Quote Originally Posted by Dukeof Kircaldy View Post
The Paul Chen/Hanwei Scottish dirk is pretty nice for a modern repro. I have one of those and another early Scottish dirk possibly from Windlass. Both are pretty nice if you can find them at a reasonable price.

You can find some fairly good basket hilt claymores for around US$120 with postage. In particular Sussen on eBay's Scottish Culloden Basket Claymore broad sword - 5160. It is pretty close to the cold steel for significantly less. The basket hilt swords which go for less than what Sussen is selling them for aren't great. Acceptable if you want display pieces to stick behind a targe, but not much else.
I find that, especially in the case of Hanwei vs. Cold Steel dirks, the Cold Steel is vastly superior, in terms of blade durability and initial sharpness/grind. Not having much direct experience with either Cold Steel or Hanwei broadswords, I couldn't say if the same was true of them.

All that said, the Hanwei dirk does look much more historical than the Cold Steel.