Posts: 1,903 Location: Toronto
Thu 22 Dec, 2011 7:34 am
Slight change of plans folks...at the prompting of one of the moderators (Chad) I'm going to submit a formal review for this sword. It may take a while to get on line, so Chad said it would be OK for me to post some brief impressions and a few quick pics for those of you were waiting to see the end result. So:
In a nutshell, Jeff has turned out one big, beautiful, beast of a sword. I really admire Jeff's attention to detail and historical accuracy (both in the production and the product). He's a true artist of his craft. This really comes across in details of the
blade geometry and hilt construction.
For a one-handed piece of this size (see it pictured below between the similar Windlass Transitional Viking and Albion Caithness) there was a definite danger of producing an unwieldy sword. But Jeff has kept the overall weight down (exactly 3 lbs) and provided an excellent mass distribution. Its no fencing sword, but quite manageable. You can tell from dry handling that long wide thin blade is eager to cut, and has no intentions of stopping till its gone right through its unfortunate target. (I'll leave detailed stats and observations for the formal review).
The fit and finish are superb, I would say on par with an Albion museum line piece.
One cool detail I left out before is the Runes on the upper collar. Originally they said 'Asmund made me; Asleik owns me' (in old Norse). In this case, it seemed appropriate for them to say 'Jeff made me; Doug owns me'. The impressive thing is that Jeff enlisted emminent Historian and Runologist Stephen Pollington to translate this modern phrase back into late Viking-age Norse language and runes. This process revealed some interesting things about the sword, but I will save those details for the formal review.
The scabbard is still under my Christmas tree (it was a present from my wife), so again I will save that for the formal review, but I peeked a bit at the unwrapped ends and it looked nice!
Finally, it was a great joy to work with Jeff. He was always prompt, humble, and helpful. The only times we disagreed were when he insisted on making things more historical than my original inclinations! How could I say no to that? And so talented - it seems like he can do anything with his hands.
Do I reccomend Jeff Helmes to anyone interested in custom Viking-age or medieval replicas? Hell Yeah!!! :D
Happy holidays everyone. I'll get to that formal review as soon as spossible.
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Jeff Helmes 'Korsoygaden' sword: Blade View
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Jeff Helmes 'Korsoygaden' sword: Hilt View
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Jeff Helmes Sword between two other 'type M' pommel medieval sword replicas: Windlass Transitional Viking and Albion Caithness