[Lee O'Hagan]

End of last month i made the trip down to see
Mark Vickers, Full time armourer and swordmaker,
After a couple of hours driving i arrived at marks lovely home hidden away in the green and peacefull part of Boston,
Mark was gracious enough to take some time out for a chat and to show me a couple of finished pieces and some in progress armour,

Mark works for various different clients, from one off collecters on through to the museums dotted around the UK,
I gave mark a brief description of what i was after,pretty much just bare bones and left him to do as he saw fit,
Now after playing around with the sword for a few weeks, i'm quite convinced it was money very well spent,
Brief stats would be,
OAL,44"1/4"
BL,34"1/4" hollow ground,EN45
HL 7"1/4"
Leather over wood,brass spiralled wire over,
POB 2" from point of ecusson,
COP, 11" from point
blade width at guard 45mm
BW at 1" from point 17mm
Guard width 8"1/4" at widest piont
overall weight, 3pounds 3 ounces,
price range,£ 300-350, decoration dependant,

Mark was very courteous throughout, with either himself or his wife Jo replying promptly to emails and phonecalls,
The sword also came in a few weeks earlier than originally expected,
But with a small matter of a wedding to get through i had to wait till i was back before i could go collect,
Well on to my usuall iffy pictures,
The pics dont show how good this really is,
The blade is excellent, all straight,no blemishes and whatknot, very nicely done handle wrap,
peened hilt,also nice and neat,
Handles extremely well single handed,zips effortlessly with two,
All in all, i'm very happy and look forward to a couple or more commisions through St George Armoury,

www.stgeorgearmoury.co.uk

[Lee O'Hagan]

Mark inletting a guard,

[Lee O'Hagan]

A couple of pics of some other work,
The rapier was very nice, wire wrap grip, turks head knots,
Armour pieces in the background are very well done,
The small antiqued sword was rather good,
If memory serves the two central swords are hollow ground blunts (i think)
also very nicely finishrd,

[William Goodwin]

Lee,

well lad, that's a fine looking sword. Bet your rather chuffed with it. Just by the pics, looks like it would be alot of fun to swing around.
Congrats mate!

Bill

[Björn Hellqvist]

I met Mark in 1996 at the Tewkesbury event. He had a nice selection of knives and daggers on display, and struck me as a nice fellow. Take a look at the armour on his site - IMO even nicer than the edged stuff!

[Lee O'Hagan]

Hi Bill,
Cheers mate,
Fine sword although i'm still probly ahead in the sucky photo poll.
I'm slowly sorting through pics for a couple of chaps,
couple of morty's in there so soon as i'm able i'll forward them on to you,

Hi Bjorn,
Yes mark's a fine individual,
There was quite a few more pieces of fine armour, dotted around but as they were commisions i didnt take any pics so as not to get on anyone's bad side,

Last pic,
apologies for the glare,

[Adam R]

[Lee O'Hagan]

Hi Adam,
Yes the grip works very well,
Hockbottle/bottlehock, (spelling)
To be honest this design was more of a fun purchase,
what with the wedding i had noticably limited funds,and thought if i dont get this one now i wont,
my last couple were more along the standard line of historical swords so an excuse to treat myself,
i asked Mark to work roughly within a specific price range to see what the return would be,
There's a couple of items i want to commision of similer size from historical references but they are quite detailed hence moving the price bracket up some ways,
So before steaming in full bore i thought best to see how the first works out,
Needless to say i'm very happy and have number two slowly coming together detail wise,and a slot booked for next year,

I did see some of your stuff too,looks great and they were not even finished,

PP,
Bill,
I fogot to say, nice review on the AC mortuary,
excellent reading,thanks.