gpg2 export-secret-key if no master key present

[Marat Stanichenko]

Hello,


I created a master gpg key and an additional signing subkey. I also
backed up the whole .gnupg directory
to /my/save/place and deleted the primary key from the original .gnupg
directory by simply removing the
corresponding file under the private-keys-v1.d.

So far so good, gpg2 -K shows a sec# instead of sec and gpg2
--homedir=/my/save/place -K shows sec as expected.

However, if I run

 $ gpg2 --export-secret-keys --armor > secret-key

and

 $ gpg2 --homedir=/my/save/place --export-secret-keys --armor >
secret-key-original

both commands return something of similar size. Although results are different.


Could you please elaborate what exactly is returned in the former and
the latter cases?

What command one should run to get the private master key properly to
save with paperkey afterwards?


Many thanks in advance!