Yeah, I hear you. Sad thing is, this seller has 100% positive feedback and over 20,000 transactions. There must be a lot of naive buyers out there. This was his response: “we are really sorry about the inconvenience you had as these minor scratches should not be there, as far as those spots are concerned which are called ball spots are due to forging, Damascus steel is alloy or carbon and steel which forged into layers and some of the time it happens, this is true Damascus and not etched, we have been selling for over ten years and have more than 20000 feedback.”
But there’s no sign of Damascus pattern on the bald spots, in addition to no smooth transition there—it’s a sharp cut off. Plus, the back side of the exposed blade shows no pattern either (I looked up close with a 30x magnifier).
The seller (damascus007) listed the auction as no returns, but is offering me a 40% discount or a return. I’m going to return it. When there’s a return, there’s no feedback. So maybe that’s how he escapes the criticism (since if he refused, there would be negative feedback due to the deception).
I’d be curious to know if you’re able to look directly at his auctions and see for yourself if it’s possible to ascertain that his claims are true, or he’s peddling a massive scam.
Anyway, I appreciate all the details you provide, though overwhelming. I do realize that you have to pay many hundreds to get really good quality Damascus steel blades. My hope was to get a mediocre example that is at least the simulated Damascus steel by process, not by faux surface etching. But in the end… I think I’ll let go of this. The “white powder carbon steel” sounds more interesting and within a more practical budget. Where do you suggest looking on-line?
UPDATE: Interesting that the seller issued me a refund and stated “please cut the blade part right from the centre and see it’s genuine or not, we are not the trader it’s our family business for the last 40 years and we never sell anything fake and offer money back guarantee on our products.”
So I made another pass at examining the knife up close. I did find a consistency of pattern from one side of the blade, across the top, and to the other side. No “flawed” match of pattern. On the back end of the knife, what seemed devoid of pattern with the naked eye revealed that there is a pattern there. It’s just most of it was covered up from the grinding. But it was uneven, so I could see the layered steel pattern within it.
Thus… it looks like this may actually be some primitive, rough form of Damascus styled steel. And that bald spot was just an unlucky happenstance of unfolded steel in the mix. That’s what I can perceive from the examination. This seller must not have a very good command of the language, as he could have tried to explain things better.
UPDATE #2: Rather than wiping out everything here, I just wanted to point out that the seller gave me a full refund and told me to keep the knife (“too expensive to mail back”). With the cosmetic fault, he’d probably not be able to resell it anyway, so it wouldn’t make sense to send back as it is. I wonder if there’s something I could do to the back end of the knife to help get the rest of the Damascus lines to come through?