Hello, SBG forums sent me over here, here is my thread I posted.

Hello,

A quick introduction; I grew up as a boy reading my father MRL magazines cover to cover, over and over again. As a boy they sure helped my conjurer up lots of adventures! My brother and I would make wooden swords and battle for hours and hours out in the pastures.

Many years later, I have inherited my deceased fathers sword, and would like some help identifying it. I assumed that it came from MRL in the early to mid 90's, but I dont remember it from the magazines. Any information would be great!

Apologize for the cell phone pics, I picked it up from my mother, and shipped it to myself. It will arrive in the next day or two, and I can post better pics if needed.

As you can see it is over 49 inches long, the blade just over 37 inches, with a wooden grip. The wood has a few cracks in it.


Here is another picture of the pommel


There is a neat cross on the blade


The hilt has "made in Austria" stamp

I don't know what it is, but it's not a MRL sword. It is really nice btw. Can we see a full length photo?

This is the "Austrian Masterpiece" sword, made by sword maker Johann Schmidberger. It was created in the 80s and 90s. Museum Replicas sold it in the 90s.

Wow thanks a lot for the quick response! I will do a google search, but can you give me any other info? Is this a quality sword or more of a wall hanger?

I've heard folks mention this sword, but this is the first time I've seen it. If one can think of the sword world as branching in that period, with one branch continuing along a fantasy/"Recuerdo de Toledo" path, and the other becoming more attuned to historical forms and methods, this would be near the base of the latter branch. The ferrules of the grip, bare turned grip, pronounced secondary bevel of the blade and apparently unrefined section of the blade (can't see profile here) are vestiges of earlier attempts, but the proportions, guard and pommel shapes and peen are much more in touch with historical reality. I'd say this piece is still pretty much in the middle of what's available. You can do much better now, but you can still do much worse.

Back in the day, this sold as one of MRLs higher dollar pieces, being priced higher than Del Tin. They are somewhat of a rarity these days, you see one or two from time to time. A little work would do wonders for it. :)

Pleas see this myArmoury.com forum post for additional photos of another version of this sword.

Interesting, I commented about that sword in that older post on the ebay finds thread, but I didn't recognize it now that I have seen it here... :)