I own a long dagger/short sword. The hilt is in the design of the German eagle with its wings spread out as the hand guard and in the middle of the hand guard is a swastika. The scabbard is also adorned with swastikas on the top, mid section, and bottom.
I don’t want to own this piece as I don’t want to be seen as a Nazi sympathizer or anything of the sort, but I don’t want to sell it to someone who actually is a Nazi sympathizer or something like that.
What do I do with it besides trash it? I don’t want to trash it because it’s decent quality. It’s not historic in any way (which disturbs me to think about) but it’s well made.
What can I do with it?
*The item in question is not historical
All war used uniforms/weapons/equipment I’d say is historic. Even if it was just a helmet used in the civil war, or a soldiers flask in WWI.
It may not be individually a talking point for something historic, but it shows what they used at the time. Especially if you have multiple pieces from the same time period.
And as time goes on, it gets more important. Because as time moves forward, and we have so many advancements in our world, this piece will not advance. Always a visualisation of its time.
Right now I don’t think anyone would consider pieces from the afghanistan war to be “historic”, but the things we currently see as modern, will be relics in 100 years.
We’re barely and I mean BARELY getting to that point of the Viet Nam war pieces seeming as relics.
I think a good rule of thumb is “if the soldiers who would have used the item would have died of old age by now, THEN it’s a relic.”
Which this certainly is. Which is why I think it should be in a glass case, with a little description on its history.