[Nathan Robinson]

Hey Everybody-

I was just thinking of our collective collecting hobby and figured I'd share a bit and throw out a few questions.

When I started collecting arms and armour pieces back in the early 90s, I would buy a piece or two, sell a piece, buy a few more, sell one, and keep the momentum going. After awhile, I had a bunch of stuff and only a few pieces that I really loved. This was part of me trying to get things "in hand" and probably a natural path of most collectors.

As it stands, I've sold off almost all of that early stuff and have really only kept the stuff that is interesting to me.

But the buying has slowed considerably. There have been periods of time where several years have gone by where I didn't buy anything or even a few years of not buying combined with the selling off of an item or three.

I recently received my first sword in two years. It had been awhile since I had even seen a new sword, let alone owned one. It was a great surprise to me how much it 'fueled" my interest in this stuff again. Toys have a way of doing this, I guess. I'm still surprised how even this ol' jaded dog has gotten so excited by his new toy.

I've now landed in a space where I intend to buy one sword each year. One sword. It's a steady stream and nothing I can't justify to myself. This change of approach is caused by economical factors as well as a moderated interest in the subject. I've found that I have far too many interests in life to go crazy with this stuff any longer. Having the one new toy a year seems to be a real good boost and has the added benefit of keeping me financially responsible.


My questions to all of you are:

How many swords do you intend to buy each year? in the past, how fast did your collection grow? Has there been a change in buying habits? If so, what's caused these changes?

[Sean Flynt]

I started with a discounted Windlass baskethilt and tinkered with it for awhile, stripping it, changing the blade section, basket finish, etc. Then I sold it and used the proceeds to get something else, which I also tinkered with, then sold. That's pretty much the pattern for me. I made my initial investment in many mid-range pieces acquired over several years, and have since distilled all that into just a few finer pieces (which I also tinker with). I've traded or sold multiple pieces in order to acquire one piece, so my collection is pretty small now and there's not much mid-range stuff left to trade or sell. Not sure where I go from here because I don't forsee making significant new investments.

Most likely, if I really want something new (a&a or photography) I'll have to sell a custom piece from my collection. You know how in cartoons one hungry character will look at another and see a giant chicken leg or pork chop? That's destined to be my relationship to my collection for the forseeable future. I look at this sword or that helmet or those books and see an EBE commission or Voigtlander Bessa R2 camera. Like Nathan, I have other significant interests and I'm not sentimental about my collection.

I buy and sell with my son in mind now, too. What will his interests be? Will he want any of this stuff someday?

[Jean Thibodeau]

Hard to say how many per year as it may depend on funds and what strikes my fancy but I think I am slowing down at least as far as the expensive of custom swords are concerned. I may also buy more things that are in stock and get away from all the waiting that happens with custom orders: Sort of the business model Tinker is trying to get to now and sell what he makes but not have to deal with customer expectations as to delivery times. I look at his site all the time and if I see something I like and can afford it at the time I will go for it. ( Tinker or other makers with in stock products ).

A few mid range Windlass or other brands just for variety and to be able to experience a wider variety of sword types than I can afford if I only buy expensive ones.

Some types like rapiers that I don't own now I might want one or two eventually.

I should add that maybe fewer swords can be compensated by a few polearms or art-pieces or unusual custom projects like an ornate staff or long walking cane that OlliN is now designing.

At some point we stop collecting objects and are collecting sensory/aesthetic experiences and that can mean that the " accumulation " phase that one does when we first get carried away with an interest gets replaced by quality.

[Tim Lison]

This sounds very similar to the way I have collected swords. When I first started to collect, I would buy anything that looked cool to me. After I started to learn more, both about the swords themselves(mostly how they feel and handle) and about history(of the objects and the general time periods), my field of interest narrowed.
I had close to 40 pieces in my collection at it's height and am down to about 20 now. There are some I will sell. There are some I will not. I'm at a point where I'm not truly happy with a piece unless I've had some say about it's making. This means that I'm sorta locked into custom pieces, unless something that really suits my interest is available as a production piece. I've really found that part of the fun of swords for me is seeing a sword that I find interesting come to life. Because of my desire to have more custom pieces, my purchasing has dropped off. I used to buy 6-8 items per year and now only buy 2-3. This is partly because custom pieces are more expensive and partly because I don't like to have too many going at once. I will likely continue this pace for the forseeable future, but who can really say?
Something else I've done recently is have work done on existing swords in my collection. I've taken some of the swords that I like, but that could use a tweak here and there, and send them to be upgraded with new grips or pommels or whatever. This has kept my interest fueled with "new" stuff, without breaking the bank.
All in all, I'm pretty happy with my current collection. I am eyeballing a few pieces to put on the marketplace but continue to find reasons to keep them. Currently, I have 3 outstanding commisions and 3 upgrades being done. One commision is from 2 years ago, the other 2 are from last year. All the upgrades were this year. I haven't ordered a commision piece this year, but am thinking of what to get as I write this.....Hmmm....I don't have an XIa.....where's that link to Ollin Sword?

[Olivier L-Beaulieu]

I buy swords since 2004. I have 14 swords and one crossbow in my collection. I try to buy authentic and/or medium or high-end swords. I can say that I buy 1 or two swords per year.

[Chad Arnow]

Fun topic. My experience is similar in many aspects to Sean's and Nathan's I particularly agree with Sean's pork chop metaphor. And with Nathan on having fewer things, but ones that mean more. I'm past the accumulation phase and don't shoot for shear numbers.

How many I intend to buy each year depends on what I can sell and what money I can find to buy something new. I've been operating my collecting with a zero-out-of-pocket mentality for almost 2 years. This means I have to get rid of something and/or find extra income to pay for stuff. The mental wheeling and dealing that comes with that is kind of fun. With our financial situation and with an 8 month old, I'm making sure that my collecting has no impact on our bottom line. Someday, I hope to be in a better job situation where I can have a little toy money on the side. We're not poor by any stretch, but we have to watch every dollar that leaves the house more carefully than we used to.

So I guess that's also a change in buying habits over previous years. When I was young, stupid, and single, (at least I'm not young and single any more ) I wasn't thinking about paying off debt, funding retirement, or building a college fund for the little one. So I would impulse buy a lot and spent just about every extra cent on the hobby.

My tastes have grown and my needs have become more focusedover the years, which has helped slow the pace of acquisition. Throw in a healthy (and late) dose of adulthood, and I have other funding priorities that are more important. That slows it even more.

Echoing Sean, there is no piece in my collection that can't be sold if the right opportunity to upgrade and get something cooler presents itself. I love everything I have, but if selling an item gets me something that fits my needs more, look for my posts in the Marketplace forum. I also keep my collection confined to a display cabinet, which limits its size. That only reinforces the need to sell something to acquire something else: I need a place to put the new item.

My future goals include returning to school after 9 years to pursue a Doctorate degree. That should open up more job opportunities down the road. The side benefit of better jobs is more toy money. In the meantime, I'll be selling stuff off if there is the opportunity to get something better.

[Jonathan Hopkins]

I love this type of topic!

I recently summarized my collecting habits in the A&M section at SFI, but I think I can be a bit more succinct here.

I, too, started collecting in the early 1990s, just before I entered high school. My first sword was an antique, and given my father's second job as an antiques dealer this is the path I maintained. I bought pretty much any edged weapon I could afford as someone whose income was from babysitting, lawn mowing, and lifeguarding. At first I bought society swords, daggers, and bayonets. After about two years of collecting I set my sights higher and saved my money in order to afford better and rarer (relatively speaking) swords. I maintained the this buying pattern throughout college--saving for one or two quality antiques per year. During this time I never sold a sword. I am sentimental, and for me each sword represented a goal or a struggle. After saving for a year for a sword, I was not about to let it go.

After college I could not afford swords and put the hobby on the back burner. A few years ago after finding SFI and myArmoury I got back into studying and collecting swords. Finding the various swords related sites encouraged me to dabble in replicas. The replicas were fun for a while, but did not have the lasting appeal of antiques nor did they hold their value. Now I have a fairly narrow collecting focus which has helped me say goodbye to some swords and allowed me to buy others. All of my purchases for the past year have been funded through the sale of the "bottom" half of my collection and the purging of my replicas. My collection is now smaller, but better, going from roughly 40 antique and replica edged weapons to about 25 antiques, 20 or so of which I will not sell.

Looking to the future, I will be happy if I can acquire 2-3 good swords per year through a combination of saving, selling, and trading. I am open to replicas still, but antiques will always take priority.

Jonathan

[Nathan Keysor]

Interesting subject...although thinking of how many swords I've bought this year might cause a few pangs of guilt. I have been into arms and armour since I was a kid. I tried to make my own pretty early on in grade school. I have been involved in Asian martial arts since I was little as well. My first "real" sword was a Katana from AWMA at around 15 years old. I promptly managed to cut my index finger halfway off trying to cut an apple with it.
This, however, did not dampen my enthusiasm as much as one would think. Shortly thereafter I discovered the Museum Replicas catalogues and began to salivate over the armour and weapons pictured within. At this point I was still a teenager with a part time job and no credit card (as well as a history of self-dismemberment). I experimented with making my own stuff until I went in the army. At that point I had a bit more money (and a credit card) and was able to buy the occasional Windlass piece (which at the time was the high end of my collection) as well as cheaper Indian made swords. and few polearms. I eventually bought a couple Hanwei pieces. At the time I thought these were pretty high end. But with much collecting wisdom comes much grief and I eventually discovered Albion Swords. I acquired a St Maurice which I had dreamed of since seeing a photo of it in "Arms and Armour of the Medieval Knight" I ended up liquidating most of my collection in order to finance some more Albions. Needless to say now my collection is smaller but much nicer. I probably bought 8 Albions in the past year. That is a decent expenditure but I've financed it by selling off swords, a few guns (I don't just collect swords) and selling stuff on ebay. So far my wife hasn't killed me...yet. I have a 3 month old daughter now so I will be slowing down.

[Joe Fults]

Q: How many swords do you intend to buy each year?

Don't rightly know but I have set a limit of no more than seven swords in my collection. Can't remember how I came to that number but I remember my intent was to keep myself from over spending. I'll supplement with some other odds and ends but that will be my core limit. When I reach it something will have to go for something else to come in.




Q: In the past, how fast did your collection grow?

Fits and starts as cash allowed. No real strategy to it.



Q: Has there been a change in buying habits?

Sure it changed. At one point I put money into the collection all the time and went from mass market, to mainstream to very high end production stuff. Never really made the jump to custom but I was on the edge of it before deciding to go back to school. School sucked money out of my collection. Then my kid getting into wrestling really sucked money out of my collection. I've also realigned the collection a couple of times to move products from vendors I grew to dislike out. Its very humble today but I'm content with it.

I do have modest expansion plans.



Q: If so, what's caused these changes?

Change has been driven by my learning more and wanting better. By the ebb and flow of my financial situation. By family priorities and by some negative experiences with a vendor or two.

[Kirk Lee Spencer]

My collecting experience is a little different. I teach history and began researching swords about 8 years ago. Out of the original research I wanted to put together a set of 21 swords which would show how the western sword has developed over its 3500 year history. When the set is finished, hopefully it will be displayed in a museum or three. i hope to compile three swords in each of these categories:
Bronze
Celto-Roman
Migration
Viking
Longsword
Complex Hilt
Basket Hilt

Over the years I first began trying to settle on specific designs for each sword. Once I am relatively sure of the design, I try to find a replica sword that I can modify to these specifications. If not, I try to commission it. however, I must say that I am a real perfectionist when it comes to the design, so even commissioned work will often get a workover.

At present I have six finished,
Two commissioned,
Three that I am working on and almost finished
Eight that I have bought as replicas that need to be taken apart and reworked
The other two I have not settled on a design yet.

And if that's not enough... I am toying with the idea of a single edged weapon and war-knife (or dirk) for each group.

Might not ever happen, but that's the goal.

I have been collecting for about 8 years. The first 3 or 4 years I collected about 2-3 a year, mostly replicas that I refurbished. Most of those have been sold now because of financial needs and they did not fit into the changing designs for the collection. Over the last three years I have added more, usually replicas that I find at a good price that I can rework but the occasional commission. I am only anticipating about one or two a year at this point.

ks

[Bryce Felperin]

I got into swords with a $300 Hanwei and have now gotten the quality bug since. My collecting has been kind of scattered over the years since I tend to trade or sell my swords cheaply to friends if I "fall out of love" with them. I like to give them to good homes. ;-) I have a small collection now due to storage limitations (how many swords can you fit in a safe), but they meet my needs with one sharp longsword and one rapier at present. I had two blunts longswords, but I just traded off my Lutel to a friend who needed it more than I for sparring. So now I just have my Albion blunt for sparring.

I will probably be buying one good quality repro or custom a year from now on though. Next up is a new Lutel longsword this year and a new Albion longsword next year. I figure with my status (unmarrried, middle aged and good income) I can manage that pace of buying pretty well. I may even start buying custom pieces in a year or two as well...depends upon the time constraints involved.

Bryce

[Jason Elrod]

My first sword was a starfire and I kept that around for a couple years and I didn't buy anything. Then I bought my first Atrim from Albion and was hooked on the hobby. After that I only bought Gus's swords. I liked them so much that I started to sell them. As I became more immersed in the historical aspect of swords my buying habits started to change. I bought Albion, Del Tin, Lutel, A&A, anything that I could get my hands on. I had a lot of disposable income at the time. Swords, daggers, warhammers, etc. all came and went from my collection at an amazing speed. Sometimes I'd only own a piece for a month or less before I was using it to buy something else. I wanted to handle everything that I could.

I also went through a lot of collecting phases. At one point I wanted to collect Viking Swords, then only 15th century, next was custom pieces only and round and round i went. I continued on this way for 5 years or so until the birth of my son. At this point I had to reassess my buying habits and take some time to look at what I wanted and why I wanted it.

I basically sold everything off and only kept one piece. I paid off the swords that I had been waiting on either from Albion or custom and then sold them right away. Part of this was financial and the other part was wanting to start over.

I finally settled on collecting early 16th century reproductions and my collection now reflects that change. I'll probably only buy 2 pieces a year and have started putting money aside every month just to buy swords. I only buy swords now that I have the money for and I'm not using one piece to buy another one.

[Thom R.]

I started training with the foil at age 10. At age 13 I bought my first antique sword, a late victorian baskethilt broadsword by Thurkle. I purchased it via an antique shop in the small town of Edsel on the Eastern Scottish coast where my sister was living at the time. I paid for it by working for an entire summer, doing rennovations on a property just outside of town that was owned by the shopkeeper. he paid me in sword, so to speak. This was in 1976, our bicentennial year in the US!

Later, in highschool, I dropped fencing but have always looked back on that formal training with a bit of pride, it was good for me in several ways........ then college and the military for me in the 80s. During my time in the military I was exposed to Japanese Martial arts and kendo, and that became a big focus for me for awhile. I accumulated some nihonto and another antique western sword or two in those days. Then like in the game of life I got married and started having kids and a change of venue was the result so got out of Japanese martial arts and after a hiatus, fell into chinese martial arts starting with bagua and then tai chi ( which is odd because most americans practicing chinese internal martial arts go the opposite path). So in the 90s i started collecting a few chinese weapons for form practice. I have also always hunted so have had other types of weapons and blades too, some of the "short blades" I showed in the thread on daggers started by Chad I have had for quite awhile.

Then two things happened to drop the hammer on my hobby interests. First there was a splitting up of family assets that required me to sell a pile of my swords to square things up in my divorce. Then less than a year later I had a break-in where almost all of the rest got lifted. Not all but almost all. I have always wondered whether the two were linked but thats neither here nor there at this point. After several years of arguing with my insurance company I finally got my settlement a couple of years back and have been trying to rebuild. Hence me showing up here and SFI in the past year, two. Interestingly, I have little desire to own much in the way of nihonto anymore, and have for various reasons been returning to my roots so to speak with western swords and swordsmanship. And what do I find when I come back to those roots? An amazing rennaissance in bladesmithing and wma since the mid 90s...... for someone who was out of the loop for the past decade it is just an amazing thing to see. I am so pleased to see this stuff is not a dieing art, but a reviving art. I think it is partly being driven by sca, rennfaire, and historical re-enactment, but I think at the end of the day it is simply a testament to the power of the internet. Places like myArmoury are a big factor imo. some of you have no idea how hard it was to find good swords prior to the internet............

well thats the context for me - I admire antique weaponry for the craftsmanship and for the history they represent, but I also have practiced various ma's since a young lad so I also have a few sharps around the house. as for your specific questions when it comes to reproduction western swords, I am still in an experimental phase so will continue to pick up a few swords per year, selling back some, etc. on the antique front I think a good goal anymore given how fast prices have risen is to keep an eye out for one good piece per year. generally the idea of selling off the lower end stuff to make room for better is always a good one. In the long run you can't accumulate too many because modern steels do need a bit of maintenance, even in my rather dry climate, and that can eat up a lot of time. tr

[Justin King]

I started collecting around '90, buying Del Tin and Windlass swords and after several years I had 8 or so pieces. By this time the earlier pieces had been taken apart and tinkered with, which was the beginning of my cutlering hobby. I had been making knives by stock removal for several years before I started buying swords, so customizing them was a natural progression for me.
Discovering the online sword communities once I became internet-capable was an like entering a whole new world, the amount of knowledge that was availible was seemingly endless (although I have watched the collective knowledge-base here and elsewhere online expand greatly since) and changed most of what I thought I knew about swords. Or at least made me aware that there was much, much more to be learned. Historical accuracy was a much bigger subject than I had ever imagined, and became a bigger priority to me. This eventually changed my tastes in collecting and also pushed me into a much higher price bracket for future purchses.
During this period I also set up a gas forge in my workshop and began learning to forge knife-size blades, at the same time this gave me more capabilities in general metal-working and expanded my cutlering possibilities. I started looking to aquire quality bare blades to hilt myself, which has been a hit-and miss proposition to date.
When my son was born my spending habits had to be revised and at the same time I had pretty much decided that low-end pieces were not satisfying my tastes anymore so I have since resigned myself to 1 or 2 higher end pieces a year, mostly funded by making and selling daggers and knives and/or sacrificing other pieces from my collection. I just can't justify blowing +/- 1000$ of payroll money on swords anymore so it has to come from somewhere else.
My collection now totals 9 swords and is markedly different in styles and time periods than when I began, and is of much higher quality, although I still have 1 Windlass rapier and 3 swords that were once Del Tins and are now entirely custom, two having custom-made hilts and one with a hilt by myself which is still in progress (this is one of my oldest swords and has undergone at least 3 drastic makeovers, at this point it's looking good to be my retirement hobby).
Interestingly, my collection at present does not contain even a single dagger made by me. One day I'll make one just for myself. Eventually I would love to be equipped to make and heat treat sword-size blades but the expense and time consumption this entails (to do it well enough to satisfy myself) is just beyond my reach for now. A few more years making little blades is probably in order anyway.
One other interesting change since my son was born is that I am no longer at all casual about sharpened swords. I have even considered blunting my Albion's a time or two to make myself more comfortable. Before the kid I really didn't think too much about it, being in construction work all my adult life has given me a very cavalier attitude towards seeing my own blood and my wife never touches my swords anyway, but with a small child in the house things are entirely different. My Albions are just too dangerous to handle indoors anymore.

[Chad Arnow]

[Paul Watson]

[Douglas G.]

Great topic, the pathology of a person's sword collecting. My first was a French Artillery sword, folowed by an El Cid
looking Spanish wall hanger in the late sixties. The El Cid was crap and I traded it to a guy who was heavily into the
Trilogy and the French sword got swiped. Remember, there just weren't alot of replicas then, at least that I could find
and old stuff that I did see sometimes, probably English and made for the Eglinton Tournament, were more than I
could swing. Cut to the late 90's and I saw an ad for A&A in Military History and it was on. I started with a 12th century,
when I got it, it was straight out to the back yard to slaughter some Vine Maples while humming the theme from
Robin Hood (the one from the '50's). Since it's been a case of what winds my watch within a comfort zone in price, not
themed. As of now I have the 12th Century, a German Bastard and a Type XX custom from A&A, from Albion I have
a Bog Sword, a Rheingonheim Gladius, an Allectus, a Vinland, a Berserkr, a Jarl and a Brescia. Works out to one a
year. Oh, and a Del Tin 6th century Seax that Christain Fletcher re-gripped to match the Berserkr, you can see it at
his site under custom work. This is a good time for sword enthusiasts, there are so many options available now, but I
am concerned that the sour economy may drive some makers to close their doors and it will be right back to the bad
old El Cid wall hanger days again.


Sure Hope Not!

Cheers,

Doug G.

[William Goodwin]

Again...

started with wall hangers....got sucked into the black vortex of the U-C Lord of the Rings swords collecting. I'd did manage to acquire a Limited Edition Anduril #253 out of the total #5000 supposedly made. Then it happened....


MORTUARYS..............(Armour Class & CAS/Hanwei's)

fell in head over heels with this style....have spent several years doing research, collecting data of all sorts, visiting museums in the UK, etc on them, Oliver Cromwell and the British Civil Wars. Still have an over-zealous passion for them.

Had a brief time of vintage / antique collecting. (Victorian European and US M1902 models)

Now back into reproductions and putting more time into HES with our sword guilde.....becoming more interesting in the
Medieval time period.

Like so many now, the economy has put a real damper on an already limited "hobby" budget.


Cheers,

Bill


ps some insights on this thread

[Taylor Ellis]

Well I guess I'm a little different than most here. I only want one sword, the absolute best money can buy, and maybe a couple of beaters. :o)

[Chris Goerner]

Although I have had a facination with swords for as long as I can remember, my collecting of swords sprang out of my hobby of 18th century reenacting. For this reason, the scope of my collection has always been fairly narrow, focusing on blades from 1700 - 1760 and only of American, English, Scottish or German origin. Also, because these swords would be carried at reenactments, I have only invested in reproduction swords.

IMHO, there are no stock swords made that pass the historical authenticity test for this time period. Becuase that is a concern for me personally as well as a requirement for some of the stricter events I attend, I have had to take the "Sean Flynt" approach to tinkering with the swords I buy. Even purely custom pieces I've had made have had basket liners added or decoration added to the scabbards. This has had several benefits: there are no swords exactly like the ones in my collection, their quality has been improved, and I've learned a great deal more about sword construction than I ever would have otherwise.

I was also interested to hear Sean mention the impact that having a child has had on his collecting. I too have found myself wondering whether either of my sons will continue in their appreciation of swords, and have tried to add pieces to my collection that can be passed down and enjoyed by future generations.

Chris