Hello

In 2006, I visited Prague, and had the chance to take photos of weapons and armour showed there. I wasn't "into" WMA back then, and I had a little tourist camera I didn't know how to use... but the photos are still interesting I think.

Better yet, I later sent them to my trainer - who is also an armour smith - who commented in depth on several of these photos.

If you are interested, I can also post those he didn't comment on, and if there is a piece in particular that is of interest, I'm sure I can re-edit the photo to a higher quality.

One handed swords:
http://southtowerarmouringguild.blogspot.com/...art-1.html

Painted armour:
http://southtowerarmouringguild.blogspot.com/...rague.html

Late period bohemian armour:
http://southtowerarmouringguild.blogspot.com/...rmour.html

neat armour with a hilarious mistake:
http://southtowerarmouringguild.blogspot.com/...rmour.html

More armour:
http://southtowerarmouringguild.blogspot.com/...rmour.html

Black armour:
http://southtowerarmouringguild.blogspot.com/...astle.html

Helmets:
http://southtowerarmouringguild.blogspot.com/...rague.html


Cheers,

Pierre

I'm the only one that thinks that these are all reproductions?

Well, I wouldn't bet money on ALL of them being reproductions, but you're right in that many pieces give off that vibe. Swords, sabatons, spectacle helms... a lot of things do not look or seem right.

On the other hand, I am hardly an expert in any way. (Mercenary Tailor, when in business, had pictures of original pieces that had I seen them at a Ren Faire I would have labeled as modern.)



Edit: Looked again and am even more convinced.

No offense, but the swords look like heavy wallhangers, most with no historical equivalent I'm familiar with. Much of the armour just looks far too nice and clean, as well as out of proportion. The sabatons look like a joke to me, some of the leg pieces look like stove pipes, a few of the helms look like they belong at an SCA event.... So yeah, I'm not feeling it. Compare the lot with this: http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...mor+armour

My teacher commented that some of these weren't authentic either. All I can do is present what as at the Castle.

Yes, those are all reproductions - pretty lame ones, too, in my opinion. The painted shield makes me laugh - it looks like a velvet painting that would be in the house of a 1970s pimp.

[ Linked Image ]

Repro or not, I do like the Bohemian harness (although from the angle, it looks like the wing of the cop would keep your arm from bending a fair amount... reproduction?)

When I saw the photos of the swords, my first thought was that they were fakes. And while Colt may be forgiving to Pierre's teacher, I'm inclined not be. The fact that pretty much none of the swords, as far as I can tell, have any patination is an extremely obvious tip-off that the trainer/smith should have noticed, unless he doesn't spend time looking at surviving medieval arms and armour pieces. Another immensely suspicious thing is how short all of these swords appear to be: medieval swords are not consistently this small. One of the “Viking swords” appears to have no fuller whatsoever; another, which has a blade profile unlike any I've seen on a genuine Viking blade, has a fuller that looks far too thin to be plausible. The ring loop pommel on the TypeXIIIb blade does not add credibility either.

The other major tip-off that these are reproductions is the helmets section. Once again, the fact that there's no patination nor pitting on any of these helmets screams “reproduction”. Moreover, quite a few of the helmets depicted are rare types, as far as historical specimens go. There are way too many spangenhelms for a single collection, and the same holds true for nasal helmets. The presence of the flat topped great helm is also immensely suspicious, given the scarcity of surviving examples of these helms. If these helmets were original, Prague Castle would be hailed as having the greatest single collection of medieval helmets in all of Europe. Since that's not the case, I think we know just how authentic these pieces are.

I too was in Prague, not in 2006, but in early 2007. Are you sure, Pierre, that you didn't just take these photos at the Prague Castle shop selling lower-end reproduction swords and armour to test if anyone would notice? ;-) As for Pierre's trainer, evidently, the trainer has very little experience seeing and handling medieval arms and armour.

All this armour is locally made and sold by k+k art.
They're all very bad reproductions and interpretations..

I never visited this particular castle, but it's not so uncommon in Europe that castles have rather obvious fakes on display.

Sometimes even the captions describe them as being authentic to this-and-that century...

I can easily imagine someone who may have more experience with theatrical or reenactment weapons than with surviving antiques being led astray.

Hello

First, I do agree - and after looking at full resolution image - that the state of many of these armour pieces is surprisingly good. I'll also note that I never claimed this was a museum. When I did a search for "Prague castle weapon collection" - this very thread is the number one hit, which is a bit telling...

Craig Peters wrote:

When I saw the photos of the swords, my first thought was that they were fakes. And while Colt may be forgiving to Pierre's teacher, I'm inclined not be. The fact that pretty much none of the swords, as far as I can tell, have any patination is an extremely obvious tip-off that the trainer/smith should have noticed, unless he doesn't spend time looking at surviving medieval arms and armour pieces. Another immensely suspicious thing is how short all of these swords appear to be: medieval swords are not consistently this small. One of the “Viking swords” appears to have no fuller whatsoever; another, which has a blade profile unlike any I've seen on a genuine Viking blade, has a fuller that looks far too thin to be plausible. The ring loop pommel on the TypeXIIIb blade does not add credibility either.

For some reason, my trainer only commented on one photo - that was the "short sword" rack. There were other longer blades, which he never posted. I will be happy to post the full size images so we can better judge the state.

Quote:

I too was in Prague, not in 2006, but in early 2007. Are you sure, Pierre, that you didn't just take these photos at the Prague Castle shop selling lower-end reproduction swords and armour to test if anyone would notice? ;-)

No - I actually have photos of the gift shops, should you want to see them ;) But seriously, did you go to the Castle and see this gallery? What were your impressions? Did you take photos?

Quote:

As for Pierre's trainer, evidently, the trainer has very little experience seeing and handling medieval arms and armour.

Hmmm... it's not a good thing to jump too quickly to judgment.

Here he is in Malta taking measurements of shoulder pieces at the Palace Armouries.
http://southtowerarmouringguild.blogspot.com/...wings.html

Here he is at the Leeds Armoury doing research
http://southtowerarmouringguild.blogspot.com/...moury.html

Basically, he travelled several times to Europe to visit museums and gained hands on access to several pieces. He makes armour for a living. It's a bit... odd really that he didn't comment on the, ah, pristine nature of several of these pieces. But as far as "very little experience"...

While looking at his blog, I found another post from a visit to Prague castle (not by him). I invite you to read what he says about the helmets:

http://southtowerarmouringguild.blogspot.com/...rmour.html

cheers,

No offense, but it doesn't matter if your trainer has measured every single piece in Leeds or can recite the measurements of several original suits he has in his living room. The fact is that he apparently thought these pieces were historical, while I for example, a relatively ignorant nobody, took one look and raised an eyebrow.

To comment on his work, I have been to his website many times (when I first started to get interested in this stuff I found his site), and although he shows great skill with some pieces, he makes his living off ahistorical SCA armour, not historical pieces. Some of his work shows he is quite capable of doing historical work (his arms and legs strike me as much better than his helmets, shoulders, breast and backplates), but he does not seem to realize how off some of his simpler stuff is.

As before, I do not wish to cause offense, but these are the facts as I see them. I also would note that we are straying somewhat from the main topic, that of the reproductions shown.

The swords are definitely reproductions. You can buy them here:
http://www.armouronline.com/weapons_arms/swor...rs/49.html

Don't know about quality... but they sure are ugly (I know, they're "patinated". Patina can be an okay thing. These guys kinda went overboard with the concept, I think....).

I was just at the Prague castle earlier this year, and I didn't see this display at all.

What is really worthwhile at the castle, though, is the mail and helmet of St. Wenceslas, which are from the 10th century. Sadly, while I was there, the mail was not on display for research purposes, but there were large pictures in its place. The helmet was gorgeous.

The swords are definitely reproductions, and get the feeling that the polearms too, judging from the appearance of the rust on them.