Well it came at long last. I am now a proud owner of an Albion Clontarf with an oxblood grip. :D :D It took a few years of scraping together enough money to justify buying it but I did. I consider it my first *real* sword (my pk seems to resemble more of a sharpened crowbar really). It is just so beautiful and cool and better than I expected or imagined. I won't bore you with the stats or review since it has been covered in depth.

I am astounded by the level of craftsmanship and the quality of the sword. It is just so....so.... je ne sais qua.

It is a beast too. Not that it is a large sword but it begs to be used. I can feel it want to slice and cut ( i have already told it will be having a strict non-person diet ;) ) I never thought such and elegant sword could be so blood thirsty.

(gush) this is just so cool guys. I know lots of you have handled this type before as well as other viking swords. I wish i had a basis of comparison but alas and alak I do not. Well I know you guys have heard this all before so I'll just step down now and play with my new best friend. :p :D :cool:

Congratulations, Joe, on your new acquisition, it's great that you were able to save the $ to get it and that you are pleased. I know the way you feel too, I am fortunate to have several Albion swords and recently decided that I wanted a representative Viking blade even though that's not my primary period or area-of-interest, so I looked long and hard at the choices and finally decided on the Jarl. It came about two weeks ago and my own reaction surprised me. Basically, I went nuts. I routinely have packages delivered to my office rather than home simply because I'm not at home during standard UPS/FedEx delivery times, so it came and I opened it in the presence of two secretaries who became, I think, concerned. Waving a 30" blade about a professional office while making snarling noises is, apparently, not PC. Fortunately for me, I'm the boss. Anyway, I'm glad that you're enjoying your Clontarf, it's a really nice sword.

Congrats, Joe! how did the grip come out? I'm awaiting a Crecy with oxblood grip myself. I never really liked viking swords, like the Clontarf, but these Albions are making me love them.

Joe;

Congratulation: Getting that first real sword is very educational as to what a real one should feel like in the hand, having two or more is also surprising as all good swords don't have to feel the same to be good.

Having or handling that second sword makes you appreciate the qualities of the first one even more: It makes you notice things about the first one that just got past you. Hard to quantify at first: It's hits you first in the hand rather than the brain.

Robert: Maybe your staff got nervous about " JOB CUTS " ( Deliberate pun. :p :D )


( Joe: Je ne sais quoi......... Not " Qua " ( Which is not a word in French. )

damnit... i've always been a terrible speller. I should know that too, I took 3 years of french. <rolls eyes>

Joe;

Don't sweat it, French is my first language and I'm a terrible speller by the standards of 1960 although the standards of spelling and grammar are so low now in high-schools that I can almost pass as a scholar now. :lol:

I still make plenty of subtle mistakes but being French I had to mention one " phonetically " obvious to me.

Oh, I meant this in the most friendly way possible :cool:

taken as such :)


(makes barbarian viking noises and gnashes teeth absentmindedly)

jup jup jup, *this* is the real ultimate power, a good cleaver in hand.

Congratulations, Joe! Nothing better than to savor something for which you have saved and anticipated for a long time.

Gavin;

I could have mentionned 1950 if I was talking primary school. :p

Born at the very end of 1949. :eek:

And, I don't feel or LOOK very old for my age!

Greetings Joe Yurgil, My sincere congrats on the Clontarf. It is the 3rd Albion I have come to own. My first was a previously owned Gotland. The second is a sharpened Squire Line Viking. I also own an A&A Shifford Viking which I favor greatly. Each sword has a unique character to it. ;) I really hesitated on the Clontarf because I did not care for the engravings. However, I found one on the Marketplace I could not resist price wise and went for it. As soon as I took it out of the box I realized I had a second for the " If I could have only one sword" category. Don't get me wrong. I dearly love the Gotland and the SL type H. Both are really nice and impressive. The Shifford still held that spot for it's size and ease of carry. The Clontarf while being bigger than the Shifford exhibited handling and a "compact" aspect that I was really impressed with. You call your's blood thirsty. Thats great. :D Mine has given me "lets go, I'm here". I have named it "FrayFriend" because it is the one you want to have at your side in the thick of things. Strange things swords are if you listen to them. Anyway, welcome to the "Clontarf Club" which happens to be the cover sword on Ian Pierce's "Swords of the Viking Age" book which I own also. :eek: You have yourself in trouble now. My first "real sword" is an antique remounted baskethilt. It set the "standard" for everything else I have come to own. :eek: Sincerely, Patrick Fitzmartin

Thanks guys. :)

That is so true Steve. Even after i ordered it i had to go out of town for a month and naturally the sword came in the mean time. The anticipation was killing me. :surprised: :eek:

Patrick, compact was one of the first thing I thought of too. I know that viking hilts are rather small, and I have fairly large hands so I was kind of expecting a tight fit. But it wasn't at all. It fit like a glove into my hand and just felt all around great. The engravings are rather curious too. They don't really appear to be the norm for Germanic decoration even though there are other examples of it. I think it makes for an interesting peice.

To someone else who has a Clontarf and any other viking swords, how does it compare handling wise? The impression I get from the Clontarf is that, as designed, it is a real cleaver. It is pretty responsive though and like Patrick said, it would be pretty good in a tight spot. Despite the wide tip it also seems like it would be fairly decimating in a thrust but the point may not be as easy to control as the edge. I'll try to do some melon cutting this weekend to try it out and see.

Well I tried a few cuts on a watermelon a couple of days ago. I performed a thrust, and three cuts.

Point control was not the easiest but the thrust went ok I suppose. I wasn't too surprised by this really.

The real eye opener was the cuts. I put about zero power into them and just let the sword do the work for me and lo and behold, the blade went straght though with hardly any resistance. :eek: It was pretty cool. :cool:

I am more used to cutting with katana and the ease of cutting with the Clontarf was very plesantly surprising to me. :D

Now its time to go practice more vikingjitsu! ;)