About 20 years ago I bought a VERY large sword from an estate that could tell me nothing about it, except that the deceased man had it hanging on his wall for upwards of 40 years. I looked it over and could see that the blade was hand hammered and the wood handle looked extremely aged. I thought it was probably something on the order of an old lodge replica or something like that. The price was right so I bought it. I have looked many times to find any information on it without success, I finally stumbled onto your web site and found the closest match to my huge sword. It was called Zweihander or two hander and some called it Great sword. it is very similar to the one in your photo gallery with the name spadone 2.jpg under the two handed swords gallery. The pommel seems to be a rough cast type metal and I would guess that the wood handle was probably at one time covered with leather. It is a little over 5' tall and blade width is around 2" and I would guess maybe 3/16ths to 1/4 inch thick and the main difference that I see is mine has the two holes on either side of the handle where it ataches to the blade is filled with metal with small holes that look kind of like a strainer. Now I was wondering if I could tell by the metal under a microscope or something if I could get a clue to the age of this Zweihander , or what to look for in an older repro? Any help will be appreciated! Thanks and I can say you have the best web site yet of this kind.

Hello

I think that, before anything else, photographs of the object might really help.

Cheers

Fab

:( Well I am sorry but the only pictures I have is so poor, I will put what I can show you now and have to take more when I get it back. I have loaned it out for halloween parties and the like and otherwise just stood in the corner, and the upper half is all I can find..... but here they are!!

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It is very difficult to tell anything from the photos. However, the general appearance of the sword makes me think it is a reproduction rather than an antique, as does your description of its construction. A lot of similar swords were made in Spain 30 - 40 years ago and I have seen them at Highland Games and Renaissance Festivals. More detailed photos will help.

Thanks Lin,
I will try and get the sword back as soon as possible and get better pictures. I tend to agree that it may be an older repro, but they went to considerable work to make it, and before I put it on an auction for a few hundred dollars I thought I better try and make sure :blush:

A friend of mine once had an 18th century style sword which he thought might be original, so he asked someone familiar with antiques. The fellow took one brief look along the blade and said, "Nah, it's a repro." The surface of the blade, while nicely polished, had ripples and irregularities, but originals do not. So my guess is that if you can *see* that it was hand-hammered, and the pommel is rough cast, it's a reproduction. Antique weapons can have interesting little sloppy aspects sometimes, but not with basics like that, in my limited experience.

Fun sword, though! Nice to see that it gets to party on Halloween. Of course, if it does turn out to be antique, you'll hate yourself for sticking it through plastic skulls, eh?

Matthew

Hi Matthew, thanks for your input. The Halloween thing was all my grown daughters idea :D Her and her husband thought it was "cool" and so that was how that came about. My original thoughts when I bought it that it may have been 100 to 150 years old or so made by some kind of lodge as symbolic of whatever they stood for. I have had hand hammered tools and implements, hinges, cleavers, nails and the like from this country and others from 17 and 1800's and they are rougher than this by far, although they was just for utilitarian uses, but this was not a finely machined piece of work. I have no clue what the sword making process was like then but I would have imagined it to be somewhat crude compared to what we have seen in the last two centuries. I hope to get it back soon and get some close up and in focus photo's of this, I looked through most of my digital photo's and these was all I could come up with that would give anyone an idea of what I was talking about. I do very much appreciate this sight and have at least learned what it may be a replica of :). I have other swords also and am anxious to show them and learn where and when they were made.
Again thanks to this site and all who have taken the time to respond to my seemingly foolish inquiry, but it has been a wealth of information to me and is very much appreciated

The sword is 63 1/2 " tall, weight is around 6 1/2 lbs on a bathroom scale the thickest part of the steel going into the handle is .338 inches then tapers to .242 inches just in front of the crescent "lug" or quarter moon shape which is the thinnest part at .220", then tapers down and widens out to 2 1/8" - 2 5/32 " and a thickness of just under 1/4" till about 6" from the tip it is .17" then down from there. the handle including pommel is about 15" and the guard is also 15" point to point....... having problems getting more pics to show!

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I merged your new topic with your old one. There is no reason to start a new topic for the same subject.

Very nice forgework in the guard, and the distal taper seems well executed.

If it's a repo, it's a nice one....