People talked about this all the time, but I never saw proof of a “fake” unconditional. I’m not saying they didn’t exist, just that I never saw one.
You have to remember at the time that salvaging was not a sure thing. More often than not trying to salvage that perfect sword hilt left you with a pile of iron. At the beginning perfect upgrades, like a 3/1 vamp hilt, went for 100k. So trying to get this bug to work meant putting a lot at risk.
You used to be able to sell 10/8 furious hilts for 20k-30k… but I digress.