[Dustin Faulkner]

Hello Everyone:

First, I hope you are getting the toy (or toys) you want for Christmas. I want to ask everyone why it seems certain types of weapons are not reproduced on the market. I have heard them be admired and they are often seen in illustrations copied from historical manuals we admire like Talhoffer's or Fiori de Liberi's.

I am refering primarily to vicious dueling swords I've seen in illustrations. Swords with spikes on the hilt, pointed quillons, and a small handle in the middle of the blade for half-swording. There are also polearm weapons with a head at both ends. I've also seen an illustration with a dueling weapon that's like a rondel dagger on steroids except there is some length of handle behind the last rondel. There is a rondel and grip for each hand and the "blade" is like an ahlspiess.

I also find it curious that a company like Hanwei has not made a more affordable German zweihander since they make a decent looking claymore and that big Lowlander two-hander. I don't mean to sound cheap, but I can't afford one from Lutel or Pavel Marek or have one custom made.

At the very least, it would be fun to have repoductions of such weapons simply because they look cool. I am sure the manufacturing capability exists. I can imagine someone making a blunted judicial dueling sword with a handle for halfswording. Are there legal fears that prevent a reproduction Talhoffer spiked sword from being made by a company like Albion, Arms & Armor, or Hanwei?

Frohliche Weinachten!

[Marik C.S.]

I could see two reasons for this - well, everything except the Hanwei Sword - the first one is business.
The target market for either sharp or blunt swords is not really a very big one, if you get to specialised within that margin you might be hard put to find customers. So in the end either you build nice duelling weapons and have to charge a matching price which very few people will pay or you have to go cheaper up to a point where the whole ordeal becomes cost-efficient which would result in cheap weaponry which might satisfy no one. In that case, if you really want something like that you can't get past a custom order.

The other reason are the weapons themselves. I've seen some of the ones you describe here and those weapons look.. well they remind me of this:


What I mean is, that they look exaggerated (and I don't mean the sizes or style of drawing).
Sure they are impressive and look quite vicious but there is something off about the whole thing which might keep people from buying them. Which leads us back to the first point, a very, very small target audience for this kind of thing.

[Kel Rekuta]

The term for the late medieval tournament weapon resembling a giant rondel dagger is estoc.

Probably an extremely small demand in the market for such a reproduction. If you need to explain what the thing you collected is its coolness drops dramatically for the typical non sword geek.