If you guys all think you're weird for having an interest like this, imagine having the interest and running a Web site catering to it to boot. That's a whole other level.

Compared to what I run into out on the road every day, collecting swords doesn't even remotely approach "weird". :lol:

Well, I've found this hobby to be a "conversation killer" among the other playground moms. Actual conversation:

Other Mom: What did your boys do for you for Mother's Day?

Me: (very excited) They gave me a beautiful sword and scabbard and encouraged me to spend an extra hour at the fencing school!

Long, painful silence.

Other Mom: Oh, that's nice.

End of conversation.

Since I got into this hobby via learning and practicing swordsmanship in the Liechtanauer tradition, I've had to explain to my doctor that my extraordinary number of bruises were not from my husband, but from men in masks that I meet in an industrial office park on the weekends. Hmm, that didn't sound any better, did it? :\

That's why I hang out here, at least you gentlemen understand. :cool:

Postscript: I've also learned how to talk NASCAR in order to communicate better with my teenage son.

"Why do you care what other people think?"-Richard Feynman, Physicist, Nobel Laureate

So, we should all be out paying hundreds or thousands of dollars each year for the privilege of chasing a little white ball around a park? Catching mercury-tainted fish vastly more expensive than we could get at the local market?Sitting in a tree and shooting animals? Weird is as wierd does. I study history and martial technology, and that seems pretty harmless and upstanding to me. And, when all is said and done, I'll have my collection forever if I want to keep it, and I can pass it along to children or nephews and nieces. Try that with a catfish....

Well, I don't think we ARE actually " weird " only that the Dull Normals might think so: Not important unless the Dull Normal is in a position to make your life miserable. Wives, parents, kids, co-workers you unfortunately talked to about your hobby.
Anybody else you can just ignore !

Any passion will get the same reaction: Ask a Trekky, Sci. Fi. , weigth training, target shooting or computer games geek. ( I'm a bit of all of these to a small degree. :lol: )

Oh, maturity is often defined by the joyless as having NO passions and only being concerned by " important things "
:p :p :p

I was at a friends house the other day and his mom has these figurines behind glass that she paid $1000 for, each. She actually has quite a few she paid $1000 for, let alone the 100 or so lesser priced figures in the cabinet. They're just ceramic characters, you can't use them or play with them, you can't get joy out of handling them, they just look pretty. This lady is not rich, only makes $40,000 or so, yet she feels to drop thousands and thousands of dollars into ceramic, and there seems to be no problem with that. So there certainly can't be a problem with spending that kind of money on a different type of collectable, one that can be used and appreciated to greater extent even. Other people can easily spend $10,000 suping up thier car, or building a water garden in the back yard, or on a fishing boat, or in airplan rentals to they can use thier pilots license that cost $6,000 to get. The list goes on. Money is made to be spent.