Howdy!
Here is a topic that is pertinent to me at the moment and I think can be useful for many others as well if this post is expanded upon.

Here are the parameters I'm working within.

I'm looking to put together an early 15th Century Harness for a middling knight, specifically interested in an English style.
Prefer a simple look, no fancy decorations and gilding or the such.
It needs to be fully functional; the plan is to do SCA and HEMA fighting in it, but no Battle of the Nations stuff.

I know weapon makers better than armorers, so the best equivalent I can think of is the aesthetics and quality of an Albion or Maciej Kopciuch sword. High quality and historically accurate, but no fancy frills.

I know this kind of stuff doesn't come cheap but from anyone else's past experience, what is an AVERAGE price range for this kind of project? If anyone has price ranges for lower quality or higher end projects, feel free to post as well!

Thanks in advance for the insight!!!

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This is Ian Laspina of Knyght Errant in his armor. I'm going for a similar look.

"Off the shelf", used market, or from lesser known eastern european makers or fledgling armorers you're looking $2500-5000 and your kit will show it.

A full one maker harness based off references or direct copy of an effigy, most importantly properly fitted, will run you 2-5x that if not more. Easily 10-25k or higher the more esoteric you get regarding armor styles. A pure, proper english armor based of a single effigy fit to you will run a lot more than a work "in the style of".

Roughly
Helmet: $500-700
Breastplate: $500-1000
Full leg including greaves: $500-700
Arms with pauldrons: $300-500
(edit) Gauntlets; another $300-500 and usually the first and one thing you want/need custom fitted. Steamshovel hands are the worst in my experience doing armored fighting. Finger Gauntlets also are a no go if you want fingers. Mitten gauntlets and later period mitten gauntlets in the style of finger gauntlets all the way. I've gotten bruised, cut knuckles from mitten gauntlets through gloves consistently in my career as an armored fighter. I'd have broken fingers with anything less. Not only do most makers, even professional ones, go the "scales on leather" route for finger protection despite it's ahistorical nature but even done properly will tear off during anything north of light sparring. Finger shields are a must if you want to insist on hourglass or wisby style gauntlets.
arming coat/jack/gambeson: $100-500 and replaced in 1-3 years of significant fighting
quintessential to your overall kit and the most disposable and abused member of it.
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This is for gear that will pass muster at a battle of nations/Historical Medieval Battle event regarding historical accuracy and fit well enough to fight in.

Full contact fighting puts a harness through the ringer. You don't see many fighters with the latter type of harness doing HMB or BOTN versus historical reenactment and light sparring. Even a full suit of springsteel will get dented to hell after a few dozen strikes from a halberd. It's like getting a scratch on a supercar if you fight in a kit like below
.[ Linked Image ]

Most of my kit for SCA/Adrian Empire combat is off the shelf with key pieces fitted in person and others made to size. But "to the yield" fighting my group does for exhibition blows out straps and leads to significant dents in short order. Just look at the condition of most "lightly used" HMB armor used gear listings and you'll get an idea of what monthly sparring and competition does to your kit. Half of mine is held together with paracord at this point.

You might try Stahlgilde in the Ukraine for SCA-style combat armor. I believe they only go up to 16g. , but that's better than costume armor...which I have plenty of. Cheaper than custom-made, and you can request different sizes on various pieces. I've seen very positive reviews. :)

www.stahlgilde.com

......McM

Tom King,
Thanks for the numbers for the individual pieces!
Also, great advice about tailoring the use to the cost. Ya, it would suck to blow a good bit of money on armor just to have it banged up. Do you have any experience with how much repairs cost?

[quote="Bill Grandy"]

Your first step is to buy the incredible book Armour of the English Knight by Tobias Capwell. It is not only the only book on English armor, but it's also probably the best book on any kind of European armor, period.

Thanks for the suggestion! Ian LaSpina suggested it too, I'll have to check it out. I have enough weapons books as is, need some armor literature!

If you haven't already done so, check out Ian LaSpina's YouTube channel under the name of Knyght Errant. He's the person wearing the armor you pictured, and his channel is very informative, particularly about the English style.

And yes! I love his channel, I have him on patreon and everything. I've been using his website and videos to get a feel for what I want.



For the particular armor that you have posted, my guess would be between $15,000 to $20,000 to get it right by an armorer who knows how to do it correctly. Having said that, there are elements that you could ditch to make it much more affordable (such as the long fauld, which is complex to make). It'd be best to discuss it with your armor.

The budget I had in mind was around $8,000. To be honest $15,000 is a bit higher than I was hoping for, haha. Is that still enough to get a decent harness.

Also, like with an Albion sword, I care more about the end product than how historically accurate the production process is. The guy could use pixie dust for all I care if the end product looks and performs accurately.

$8k is plenty to get you a very nice harness. There are certain things that are complicated to make which raise the price (such as that long fauld I mentioned) but not every harness needs all of those details.

I’m going to slightly disagree with Tom’s advice about damaging the armor, though it depends on how the armor is used. I can’t speak for SCA, as I’ve never done it, but you mentioned HEMA, and that’s how I use mine. I have a very high end high gothic harness, and I’ve been fighting in armor for almost two decades now. It is not banged up or dented, though I have to buff out scratches, fix rivets, replace leather straps, and replace the gloves of my gauntlets with moderate frequency. I’ve had more repairs to my arming doublet than any metal part of my armor, though. HEMA doesn’t bash directly on the plate as often as other combat sports, but rather thrusts at the gaps. The major damage comes from wrestling, which scratches the polish a lot, but isn’t the same as having a blunt object bash on it repeatedly. Mild steel certainly gets bent, but if you go high end (and $8k can get you really good stuff), us heat treated spring steel, don’t have a lot of decorative elements that can be damgaged easily, and you take care of the armor, you’re going to find that it will last a very longtime for HEMA use. Mine isn’t pristine anymore, and you can see scratches all over it when you’re close up, but considering how much I’ve fought in it, it still looks really good from several feet away.

I agree with both posts above
But a hema fight with feders or primarily using harnischfechten techniques/ground fighting will still scratch up a harness at the least. Pricy to get fixed professionally, annoying to do personally. Preventative maintence can keep a lot of it at bay but if you've ever fought in the rain or fought in the heat rust definitely happens. Heavy grinding will eliminate most cosmetic scratches but establishing an even finish is difficult without practice and progressively getting a finish to anything above wire brush or 300 grit buffer is ridiculously time intensive.

Not to mention every time you grind out a nick you're decreasing the thickness of the armor in that spot.

Jousting is ironically better on your kit than fighting on foot full contact (an easily replicable encranche usually takes the lions share of legal hits) ... but you've got to tack, feed/fodder, stable. etc. a horse so you aren't exactly coming out ahead monetarily. And a horse trained for jousting isn't easy to come by as several friends of mine who tried their hand at a jousting company came soon to find out and aren't that good as horses for mundane equestrian riding.

BoTN/HMB/Adrian/Anything that involves steel on steel fighting will result in nicks and deep scratches at the least. Mild steel dents but can be hammered out, spring steel does the same but it's harder to do it both ways. and Stainless/Titanium has a nasty habit to crack and be 2-3x the price.

Also strapping gives out annoyingly fast, yet is relatively easy to repair if you have a leather supply store close by. To dry rot, moisture, and sheer simple tearing out.

Short answer is full contact steel list fighting is really brutal on gear. There is definitely a happy medium usually well south of a true blue historic recreation for fighting in, 2500 to your initial limit of 8k definitely well within it as far as initial investment. For proper display, recreation, and reenactment you do get into the 15-50k USD range for a perfectly recreated reproduction.

Arming clothes are another thing. Only a few makers produce them properly, mainly copies/inspirations from the charles de blois pourpoint for your period in question, and they wear out very quickly after consistent fighting. For indian repros that economically make sense like my current jack you're looking at $100 and a season or two before it's coming apart at the seams and blowing out tie points. For a higher quality arming coat or jack from a maker like age of craft you're talking ~$300 and about twice the longevity if you're fighting in ernest multiple times a year, if not month.

Great discussion on what effects different activities have on armor. Personally, I won't be doing any great amount, if any at all, of full contact steel fighting. Most likely HEMA and SCA. Also, I'm in the Army, so for at least the next couple of years I won't have time to fight in it very regularly.
I actually wouldn't mind, after a while, having the armor looking "used", to me it just means that you've actually done something with it rather than just look at it. And besides, cleaning my swords and guns is relaxing, so imagine/hope cleaning armor would be the same. However, I don't want to invest an EXTREME amount of money into something that could possibly be beaten into an example of modern art. I hadn't considered that part!

Everyone who buys their first harness regrets not spending more time and money on getting their soft kit right. I'd suggest paying a great deal of attention to your soft kit before even considering the rest. Don't skimp and do plenty of research. This is more important than the metal stuff.

Dan, would you mind elaborating on the last point, "This is more important than the metal stuff"?

It would crush me to spend that kind of money on plate without historical maille.