I understand the ceremonial importance of "Surrender your weapon," but I can't help but hope that they actually do get to take their workmanship home, both for their own personal sentimental value but also because displaying their "Forged in Fire" work would make great advertising for their forges.
shareDidn't they have an episode where the bladesmiths had to use failed weapons of pay contestants?
shareI saw that a couple of days after I posted the question. But since those were just blades, not finished weapons, I'm holding out the hope that at least the finalists get to keep theirs, winners or losers.
shareThe winners might be asked whether or not they want to keep them but I'm pretty certain that you can see the weapons made by (at least some) finalists hanging on the wall in the "judging" room (the one they go in to judge the weapons/blades). This is in Season 2 so not sure about later stuff.
shareInteresting article. Thanks!
shareThey have to be surrendered for legal reasons. NYC is so anti-2nd Amendment that the bladesmiths would be committing felonies by forging those weapons where it's filmed if they weren't props that have to be surrendered to the production company. Though some of NYC anti-knife laws have been overturned they are still illegal there for now. From the Village Voice paper.
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/how-a-50s-era-new-york-knife-law-has-landed-thousands-in-jail-6662589
Not sure how that works, seeing as how the guy who won the competition tonight has his shop right in Brooklyn.
shareI could see maybe surrendering the weapon you made while in their forge on the show, but I wouldnt give up the one you made using your own materials in your own home forge for the final competition.
Channel Six News, they'll finger anything with a pulse!
This came from the show itself when I asked them on facebook,
"The network owns the blades. Some are displayed on the wall of the set."
A friend of mine won this once. Yes, they had to surrender the weapon, but to be fair, they basically got paid $10,000 for it, so... ;)
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"Normal is Boring" - Me
Probably why the host in one episode kept saying he wished he could have kept that weapon for his own collection two or three times.
shareA Bladesmith I follow on YouTube was on 2 weeks a ago. He did a non spoiler video and he posted that all blades are kept by the show.
He plans on doing a more in depth video on what exactly happened to his blade at some time.