[William Atkin]

Gday

I have just joined and am interested in obtaining scottish highlander weapons for the period 1680-1745. I am very keen on originals with provenance. I am particularly interested in Western Highlands, Lochaber, Glenorchy and Clen Coe. I would like to source suppliers of original weapons and gear.

cheers

Bill Atkin

[Christopher Gregg]

William,

Greetings! I know of three sources that occasionally have antique Scottish swords: Faganarms.com, Antiqueswords.com (LionGate), and Britishmilitaryswords.co.uk (Harvey Wither's site). I purchased an English hanger from Harvey several years back. Good hunting!

[Lin Robinson]

Try www.themadpiper.com or www.scottishsword.com

Of course there is always ebay too, although you need to be very careful about anything you buy there.

As I am sure you know. finding these weapons, with provenance, is going to be very expensive.

[Jonathan Hopkins]

Peter Finer's site has a nice basket hilt from Earlshall Castle: www.peterfiner.com

Jonathan

[William Atkin]

Thank you. There are some leads on the way. Still no actual results. I will continue.. Bill

[Thom R.]

for that period of scottish weaponry (pre-culloden) i am afraid its a case of the good, the bad and the ugly

the good: you have come to the right place. there is an amazing amount of info here. i started collecting long before the internet and have found a lot of terrific info here. use the search function liberally. you can also just go thru Mac's (Tom MacDonald's) posts and hit all the highlights on nearly every discussion pertaining to Scottish weaponry. For example: Mac has put his photo albums on the internet and there are a lot of great photos of many of the great museum pieces in those albums. http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?uid=717149

the bad: collectors of these pieces outnumber the pieces themselves. the competition for good pieces is fierce. this has been true for years and so original pieces are often hard to find and very expensive as compared to other swords of the late 17th and early 18th c.

the ugly: i have to admit that as the years have gone by, i have become more and more aware just how rare completely original basket hilted claymores pre-culloden are, especially ones that are in any kind of decent condition. composites (antique hilts mated with blades that are antique but not original to the hilt, e.g. early 18th c hilt with 19th c blade) are more often than not, the rule with claymores being sold by dealers purporting to be of the period before 1745. there are several reasons for this. first, lets be honest, a lot of folks died on the field at culloden moor. a lot (between 1500 and 2000). and a lot of swords lay on that field by the end of the day so a lot of the swords extent at that time were lost that day. second, these weapons were outlawed and many were later discarded, buried, thrown into the loch etc. for example in the Swords and the Sorrows, there is a blade featured in the exhibits that was found to be used as a fence post for a small iron fence. finally, after Walter Scott was published 100 years later, there was quite a revival of scottish culture in the late victorian period. then, just as today, a tremendous demand came for swords for heirlooms and for decoration. and at that time a lot of pieces surfaced that had been buried or hidden under the floorboards. many of these were not in the best shape so, they got taken apart and put back together with various blades and other bits and bobs in order to make some pretty wall hangars, thereby creating a lot of the composites that we see today in the collector community ( i can point out several to you right now on various dealer websites).

so my advice is to go slow and do your research. invest in books ( many of which are also hard to get). the other good news is that there are some folks making really wonderful reproductions these days (which was not the case even 10 years ago). I apologize if all of this is simply reinforcing what you already know.

now having said that, at the risk of folks throwing popcorn at their computer monitors (see "the bad" above), there does appear to be a sleeper piece in the next Hermann Historica auction that looks completely original. (#4742). it is not in the best of shape and has a piece missing out of the blade, but it does look to be completely original and is definitely late 17th or early 18th c. and is in the "possibly affordable" category ( whereas the peter finer piece to me is in the museum grade category). good luck! TR

[William Atkin]

Thank you Thom et al. Direct leads are exactly what I want. I am happy to invest as I have two sons and these are for them. Bill

[William Atkin]

Thank you team. Your replies have helped me find two broadswords, scian dearg, and a pistol. I now have a better idea of the detail needed to find items with real provenance. cheers Bill