If you smash it and toss it in a dumpster, some enterprising picker from Texas will show up the day before the trash men come and grab it and anything else that looks interesting and take it back home with him. In a week it will be in a pawn shop or up for sale on eBay as a Civil War sword with battle damage which they will say makes it authentic and raises the reserve price. They might know that it's a reproduction or they might not, but they will list it as genuine. If you sell it on eBay you will list it as a reproduction. If it sells, the buyer will know what he is getting and be satisfied with the transaction. If it doesn't sell, you can hang it over the fireplace as decor. It looks much nicer than those swords from India that used to be sold at Pier 1 back in the 1970's for $10.00 and show up on eBay today with starting bids of $70.00 to $120.00 as pre-Civil War British cavalry swords. And, you can take this one out in the yard and use it as a machete without feeling guilty about damaging are real $400.00 to $1,500.00 sword. While that may be loads of fun, you are probably not getting the experience you would have with a real sword that would probably handle much better than this one which will most likely feel like a blunt steel bar with a handle. If you ever decide to collect swords, it may be helpful to have a few reproductions around to help remind you what to look for. While photographs and message board postings can be very helpful (and I can't stress this enough), having a real or reproduction sword you can pick up and handle will communicate things that you can't get from books and postings alone. (I'm not really exaggerating about the pickers either. They used to drive through neighborhoods in Columbus, OH, snatching things before the trash collectors could 20 years ago. While I applaud recycling and re-purposing there are some cases where this must be done carefully or you create more havoc and trouble than you should. Two of these cases are recycling reproduction antiques and collectibles and reanimation of humans as practiced by Dr. Frankenstein.)