[Eric Meulemans]

I've never been one much for black grips on my swords. And while I like browns in all their varying shades when appropriate, it's just fun to throw in some blue or red now and then. The purpose of this thread is simple - show off your grip colours. The only rule being: No blacks, no browns.

Here is my contribution. A yellow Albion Reeve.

[Craig Peters]

An old photo that I've posted here before. It's my Albion Sempach, with a red grip, even though it does not look like it, due to discolouration from sweat. Pretty much all my other swords are either campaign brown (Knight, Senlac) or black (Crecy, Late 15th C Bastard Sword, Tritonia). I do have a Castellan that I want to purchase a leather grip for, preferably one with the beautiful green shown on the Regent found on Albion's page. But that shall be soon.

[William M]

Here is an Albion squire line Vinland sword I used to own. I made a new leather grip and dyed it a kind of ox blood colour. I like it! However now everything I have has to be ox blood as what I have is going to last a looongg time.

[Ben Sweet]

Burnt orange by Albion

[Roger Hooper]

Here is a red, red grip on a AT2104 Medieval Fantasy Gladius Hispaniensis. Pommel and guard are plumb brown

[Jonathon Janusz]

That yellow is awesome!

When I was making monthly pilgrimages to New Glarus, I got tired early on of basic black/brown, although I ended up getting all of the XIV variants in brown (one in each variety of brown Albion offers). I saw a grape purple in the shop that wasn't on the "right" sword in my opinion but was really a wild color!

I remember the look Mike Sigman gave me when I asked for an orange like Sweet's on a Castellan. They had never done the color before and Mike told me when I came to pick it up that he thought I was an idiot when I ordered it and it would look dumb, but admitted after seeing it in hand that it actually came out looking pretty cool. Commenting when placing the order on the phone while driving that lacking any other inspiration I wanted the grip to match the color of my car probably didn't help make my case at the time. . .

Any other pictures long gone, I was able to pick out two of them from my old sale thread in the Marketplace. I had a Landgraf in Craig's green, and a Kingmaker in a deep royal blue. Of the colors, they told me the blue was a challenge because it kept wanting to come out a plum purple, and there were a few people with a few choice expletives regarding getting the orange to work right.

[Roger Hooper]

I got this Albion Castellan when the model first came out. Grip is a dark blue. I wish it was a little brighter - in some lights, it looks almost black.

[Josh S]

Sovereign, red grip. Looks oxblood in the shade, and almost purple in bright sun. I also just got a Chevalier in a blue-pink combo, but I need to send it back out to Albion for further work.

[Joel K]

[Bartek Strojek]

I have to agree that this yellow grip looks really climatic. Stunning stuff.

And this thread got me interested - what we actually know about medieval (say, pre-1500) grip colors?

Some leather/other materials on grips are preserved well enough that one could examine if any kind of dye/treating for particular color was applied?

[J.D. Crawford]

A&A custom with red leather grip.

[D. S. Smith]

And here I thought that I was really being reckless by getting my new Knight in brown. Haha.

My Knight will arrive in two days, and is the first sword I've had that wasn't a black grip (Crecy and Laird were black). I have a Chevalier on order with light brown under grip and black crossing straps.

I like seeing the variety in this thread so far, and it makes me curious, is there good evidence that colorful grips were popular in the medieval ages?

[Eric Meulemans]

The subject of Medieval grip colours has been previously discussed here, and there's a lot of good data in that thread.

As far as yellow goes, I'm not certain of much evidence for its use as a grip colour on swords, though it was certainly possible. Yellow dye was definitely available, and produced from the berries of the Avignon Buckthorn plant. From my experience with the above-posted Reeve, however, I'd say it's impractical. Even with a modern dye it's quite finicky and dependent on the leather and general cleanliness - the dark line on the grip is likely from a section of soiled overwrap string. My first attempt also came out looking rather like dog puke, which while having its own sort of charm, wasn't what I was trying to achieve.

[Roger Hooper]

Here is my oxblood begripped Albion Reeve. IMO, this sword sports the best Brazilnut pommel on any modern production model

[Chad Arnow]

Here are mine:

Albion Regent with blue grip (always dark and now almost black):



Albion Sempach with magenta grip (what some woudl call Oxblood):



An Albion Mercenary I used to own, also in Magenta:

[Josh Davis]

Here is my latest creation...A bit of tooling...green with a bit of black...will post a better one so you can see more of the green

-Josh

www.davisreproductions.com

[Wilhelm S.]

[Roger Hooper]

Here is my Albion Gallowglass with green grip. As is often the case, the color doesn't exactly jump out at you in the photograph.

[William Swiger]

Lundemo Longship with green grip:



Lundemo Fantasy Viking with oxblood grip.

[David Lewis Smith]

something I did years ago to a Windless 'Ranger'