Today's update:

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Evaluating Historical Sword Specimens
An article by John Clements

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A Viking Age Sword from the Higgins Museum
An article by Alexi Goranov

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Lost and Found: A U.S. Model 1860 Light Cavalry Saber
An article by Sean Flynt


As always, you can see our Complete History of Updates listed right from our home page.

When I click on the links for the pictures where available, it routes me back to the home page (http://www.myArmoury.com/#). Actually, it is doing that for all the old review and feature picture links too. Anyone else having this problem or is it just me?

Great update. Loads of interesting information in this one. Very good reading.

Thanks fellas,

Kenton

Brilliant

The article on the Cavalry saber was very interesting, and this comes from a guy who's actually not very interested in such weapons :)

Nice!

Great to have well documented original swords in an update.
Alexi, could you give any estimate as to how much corrosion had affected the weight of the viking sword? How much of the material seemed to be missing?

Thanks, and thanks for a nice update to all responsible.

Gordon

Thanks! This period is far outside my main period of interest, too (1500-1650), but I was very happy to add the saber to my collection. We should all have such generous relatives! Unfortunately, it now has me wanting a Confederate sword for balance (a decent repro for antiquing--authentic Confederate weapons are worth their weight in gold). My parents know a famous Alabama writer who has her Confederate ancestor's swords, uniforms, etc. stored in a box under a bed.:eek: I think that sort of thing is becoming very rare, though. People are realizing the value of these things. No more Leicas at garage sales, either.:(

Wolfgang Armbruster wrote:

The article on the Cavalry saber was very interesting, and this comes from a guy who's actually not very interested in such weapons :)

Nice change of pace all around.

Sean, thats a nice piece. My wife works part time for a elderly lady who bought one of these Mansfield & Lamb
sabers 20 years ago for $100 at an estate sale. She sent to me a bit back,to give her ID info. and est. value. and do a little conservation to.

It's a Manfield & Lamb - Forest, date stamped 1864, inspectors initials J.C.W.

She informed my wife about a month ago, that she had left this sword to her (my wife) in her will. Wow!

The stories behind such pieces is another reason my collecting tastes have turned lately to the vintage military swords.

Great stuff all around guys, Thanks!

Cheers,

Bill

Great articles all around this time. I particularly liked the article on the brazil nut as my favorites are late viking/early medieval swords. I really enjoyed seeing the sword from angles that aren't usually shown in books. Thanks to all 3 of the authors of these articles for some great reading and even better photos!

All around, a good update. I especially loved Sean's piece. That's quite a story. I'd put in a request to make "Lost and Found" a Spotlight series, but somehow I doubt we'd be able to get as many great stories as Sean's.

Yes, Sean I have. And with most repros. of military swords,(heavy, bulky,unbalanced

chunks of metal) they don't even come close to originals
Handling vintage piece's like these can really spoil one's taste.

Bill

Very interesting articles:

John Clements:
The article on evaluating original swords should be very helpful if one gets the opportunity. I would compare this to meeting an admired famous person and being tongue-tied at the time and later thinking of all the questions one should have asked.

With a museum visit and the chance to handle originals having read this article should help not wasting the opportunity and also the ways an ancient, maybe fragile, sword should be handled for both safety and avoid the embarrassing disaster that damaging the blade would be. ( Not to mention making a repeat visit unlikely ! )

Alexi:

Also very interesting article and from the dimensions of this sword the original would resemble the Albion Gaddhjalt a great deal in blade shape but with a somewhat different guard.

Is it possible that there is a " typo " error on the dimensions of the tang ?

" Tang width at guard: a 3/16 inches " Maybe it should read 1 3/16" ??? At least visually if the grip is 3 3/4" long the width of the tang near the guard should be close to 1 3/16" ( Eyeballing it )

Sean:

Not my period of interest but a very well written piece.

Alexi;

I'm always somewhat amazed how thin the blades are on original swords: Must be because of my early 1980 's experience with 1/4" to 5/16" thick blades. And more importantly this thick without any distal taper: Mostly my fault as this is what I wanted at the time having a tendency to like railroad engineered thing. :p :lol:

But very interesting that what we might imagine being very similar swords based only on pictures are very different beasts when one can handle them in person. :eek: Good that at least we have you guys to do it for us and report on your impressions. :cool:

Sean... may I just say... ROLL TIDE... (U of A Class of 97)