[Patrick Kelly]

Deepeeka has never been known as a provider of quality replica arms. However, they have made some improvements of late. Greek arms aren't even remotely my "thing" so my degree of ignorance on the subject is high. For those more knowledgeable on the era, what's the opinion on this Deepeeka offering? Does it feature a higher lever of accuracy than previous ones?


http://www.kultofathena.com/product.asp?item=...+Bone+Hilt

[Timo Nieminen]

Their Greek and Roman stuff can be quite good, often the best in the price range.

This is pretty good for a budget xiphos. The best one I know of, short of Manning Imperial (who do a whole bunch of excellent ones). At least a pound overweight, so won't have authentic handling.

[Matthew Amt]

Unfortunately, the best I can say about this, and the Campovolano version, is that they are "The worst in the world, except for all the others." For off-the-shelf, that is! Granted, I have not had the chance to get one of these in my hand, though I did recently convert one of their previous generation Greek swords, and that sucker weighed FOUR POUNDS. It literally hurt to hold it. (I ground it down to a pound and a half!) These probably won't be more than 3, but that's just a guess.

Next problem: After 20 years of junk, Deepeeka finally looked at Connolly's Greece and Rome at War (or someone sent them some scans), and came up with ITALIAN xiphoi. The hilts of actual Greek swords were different, generally lacking the metal plates. (We do see those sometimes in Thrace and Macedonia, but not in the main part of Greece, really.) The scabbards are also different.

The suspension rings are wrong. No attached metal rings (or loops or other fittings) for the baldric have ever been found in association with a Greek sword. I *suspect* that loose rings must have turned up somewhere in Greece, since they are very clearly shown in artwork, but again, I am assured that NONE have been found in the many graves in Macedonia. But in any case the rings must have been tied to the scabbards with cord or leather thongs, which are also visible in artwork, but not a hint remains in archeology.

I'm not sure what's going on with that hilt, it just doesn't quite match the outline of the Alfedena sword. No huge crime, it just seems off. Oh, and the ends of the steel plate on the guard should NOT wrap around and be riveted through, which is a feature carried over from every Deepeeka Roman pugio ever produced (not that any actual pugio had that feature, either...).

The blade is probably too thick and heavy, and the midrib too large. Obviously that's no impossible to fix with a little grinding, but at that point you can say it's a good sword if you replace the blade, the hilt, and the scabbard... And yes, any OTHER commercially-made xiphos on the market is even worse. So the only real hope for something decent is a custom piece.

This is what I did to the older Deepeeka xiphos:





Still have to do the scabbard for it, but you can see others that I've done on my Hoplite Weapons page,

http://www.larp.com/hoplite/greekweapons.html

Sorry, I REALLY wish there were a better answer! Yes, I should make up a couple decent repros to send to Deepeeka for them to copy, but I just don't have the emotional strength for that right now...

Good luck and Khairete,

Matthew

[David Wilson]

The more I learn about actual Greek swords, the more depressed I get that there really is not ANYTHING in the "production" market that is truly accurate. To get a decently accurate reproduction of a classical Greek sword, you have to go custom (or have skills). Period. Now, some of these custom makers are quite reasonably priced, but still, isn't there some way that one of the larger makers could churn out some fairly accurate xiphoi or kopides on a regular basis?

And it is true that the new Deepeekas are actually replicas of Italian swords rather than Greek swords, but they're not even good copies of those... over 3 lbs for a sword that size?