Okay this testing has been mentioned twice on the other thread. Of course I'm familiar with the story that the Edward III and matching dagger were for many years dismissed as fakes particularly because at one point they were owned by some dealer who specialized in fakes if I recall correctly. However I have managed to miss the story of how the true provenance of these pieces was settled. Anyone care to clue me in or point me in the right direction?

Ok, sure. First if you have the book "Records of the Medieval Sword" by Ewart Oakeshott, you can find a brief essay entitled "Scientific and Technical Tests on the King Edward III Sword" by Bundesanstalt für Materialprüfung in Berlin, Germany which was written in 1986. In the second paragraph, the very last sentance reads "This report is subdivided into specific investigation of craftsmanship and technical methods of production, the various types of material, the sword's present condition and as far as is necessary in direct association with it's historical background." They talk about their findings of the blade, the cross, the grip, the pommel, and give a "complete assessment of each part using radiography." They then compare the sword to a few other artifacts and give a final "analysis of material and evaluation of scientific investigation." There is then a section showing 24 detailed pictures and I guess a form of x-rays of the sword. After that, there is another section that is written in German that has a list of the data found from this analysis and I guess a brief description of how they did it.

If you don't have that book, I recommend purchasing it, or going to the public library or to a University library and checking it out. It is really fascinating stuff.

Russ, if you didn't have that book, I'd be mighty surprised.

LOL Nope I definitely have the book, I just managed to miss that section it seems. I tend to skip appendices and things and it appears that in this case that was very much to my detriment. I'll have to check it out when I get home. Speaking of things Oakeshott, I just got my copy of The Sword in Hand yesterday. I did not have a chance to read more then the first page but must say I disagreed with something right off the bat. More on this later... :)

Wow, interested to hear more of what you thought of that book. I read somewhere in ROTMS that Oakeshott himself admits that some of his earlier stuff was off. Can't remember where though. Is that book one of his older ones?

My understanding is that The Sword in Hand was actually a collection of articles that he wrote for some magazine. Arms and Armor had some special going where if you bought something of a certain dollar amount from them they would kick in the book for free. Woo hoo. :) I'll post more about it when I read more of it.

Sword in Hand is a reprinting of some of Ewarts articles from Men at Arms magazine. The text is pretty much the same, but many of the photos have been enhanced and some of them are published for the first time.