I too have knives in my collection, and would be interested but generally shipping things from Australia is hecka expensive too. Generally, I add things, with interesting stories to my collection. My oldest sword is privileged information but my favorite is the first one I got.

In 1990 I was visiting Edinburgh on business for Sun, and I wanted a Claymore in celebration of my Scottish ancestry. At the Haymarket, I met an antique salesperson who let me in on the sad truth that a "real" one would set me back $40,000+ in 1990 dollars. But he mentioned that the British Museum sometimes sold "extras", swords which weren't particularly significant or not something they were going to add to the collection but selling them raised funds to cover costs. And he gave me the number of a curator of the Arms and Armor section of the museum.

I called and spoke to the curator who told me that no, they didn't have, nor would they sell me a sword from their collection, but they did do business with a swordsmith in Whitburn who they sometimes used to make copies of swords in their collection so that they could display the copy and preserve the original. This smith had worked with them for years and made a point about re-creating the original process as closely as possible. The curator gave me contact information for the swordsmith[1].

I called the swordsmith and explained to him what I was trying to accomplish and he understood right away but explained that it would be expensive. Making these copies often took months to make. I told him that was okay and asked what he would charge me, his answer was 1,500 pounds[2], 750 up front and 750 on completion. He had a sword he was making for the museum and it would make a good template for the one he would make me. I agreed to his terms and across a bunch of timezones on two different continents managed to arrange a wire transfer to his account for the 750 pounds.

I returned from Scotland and told my wife the whole thing and she was skeptical and thought I had burned up $2,000 on a silly idea. About five and a half months letter I get a telegram (yes, honest to goodness "YOUR SWORD IS READY STOP SEND BALANCE STOP ..." etc kind of thing. I called him on the phone and he agreed to make a crate for it and to ship it via counter to counter service of British Airlines (they had a couple of different non-stop flights to SFO). We had a discussion about customs and duties and whether or not I wanted the sword tempered as it would have been in the 15th century, or not. The plan was to not temper it, making it somewhat useless as a "real" sword, and declaring it as a "Work of art, made of metal" (no duty required). He gave me the flight number they would ship it on and I wired him the rest of the funds.

A few days later I went to SFO to pick it up, inquired at the BA desk and they redirected me to customs. I went to customs and they said, "This isn't a work of art, this is a sword. You owe 10% duty on it." I tried to explain to them that the Venus de Milo was just some pottery with no arms but they were having none of it. They stuck firm and asked what I paid for it. I told them "1,500" so they charged me $150 duty.He didn't ask the units, and I didn't offer :-).

A bit less than a year later, the smith called me and explained that he had thrown out his rotator cup (shoulder injury) which made it impossible for him to make swords. He had someone looking for a Claymore and they would pay 5,000 pounds for it, would I be interested in selling mine. And I said "No, this is something I want my kids to inherit."

[1] A place called Whitburn Arms.

[2] The exchange rate at the time made this somewhere between $3,000 and $4,000 USD.