Like a number of others out there on the forum, I have come across the joys of the digital archive www.archive.org.

Most particularly, I went through searches for "armor" and "armour" and came across a pile of old volumes. Some, like the works by Ffoulkes, need to be taken with caution. Most of the volumes however, have an unknown reputation to me.

I am hoping to spark some discussion regarding the titles I found, both to let everyone know that they are available free of charge, and also to see which might be considered somewhat useful and/or reliable and which might be largely labeled as being outdated or of dubious value.

I hope that others can add to the title list to include any titles I have overlooked, along with any potential commentary on their usefulness.

Below is the list of titles (almost inclusive) of armor related works that I found. All spellings are exactly as I have found them.

European Armour and Arms (Volumes 1-5)

A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons

An Illustrated History of Arms and Armour

The Art of the Wallace Collection (includes a section on both arms and armor)

Foreign Armour in England

Armour in England

Anceint Armour and Weapons in Europe (spelling as shown on title page)

European Armour and Arms in the Wallace Collection

Arms and Armour in Antiquity and the Middle Ages

Antient Armour Exhibiting at the Oplotheca

Handbook of Arms and Armor

Primitive American Armor

Spanish Arms and Armour

Highland Targets and other Shields

Primitive Warfare

British and Foreign Arms and Armour

Helmets and Body Armor in Modern Warfare (modern as in up through 1920 I believe)

Armour and Weapons (Ffoulkes)

Les Armes et Les Armures

Chinese Clay Figures (used as a timeline outlining the development of armor in China)

A Description of Indian and Oriental Armour

The last volume has a few references to Indian shields being made of lacquered papier mache that I have not been able to find anywhere else, although a smattering a pages have been garbled.

The Wallace Collection catalog is very nice to have because you can use it for the text and get color photos of that item from the WC site.

CORRECTION: That doesn't work. Accession numbers don't match. It is still possible to match catalog entry to a photo, but it's not the simple matter of matching numbers.

Thanks Karl,

That's a great list and a site I'm always forgetting about in other searches.

Cheers

GC