When I worked at Manion's Auction House writing catalog descriptions, the late Eric Johansson shared many stories about his friend Joe Walters, and the fake stuff that Walters had mixed into his "House of Swords" catalogs. It was interesting to hear of how Eric did his "Pickelhauben" book that was published in 1980 or '81, and the collectors he visited to have the photos taken. Yes, Joe Walters had many engraved Civil War swords made up in ?Spain, from what I remember about some of those stories.
I was lucky when I got my first catalog from House of Swords and I called to see about buying one of the several Prussian Red Eagle neck orders in the catalog, and recall my disappointment when I found out they were all sold. When I first met Eric Johansson many years later, he told me that all of those Red Eagle Order neck orders were fakes that were in the catalog. I dodged a bullet with them, apparently.
It was an interesting experience working at Manion's auction house. It was almost like going to a military collector show 5-days a week, every week.
When I left in 1998 (several years before the tornado hit the business), they were 2 or 3 auctions behind in their payouts to consignors. They were basically "robbing Peter to pay Paul", so as to say with their payout scheme to consignors. It seemed that it only got worse, and a lot of consignors lost a lot of money with items that ended up selling in the following years time, and they never ended up getting paid for their sold consignments.
A good friend of mine lost over $10K from 3rd Reich books they sold for him, and never paid him. They would lie to him and tell him the check had been sent in the mail, and he would never receive it. This was several years after I left, and I recall it was after Ron had sold the business to Jodi Tucker. A lot of people lost a lot of money there, unfortunately.