It's driving me crazy, to be quite honest.

It's now been three weeks since I ordered my Squire sword from Darksword Armory, and every morning I wake up hoping it will have arrived, only to walk from the mailbox a swordless man and resolve to eat my breakfast seasoned with crushed hope and drink my coffy brewed from bitter disappointment.

Of course, I realize these things do take time. DA is on the other side of the Atlantic, after all. Still, I have to wonder, what is the norm for this kind of thing? Will I have to wait for another week or might it actually show up tomorrow? I wish I knew.

I know what thats like. I am waiting for a French Officers cut and thrust sword right now. Did you ask Darksword for a tracking number?

Take into consideration; customs. That takes time as items have to be cleared through customs to leave the country. So that is a likely source of the delay.

This is a slow business. A sword is the ultimate anachronism, after all, and as such mustn't be judged by the FedEx standards of our modern age. For instance, I wait MONTHS between ordering and receiving an Albion sword. I'm currently in line for my Knecht. How long will it take? Dunno. Don't care. I'm about to move to Maine, so I'll tell Mike at Albion what my new shipping address is when I leave California, and sooner or later my Knecht will arrive. No worries. And when Jacob Powning is making something, is there really any amount of time that is too long to wait? I've even got something that may arrive someday from J. Arthur Loose. Is his work worth the wait? Absolutely. I have his Irmin Gladius and there's not a day that I don't appreciate its craftmanship.

Waiting is good. Take up sailing while you're waiting, and it will reinforce your appreciation of good things that take a long time.

So little of this stuff tends to be in stock that waiting seems to become the game. :cool:

Sometimes you have good surprises too. I ordered a Baron from Albion Europe at the beginning of the month and it was supposed to take up to four months to arrive. It did so yesterday ! I do not know how they managed this as the sword was supposed to be out of stock. I strongly suspect a pact with the Devil. :p

So, I hope you will soon have that kind of good surprise... I order lots of things through the internet, so I know how frustrating waiting can be ! Keep your morale up. When it finally will arrive, « in god's good time » as old Winston Churchill would have said, it will be that much more pleasant !

That is good news and let us know your own impressions of the Baron even if you think that it's already a well documented piece it's always interesting to hear the first reactions of someone handling a specific sword for the first time.

Is this your first high end sword that you have owned or handled ? Asking because it's always a " surprise " if it the first sword with good handling characteristics that you have held.

I won't name names on this one, but I've had particular smiths tell me "It's getting done this week!" and then, "This week for sure!" and then "This is the do-it-or-die week, I swear!" And the last time I heard this was somewhere around Yule. Naturally, I assume this particular smith is dead by now (because he said so, right? "I'll do it OR DIE"?), but it's still not too long to wait. Sure, I could have taught myself and made the thing on my own by now, but sometimes the hideous, protracted, seemingly capricious wait (even if you've been told "it shipped") might actually be a ploy by the Gods to teach you (and me, since it's been more than two years now on this one thing...) something. Who the Hel knows what. I ain't no counselor.

Why have you returned it if you don't mind asking?

Hehe, I was just kidding, hence the wink ;) I was insinuating that the reason he might have gotten one early due to a used return, just kidding of course.

In fact, the first Albion sword I received was this past Wednesdaym the Brescia Spadona... I had only ordered it about 10 days ago... Apparently the person who ordered it changed his mind or didn't have the cash, so I was next in line... Probably the same case with the Baron...

Hello Simon!
Did your Baron have a black grip?

Regards
Stephan