I was wondering how many swords are known to be from actual Viking graves, meaning actually preferred for use and irrefutably owned by a real Viking during real “Viking era?” Also, what differences, if any, were there that might make a Viking’s sword uncommon among some other neighboring culture?

I feel that there is an industry trend to refer to migration era swords of period relevance and cultural usage that is much broader than “Viking” as a “Viking sword.” Yesterday I was looking through archeological articles of instances of swords found in actual Viking graves, and was surprised by an academic’s statement that the pinned construction hollow pommels are primarily a Saxon style of construction, rarely found north of the Kent (River Thames) in cases of authentic grave finds. The actual Viking grave examples from real “Viking era” that were similar in outer appearance were stated in the article to be typically solid, with false cosmetic pins, similar to say a present day Albion Huskarl. This excludes hoards that may have contained foreign booty, not known if preferred for personal ownership that one would literally take to their grave. The author pretty much pin pointed the difference (more modern, solid peened pommels) as a distinguishing feature to help identify a real Viking’s personal sword in true “Viking era.” In looking at some of the Albion “Viking era” products, the Scandinavian examples used as historical inspiration struck me as conforming fairly well to this idea that the Danes and Norse preferred somewhat more modern and solid sword furniture construction than the older migration era and neighboring Anglo-Saxon’s swords.

As of September 2007, a major excavation of a mass Viking graveyard site is underway. This may (hopefully) yield a number of authentic burial swords from irrefutable Vikings of the era they were famed for. A fairly recent example comes from the metal detector grave-find of Peter Adams near Cumwhitton (more Northern England.) The pommel has been judged to be solid, and looks to be similar to the Albion Theign sword model pommel.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cumbria/content/articles...ture.shtml
The photo below is of it.

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I'm not exactly sure what you're getting at. Migration period swords and Viking period swords are very different, completely different hilt styles and construction, and also the blades while superficially similar are different. As for what's typically a Viking and non-Viking sword, the only things I can think off is single edged swords seem unique in Scandinavia, and the named bladeds as Ulfberht and Inglerii (aside from the false copies) are non Viking made, though they were used by Vikings. There was a lot of trade in swords going on though, so while there may be a local style in terms of production, in terms of use it was very mixed. So generally, it's best to speak of Viking period swords, rather then Viking swords.

Jeff,
Thanks very much for the reference article. I had not seen this. I found the article that originally sparked my post, and read it without saving it. So now I am doing a lot of searching to try to find and post a link to it. Most significant was a diagram of pyramid and sort of "tea cosy", Geibig type 1, 13's, pommels and a clear illustration of how adjacent Anglo-Saxon peoples used pinned construction, while Danish used a solid pommel around 10th century. The article you gave a link to in addition to other articles seems to be pointing out that locally hilted furniture of Norwegian swords of 10th century era had some differences compared with swords hilted in neighboring regions at the same time.

The comments on the page numbered 128 at the bottom somewhat support this concept/ personal theory. (I might be wrong here.) I am primarily interested in what a prestigious 10th century Viking warrior would have ordered where wealth would have permitted a local cutlerer to hilt a blade (probably an imported German blade, becoming good steel, often not pattern welded at that point.)