Hi y'all,
I was wondering who makes the best most accurate chainmail. If price were no issue, where would you get chainmail? I want it for late viking era. The best I can find is Erik Schmid but I have heard, on this site and a few others, various things that make me not want to do business with him. Are there any other high end chainmail makers out there?
Thnx
Z

I have been looking at mail for the last few days. One maker I come across a lot is Ulfberth from Germany. They have some really nice looking mail from flattened, wedge riveted rings. You can't buy there directly but you cat get it from Get Dressed For Battle and Battle Merchant, among others.

It looks gorgeous but a haubergon is well over 900 US$, ex shipping. And from a few quick calculations on the back of a napkin, buying the loose flattened rings with rivets and making it yourself isn't much cheaper. They even have a more expensive version with 6mm rings instead of 8mm. For those, haubergons are over 1200 US$.

You'd have to ask the expert here how historically accurate they really are, but to my limited knowledge they are very accurate.

PS: Does anyone know why loose rings of flat, wedge riveted mail is much more expensive than the same flattened rings with dome head rivets?

Hi, Zach!

I will recommend Battle-Merchant and their Ulfberth mail too:

http://battlemerchant.com/

The price really is a issue, but the quality is good too.

Hi,
Yeah i've seen that stuff, aren't there any like custom makers or people making it with bloomery iron? The Battle Merchant stuff looks like the same flat ring indian made stuff you see everywhere. I was hoping for something better, but if that's the best there is...
Thnx for your help though,
Z :)

eric schmid

Wasn´t there a Spanish maker Michael Edelson got the patch for his sword cutting tests from?

That looked much better than most other stuff. What was said about the other seems true, just all the same Indian stuff. But indeed you now get some with less zinc coating. But to me Ulfbert doesn´t look diffferent from the other stuff. Co-Trainees just bought maile frome here http://shop.strato.de/epages/245791.sf/de_DE/...egories/KE Looks like Ulfbert too, but is a little bit cheaper.

But still, this is far from the most authentic maile that was asked for.

EDIT: http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=11131

Just have a look at the original entry by Michael.

If you want functional riveted mail then there are a few options. Julio Junco makes good quality riveted mail that falls in this category. However he doesn't attempt to replicate any particular historical style of mail. There are a few researchers who attempt to copy museum pieces but Erik D Schmid is the only person I know of who does it commercially.

US$ 20,000 for a mail shirt? Anyone got pictures? Eric's website seems to be down at the moment and my google-fu isn't uncovering many pictures. I really wonder what the difference between 1K and 20K looks like.

No, a mail shirt for 20k is made at a US economy rate all by hand one link at a time out of the correct material which also is most likely made by hand. Now I am taking a guess at Eric's price based on the per link price I was told many years ago. But for the amount of work involved, 20k is cheap. We are extremely spoiled by cheap, overseas mass produced goods and most people have no idea what custom made, one off, quality goods cost.

i do believe it is correctly made from drawn iron and not just some steel

Dan Howard wrote:
"If you want functional riveted mail then there are a few options. Julio Junco makes good quality riveted mail that falls in this category. However he doesn't attempt to replicate any particular historical style of mail"

Well. it is true but I make 10-12 different rings, with various internal and external diameters,wire gauges, flat and round section, wedge and round rivet,... so it would be easy to make some specific mail.
Really I don´t make mail since one year ago ( a lot of daily work :( ) but the last mail I had made was round section and "roun section solid ring"..The viking mail was round rivet and these rings were wedge rivet but It can be changed easily .
With that mail I was looking round surface in the back of the overlap like the historic mail and I think I got it. I´ll try to put photos with this message.
How nice speak about mail again!
Regards
Julio

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Thanks, Bjorn.
The solid rings are punched but from usual washers. It is very cheap and I got two solid rings every wash.
I don´t sell mail. I put the photos because the mail was similar like Zach was looking.
Regards
Julio

Hi Julio. Like I said your mail is very good. But good is not the same as a museum replica. Which extant sample have you tried to replicate? Do you have photos of an original museum piece compared to your reconstruction?

It depends on what the mail is for.

If I just wanted a riveted haubergeon for fighting then the Indian mail would be fine
If I wanted mail that looked and functioned a lot like historical mail then I'd ask you and a few others for a quote
If I wanted a copy of the Wallace A9 then I'd ask Erik.