All our Damascus is real and not just an acid etch. Damascus is a mixture of 1095HC and 15N20 nickel carbon. You heat them up together and then fold the bar over and over to get the desired layers, ours are 396 layers. Then you burn the blade in acid, and it turns the nickel satin color and the high carbon turns blackish gray. This is how the layers are exposed to show the layers of the new steel created coined "Damascus". All Damascus is acid etched to show the layers. If you high polish the metal it will be shinny satin like all steels. Only after you burn the sides of the blade with acid do you see the layers of the two steels. Makes sense? After we make our knives we high polish the handles and put an edge on the blade. The high polishing buffs off the acid burned layer of the handle, and the blade edge is sharpened and the acid burned edge becomes satin. You can re-burn the tang of the blade near the handles and the edge of the blade and it will show the layers once more.