Suprisingly, the Czech company Kovex-Ars is not very well known outside the Czech Republik, Germany and Scandinavia - In Denmark Kovex-Ars' retailer Venditio is more or less the market leader in swords. My own sword has been purchased through Venditio, but I have met the people from Kovex-Ars on fairs and markets, they are really nice people - who take a lot of pride in their work.

I have had my Kovex-Ars 1½-handed sword for more than a year now and I am very pleased with it - though I might consider changing the leather-wrapping on the handle to something more historically accurate.

The sword is a standard lightweight 1½-handed sword
The blade is forged and tempered to between 52-60 Rockwell C (the edge is left unsharpened for reenactment fighting)
The lenght of the blade is 92 cm.
The overall lenght og the sword is 116 cm.
The weight of the sword is 1,4 kg.
The balance lies about 12 cm. from the crossguard

The sword has been used for fighting a couple of times - and has been through one "torture-test" so far, with only minimal marks to the edge of the blade as result. For the record; I am training 15c. german long-sword (Lichtenhauer, Talhoffer, Dürer, von Baumann etc.).

I really like to rough look of Korvex' forged swords - by my opinion they fit a mercenary much better than a posh looking Del-Tin or Pavel Moc.

My sword is pictured below, together with a nice leather scabbard, made by a friend of mine, and my ballocks-dagger from Fabri Armorum (sorry about the quality of the pictures, my digi-cam sucks just as much as my photographing-skills).



Regards

Jakob

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Detail of the handle

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Sword, scabbard and ballocks dagger

It seems I finaly found out who the maker of my sword is! :lol:


[ Linked Image ]

I bought this sword from Czech resellers Modua Fictum, which attended medieval days in Slovenia in Ljubljana castle. I paid around 90$, and the sword was in really rough shape. They told me who the maker was, but I left the pen and paper in my other tights, and I didn't remember it for very long.

Fuller was black - not blackened, but left uncleaned after the tempering. Sword had an ugly ricasso - totally unshaped area to around 10 cm (4") from the cross. Cross had the "ugly" square middle just like on Jakob's sword and lots of deep pits, I guess from overheating at forging. Disc pommel had deep marks from making on a lathe.

So I took a Dremel, a file, sandpaper and some other tools and really transformed this thing. I extended blade geometry and fuller to the cross (thus removed the ricasso), reground and repolished the fuller, gave the blade some distal taper, reshaped the cross to a more rounded form (I completely rounded the "box" at the middle, but I didn't remove all the pits at the ends of cross), repolished and reshaped a bit the pommel, glued replica coins in the recesses (I had to grind those two to a smaller diameter too).

I'm quite pleased with the result. I'm sorry I didn't made any good "before and after" pictures. The sword is otherwise very soundly made, and quite light for a reenactment blunt. I use it quite regularly, and it deals with all the abuse easily.

It sure looks like an early Kovex-Ars to me. Does it have the Kovex-Ars mark (a treeleafed clover leaf in a circle) on the blade?

How long ago did you buy it? If it is one of the REALLY early Kovex-Ars swords, I can clearly imagine how ugly it must have been (oh, the horror).

As to the general finish of Kovex-Ars' swords; according to my knowledge, as a student of archaeology, far from all swords wielded on the medieval battlefields were shining masterpieces - most of them were - quote G. Embleton; "cheap, but serviceable swords". As I see it, Kovex-Ars' swords are such swords....


Regards.

Jakob

The book I am referring to is "Medieval Military Costume" by Gerry Embleton ( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-...p;n=507846 ). I can't remember which page the quote is referring to - but I'll (hopefully) have the book delivered by mail within a few days. Then I'll post the page number and the exact quote.

I belive that the price and quality on swords varied tremendously through the middle-ages. Just like armour, swords were also mass-produced. - And, just like armour, it is mostly the master-pieces that has been kept in collections and the like - and thus have survived to the present day.

A huge amount of (mostly earth-found) swords of poor to average quality and of simple designs are being kept in museum-stocks in Europe, but they are mostly (and sadly) not displayed in exhibits, due to the fact that they are often wery corroded - and in the public eye - ugly.

Swords, not even the cheap ones, never became a commen weapon for the average peasant-soldier. But I believe that they were rather common among professional soldiers, expecially in the later middle-ages.


Regards.

Jakob

First of all; It's always nice to be taught by someone with a greater knowledge than one self.... :)

I agree on most of that you say Peter - expecially the point about the difference between modern blunt sword for reenactmen-fighting and real historical swords. This ought to be somewhat obvious....

The only place, where we really disagree, as I see it, is how common swords were among the more common perople of the middleages - I too know the sources you are referring to;

1. The art; by my opinion one must not underestimate the, what can be called, "Rambo-effect". The desire of the artist to make his pictures as interesting and catching as possible and thus displaying the soldiers more from an idea of the "ideal" warrior than from a point of reality.

2. It is true that some sources (expecially law-texts) state that a man should own a certain amount of arms and armour - but again, I believe that these statements must be looked upon as ideals, rather than picturing the actual situation.

I'm not saying that there wasn't an amount of weapons and armour - including swords, in circulation among the more common perople of the middle-ages. But I believe that the sources should be looked upon with precaution.


Regards

Jakob

Jakob,
The more I look at the Kovex-ars site the more I want one of the their blades. Thanks for bringing this seller to our attention. I just have one question though. a lot of the swords are listed as onehanders, but the blade and handle length appear to allow for two-handed use. I was just wondering if the sword you have was one listed as a single hander or a hand and a half? Thanks. I really like the rough look of these swords too.

Ben

"Medieval military costume" by Gerry Embleton came in the mail today, The Quote about the "cheap but serviceable sword" is on page 13, in the below-left collum.

It's a really nice book, not much text, but a lot of astonishing colour-photograps - it's really good as inspirational material when making/purchasing gear.


Regards.

Jakob

I have just received the abovementioned book, it is great, thank you for the hint, Jakob.

Have you noticed an interesting coincidence, gentlemen? On page 80 you can see a sword very similar to the weapon, introduced by Jacob, probably by same manufacturer. On the next page, I am almost positive, shown Albion Armourers Svante Sture sword, one of the most wonderful works by Peter Johnsson. There definitely is a point.
I love Svante Sture sword, this is the best replica sword I have ever seen and though I have included it in my wish list, I will never use it for daily test cutting, as I would not use for it Brecia Spadona either, if I had one. For this purpose are available more affordable swords of good quality, produced by numerous manufacturers, many of them located in Czech Republic.
As to steel-to-steel competition, which Jakob is participaiting, decoration and finish doesn't matter at all, those swords must be strong and good balanced, and so they were in the past, I believe.

Peter, could you us how the Dordogne swords and the the Castellan based on them fit in this spectrum.

As I understand it the Dordogne swords were munition swords of nearly identical form. I'm wondering if they are representative of cheaper swords and if the castellan(though I am not doubting its quality) is in character in terms of finish.
If the answer in both cases is yes does that leave the more expensive swords to be determined only by hilt materials, ornamentation, and perhaps complexity of grind?

Thanks Peter. That is precisely what I was looking for.