My A&A Henry V rings just a little if I tap it near the tip. My Cold Steel grosse messer sings long and loud.

Oh yeah -- I don't think for a minute that ringing has anything to do with quality so much as the fact that it's 'metal' ;)

I definitely have to reiterate the tight hilt thing, though. As Eric said, if it's tight, the vibration stays in the blade and reverberates nicely.

This is an interesting phenomenon. I have two Albion swords - an Acre I got overt a year-and-a-half ago, and a Crusader I just got at an auction last weekend. The Acre (which is very solid) thuds whild the Crusader has a beautiful ring to it. I have no idea why one rings and the other doesn't.

Regards,

Mike

I would like to resurrect this topic in case anyone has new insights.

I just got a sword that has a nice ring to it (literally). After testing a number of swords, I could find no pattern to which ones ring and which ones do not. Of my two best 'ringers' one has a long narrow blade, and the other is a viking type with a wide 31" blade, one higher end, one lower end. Of the ringers, some were more stiff and some more flexible.

Of the non-ringers, most of which simply give a dull thud, I could find no pattern either. True, one has a loose guard, but the rest are quite solid at the hilt. One could see that a loose hilt could dampen high frequency components, but its hard to explain the absence of ring in the rest of them.

I like the nice ring, but except in the case of a loose guard is there really anything to this besides some particular shapes resonating with high frequency vibrations?