensive and does not serve as a convenient to use tool for self-defense. Buying this after the other two would also be kind of redundant as it shares design similarities to both of them. The swords I have now are like if they were once this sword and then split into two which somehow caused them to straighten out for some reason.
If I wanted to avoid being redundant, there were two other swords I took interest in. The first was the Agincourt War Sword from Windlass Steelcrafts' battlecry series, with an all black finish that gives it a malicious style that is only further accentuated by its realistic and practical shape with little in the way of decoration. This would be the kind of sword I would want to hold when I want to foster a zeal for carnage, as if it were the devil's gift. The second is the Skull Sword Cane from Hanwei for which I have similar feelings toward as the black sword except I suppose this one would give more of a drive for assassination with its nature as a concealed weapon. (It's not just the clothes that make the man...) However, neither are curved. x:
