But antiques and something you have an active interest in is cool!
I'd rather have 1 $5,000.00 authentic antique sword than 50 $100.00 authentic replicas. Just sayin'. Nothing against the OP nor his collection (I do see how it can be read as me being a snobby asshole in saying that but I certainly do not mean to knock the OP . . . other than the fact that I still think he's compensating for reading about meat missile mud baths) but I guess it's just not my thing.
<--- Consumer, not really a collector.
Well, real swords are forged usually. Most are machined forged and hammered, but a few of mine are hand made completely. That means they are limited production runs. Which means they do appreciate in value to collectors at least. Unlike collectable sports cards or comics of "limited" runs where limited means enough made for everyone on the just about to own one, these are much smaller batches. Limited to a few thousand usually or less.
They also do have some functional use as well. Swords CAN be used for fun. Some people use swords to train with. I've been using the Chinese Jian, which is a tai chi blade, for a bit now. Great for building upper body strength when you are extending outwards a piece of metal weighing a few pounds from your body in slow motion. They you can do things like that video I linked to. Destroy stuff with them. Great thing is, as long as you aren't stupid and trying to cut something solidly dense, they aren't going to break. Which means even if they get a few scratches it is easy to polish them up to make them look like new again. Just have to properly care for them every few weeks with wiping them down and some light oil.
Then again if a zombie invasion happens a good sword or two might be handy to have
As silly as it sounds I used to do SCA long ago. It was fun for the fighting only. Never got into the other fluffy stupid stuff like dressing up, talking weird, or hanging out at ren faires all day. Nope, it was pure workout fun. Going out with a metal helmet on, some padding, protective gloves, and solid pieces of rattan wood. Then start knocking on each other. The bruises and welts I got from that were some of the biggest I've ever had in my life. This coming from a major sports player of soccer, baseball, volleyball, and football for most of my life.
Some people like to do blunt edge on edge actual sword fighting instead of using rattan sticks. The real wimps use that foam LARP crap. To me the stick fighting was good enough.
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