Dear forum mates! I need some help here. I commissioned a sword from a german "swordmaker" (It wouldn't be decent to post the name, so I keep quiet about that.) He had fotos of a celtic sword, he had done before on his website. I enquired about that and he wrote me that he did this one for a museum and that he still had a similar blade and scabbard and he could make such a sword for me.
I payed 680 Euro for the sword ( $960 or 600 British Pounds ). Last week I got the sword finally. The moment I unpacked it, I knew that under no circumstances I could accept this and I would never keep it in my collection. It's just not the kind of craftsmanship I am used to (I have swords by Binns, Noyes, Cervenka, Albion, Hakun Risti, Pavel Marek, Berbekucz, …). The sword is (in my eyes) amateurishly done, like something that someone built for himself. Definitely nothing I would pay nearly $1000 for. The sword has a deepeeka-wallhanger appeal, if you know what I mean.

- I had ordered a sharp blade, the blade is blunt.
- The grip/hilt looks terrible. It's made of oak and I guess the piece of wood just wasn't suitable for the job. It looks yellowish, a bit like it's carved out of a broomstick. There's a tear in the wood. The texture of the wood looks terrible.
- The enamel inlay turned out quite ugly as well. The inlays on the chape are really amateurishly done.
-The blade has no real point. The tip of the sword is 3 milimeters wide.

I complained about these points and wanted to give the sword back, but he won't take it back and refuses to see what I don't like about the sword. He offered to sharpen the blade and to rehilt it. But in my opinion the entire job went wrong and I just can't accept it.

I'll try to upload some fotos and I'd like to have your opinion on the sword.

Kind regards
Andreas

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Pic 1 [ Download ]

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Pic 2 [ Download ]

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Enamel [ Download ]

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Enamel scabbard [ Download ]

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Grip [ Download ]

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Grip 2 [ Download ]

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Point [ Download ]

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Tear in the wood, right in the middle of the picture [ Download ]

Hi Andreas,

first of all you should take better pictures for us. Most of them are quite blurry. Second: if you ordered a sharp sword, you should get a sharp, not a blunt. Well... As for the rest: could it be, that you confused "museum quality" with "modern state of the art"-quality? Modern, machine made swords tend to look "perfect". A perfection most antiques don't match. But to discuss this at length, we need better and more detailed photos.

Best wishes,
Thomas

Hi Thomas! I afraid I'm not a very good photographer. These are the best pictures I could take.
I'm not interested in modern state of the art quality. I have quite few pretty rough and simple Seaxes. Still a certain level of craftsmanship can be expected for the amount of money I payed. A badly made grip has nothing to do with museum quality.

Hi Andreas, it's a same that you didn't get exactly what you were looking for from a swordsmith, as I know what that feels like. Something that I've seen before that might mislead some potential customers is when smiths say that their work has been used in museum exibit, this really says nothing for their calebar, as I've seen museums with exibits which varie widely in quality, from as close as possible to historical example to stuff that I wouldn't take as a gift. One thing I will say though is that for a custom sword and scabbard at €680 is quite cheap, so I wouldn't say that you got ripped off for what you paid.ts which varie widely in quality, from as close as possible to historical example to stuff that I wouldn't take as a gift. One thing I will say though is that for a custom sword and scabbard at €680 is quite cheap, so I wouldn't say that you got ripped off for what you paid.

i have to disagree, 680 Euros are a lot of money, i can understand Andreas reaction as from the pictures that he has posted clearly he has received a sub-standard sword, the grip is very poorly done and the enamel is even more poorly done, but the thing that i found absolutely crazy is that the maker has send him a blunt sword instead of a sharp.

for that price i would expect at least the exact sword that i have ordered!

for a custom work the price is not low at all but even if it would it is not an excuse for a poorly done product.

Gabriele, I guess that we'll have to agree to disagree about the price issue, but to me €680 is about the price of a mid to high level production piece. However I absolutely agree that if I got a poorly made blunt sword instead of a sharp one I wouldn't be too well pleased either.

Dear Andreas,
I don't want to say wrong things but on the second picture the grip is really yellowish and you sad it that really it is, and oak can't be yellowish but I now a type of wood which could be and this is Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia). I have made hammer grips from that kind of wood and they look like your sword grip. Don't be worried this kind of wood is really strong to thats why I could make hammer grips from it, my grandfather sad that it is such good as oak.
Really bad to hear about such a "master" who gives bad products out of his hand.
David

Hi Andreas,

You ordered the sword based on pictures of another he'd made from his website, so I take it that these pictures were clear enough to impress you and make you ask him to make another?

So your expectations were based on those pictures and presumably the pictures are good enough to make comparisons of the finish and quality, showing a discrepancy with what you actually received, which is why you are dissapointed?

So you can point that out to him with specific pictoral references showing the problems, and that his second attempt at this sword is inferior to the first (the one that prompted you to contact him).

Can you upload the picture of what it 'should' have looked like?

Best
Gene

Thanks a lot for the feedback!

@Gene: That's exactly what I'll do. I will send him the photos I took of the sword and ask him to compare them with his own pics. There are 3 pics of the sword he did before on his website. The pics are rather small, but one can still see that the enamel inlay looks 10 times better on his website, than on the sword I got.

I'll upload the pics from the swordmakers website. Please compare the enamel inlays on the chape, with the ones I got. (Pic 3 in my original post).

The inlay one the scabbard ( pic 4 in my original post) looks a lot better too.

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Chape with enamel inlay. Pic from the swordmalers website.

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Swordmaker's pic

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Enamel inlay on scabbard. Swordmaker's pic.

Hi Andreas,

I can see what you mean.

Let us know what his reply is?

Best
Gene

The swordmaker offered to sharpen the sword and to make a new grip. I sent it back to him. Today I got an Email and he claims that I am responsible for the terrible condition of the sword. Now we're in the realm of serious fraud. I am bit helpless now. Obviously he doesn't want to go through the trouble of getting the sword in acceptable condition and he doesn't want to give me my money back.

He claims that I am responsible for the tear in the wood of the grip and he stated that the scabbard was damaged by me. Of course I handled the sword carefully.

I'm sorry, but the issues that you're complaining about are obviously due to poor manufacturing. Unless he is claiming that you disassembled the entire thing and then re-enameled it so it can look like a BudK factory second.