Show Us Your Antique Medieval Swords! -- myArmoury.com

Craig Peters

Yes, a website such as myArmoury can hardly consider itself complete with a thread of this sort, even if it has very few responses. If you are the rare, lucky owner of an antique medieval sword, show it off to us!

The Rules:

1) In case you missed the title: no reproductions. Originals, only.

2) This needs to be a sword in that you or another private collector owns. Makers and manufacturers, if you've taken photographs or documented originals, they don't belong in this thread, unless you personally own the medieval sword you're documenting. If you have a friend who is not on this forum that owns an antique medieval sword, and you get their permission to put up photos, then go for it- just be sure to acknowledge who the owner is.

3) I'll define "Medieval" pretty broadly as the period from 500 CE to 1500 CE. If you've got a 16th or 17th C original, sorry, this is not the right thread.

4) You can post swords that you own from other regions of the world outside of Europe, provided they fall within the aforementioned dates.

Craig Peters · Posted: Sat 16 Jul, 2011 3:07 am Post subject:

Despite my hopes that this thread would have a few members posting pictures of their antique medieval swords, not a single person replied. I know that there are forum members out there who have originals, but so far, nothing has been posted yet. Since this is my own thread, I have decided to cheat a bit; I will now change it so that any antique medieval weapons can be posted here, whether swords, daggers, spear heads, bolt and arrow heads, mace heads, axes, polearms or otherwise. To get the ball rolling, I'll post my own recent acquisition.

Shahril Dzulkifli

That's very complicated. Many antique medieval swords would end up in museums, not antique shops.

Cornelis Tromp · Posted: Fri 12 Aug, 2011 10:10 am Post subject:

Hi Craig,

I already have a number of original sword posted on this forum, is there a specific type of sword you are interested in?

best,

Job Overbeek · Posted: Fri 12 Aug, 2011 12:21 pm Post subject:

I'll have a look, my late grandfather once dug up a blade, from what I recall it's a most likely a rapier (and far gone on the road towards oxidation).

Gene W · Posted: Fri 12 Aug, 2011 4:09 pm Post subject:

Come on Craig, give us a chance Wink

How about a 'favourite relic' thread?

Mike Capanelli · Posted: Fri 12 Aug, 2011 7:29 pm Post subject:

Jan Svejkovsky · Posted: Sun 14 Aug, 2011 10:20 am Post subject:

Hi Craig:

I'll use your post to bring up something that I noticed a while back and that potentially has to do with why some of us that do own genuine medieval swords did not rush to post their images here: As you know, genuine swords from those ages are quite costly, and just like with jewelery, coin collections, etc. it may not be a great idea to give the world a peek into what one has stashed at their house via the internet. In my case, if you Google my name and go to the "Images" section and sort through the first 2 pages or so of images, you start seeing photos of ancient swords - some of which I own and posted pictures of here, but also many of which I do not own but have either posted or downloaded their images from this forum. Without knowing that, someone can easily deduce that I have a half-million dollar + ancient sword collection - and that's not a good bit of "info" to float around the globe with how easy it is to locate a person these days.

I am not sure how this forum's hits and posts are linked to the Google image logging engine, and there actually were more such images six or so months ago, so they must eventually rotate out after a while - but it does give one pause when considering posting images of valuable artifacts...

Craig Peters · Posted: Sun 14 Aug, 2011 6:06 pm Post subject:

Michal Spilka · Industry Professional

So I´ll start it then! One little rusty medieval piece from my collection Happy

,
Michal

Luka Borscak · Posted: Mon 15 Aug, 2011 12:41 pm Post subject:

Cornelis, I think it might be good if we could see your antique swords in one place and this is the right thread for that. Wink

Craig Peters · Posted: Wed 12 Nov, 2014 5:46 pm Post subject:

11th/12th Century German Sword

Lot 1080 Fischer Auctions September 2014

Purchased by Craig Peters

Description: Type A Brazil Nut Pommel, Style 1 Cross, Oakeshott Type XI blade, possible traces of inlay on the blade.

Specifications

Grip Length: 11.0 cm
Cross Width: 19.9 cm
Fuller Length: 62.6 cm
Blade Length: 82.0 cm
Blade Width: 5.1 cm
Total Length: 97.1 cm

Point of Balance: ~14 cm from cross
Weight: TBA

The first question most people here are likely to have is "Is it real?" Before publicly posting photographs on the forum, I contacted several members of myArmoury, all of whom have either owned antique swords or have handled them. The consensus is that, as best that these members could tell from the photographs, the sword is authentic.

This sword feels excellent in hand. It's one of the most responsive swords I have ever handled, although this is undoubtedly due in part to the fact that it has lost some mass with age. Regardless, the smith who made it knew how to balance a sword: there is a substantial distal taper from the strong to the point, as is to be expected. Curiously, when thrusting with this sword from a middle guard, the shape and design of the sword feels as though it helps the entire weapon to track cleanly towards its target. I am not sure if this is intentional, or if it is a happy coincidence of the design.

Needless to say, I am extremely happy with this piece.

Bryan Heff · Posted: Thu 13 Nov, 2014 3:33 am Post subject:

That's great Craig! Is there any indication that the blade could have been longer in its earlier days?

I love the shape of the pommel.

Craig Peters · Posted: Thu 13 Nov, 2014 5:05 am Post subject:

Luka Borscak · Posted: Thu 13 Nov, 2014 7:23 am Post subject:

Awesome sword! Would you maybe be willing to give us thickness measurements from a few places down the blade? Are you going to give it a grip so that you can "feel" it better? I am not an expert in Geibig typology, but except it's relatively short, it looks like type 10 to me...
http://www.myArmoury.com/view.html?features/pic_geibig18.jpg

J.D. Crawford · Posted: Thu 13 Nov, 2014 1:58 pm Post subject:

That's very impressive Craig, it must have been a lovely sword in its day. It would be cool to have an exact custom replica made of this and display them side by side, and to know how it felt to freely swing and cut with it.

I must admit: I have mixed feelings about private collection of ancient archeological pieces - they belong to the world IMHO. That's why I have no interest in collecting them personally. It would be great to share this some day, perhaps by loaning it to a museum for analysis and/or display. But that's just me.

Craig Peters · Posted: Thu 13 Nov, 2014 5:43 pm Post subject:

Craig Peters · Posted: Thu 13 Nov, 2014 5:56 pm Post subject:

J. Nicolaysen · Posted: Thu 13 Nov, 2014 8:04 pm Post subject:

Congratulations on the sword and thank you for sharing it with us!

I admire your vision of a new type of sword institute. I think it can be done.

T. Kew · Posted: Fri 14 Nov, 2014 1:42 am Post subject: