Arms & Armor #168 North Italian three-ring rapier and en-suite left-hand dagger, with blued hilt furniture
myArmoury.com has a hands-on review by Bill Grandy. The “Turk’s-Head knot” ornamentation he mentions and the barrel grip shown in his photos may be at customer request, because neither are present on my - or A&A’s website - example. Like the one in Bill’s review, this rapier is longer than standard, with a 43½ " / 110.5cm blade instead of the usual 38" / 96.5cm blade of the catalogue item. Other dimensions are close, but not identical, to those of the reviewed sword; for example, this rapier is 8 oz / 227g lighter than Bill’s.
There's no catalogue # for the dagger; it was custom-made to match the rapier by Craig Johnson at A&A, with a knuckle ring on one side of the guard and a thumb recess in the ricasso on the other side of the 10¾" / 27.5cm blade.
The appearance is almost mint. There's a single small flaw on the dagger pommel (enlarge Photo 3 - warning, this is a 3 Mb image), and a couple of faint scratches on the rapier blade, all of which were there on delivery; there are a few pinhead-size dark spots on the rapier blade and one of similar size on the dagger ricasso (enlarge Photo 1 - another 3 Mb image) That's all. These have spent most of their time on my office wall, with a couple of expeditions to Science Fiction/Fantasy conventions as lecture examples of "Not Like In the Movies" swords. Both will be shipped with an unbuffed protective coating of Renaissance Wax; this polishes up or off with a soft cloth.
Based on current A&A prices for rapier, dagger and a blued finish for both, I’m asking $800.00 (plus shipping) for the pair – in other words, the custom en-suite dagger comes out at about $5.00… Our bank's clearing time for anything but local paper has become ridiculous, so payment by either wire transfer or PayPal (if using PayPal, please add the usual 3% to cover their administration charges); shipment on clearance of funds will be by FedEx or similar. Potential buyers in Europe should note that since I live in Ireland, this rapier/dagger pair will attract no additional import duty or VAT anywhere in the EU.
Respond by PM or to p.morwood@gmail.com.
A few more large images:
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Photo 5
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