Do you know anything about this maker?
This guy sells a variety of knives on eBay. Can someone with more experience tell me anything about these knives?
Banderas custom knives
Thanks
Tom
The knives Antonio makes appear to be high quality work as much as I can see blowing up the pictures. Handle fit and finish appears to be excellent as well. They appear to be a good value as well if you can get a good bid on them. He has very high (99.99%) customer feed back after 2325 customer sales, so I would trust that you get at least what you pay for. Other knives on his site are also similar in quality and prices... most are well under a 100 bucks!
I would buy one just for the collector value in resale. I could get at least 300 at a show if they are anything like what you see in the pictures.
The pictures don't show any closeups of the blade/guard fit or the pommel attachment.
I would guess they are Indian or Pakistani Damascus. Look at the sheath. It's that semi shiny Pakistani looking water buffalo leather with a very poorly thought out snap strap.
Antonio Bandaras? Really..
Thanks guys, pretty cool looking knives. What about the types of steel he uses? I see a few different types but I know nothing about what to look for.
Shrug....on my horse saddle leather sheaths they look shiney like that...it is from wax....
If it's good quality damascus most of those are losing money just on materials. They look nice in the pics. For the money they're probably plenty attractive, I just wouldn't expect them to be as solid and long lasting as you might hope. Look at it this way, the ones with damascus guards probably have at least a reasonable chance of the blade being decently hardened. Assuming mechanically sound handle construction the knife's probably fairly nice for the money. If I was looking for a low cost show piece I'd seriously consider one. For example, as part of a renfaire outfit where it has to perform some basic cutting chores but nothing too strenuous and the priority is looking really good.
