Info on Reproduction Gothic Harness -- myArmoury.com

Alexander Ren

Could those of you who have more first-hand knowledge on this subject enlighten me about this reproducion.
http://www.thesteelsource.com/html/mr9313.htm

What thoughts do you have on whether this might be a good starter harness for those of us who can't afford the harnesses that cost $15,000 or more?

With a price tag like that I am not so sure if I would want to do any reenacting/contact training with it but it is much closer to my price range (college student) than other harnesses I have seen.

Much appreciated... Alex

Allan Senefelder · Industry Professional

Alexander, this is MRL's gothic harness. For the price point its at your getting your moneys worth. It is "costume" armour in the sense that its not of thick enough metal(18gauge throughout) to use in most organizations that do some sort of medieval combat system. Also there are some issues with proper movement that would prohibit its use for this without some work(which can by the way be done without that much fuss). Artis's place(The Steel Source) is about 8 miles from here so if theres anything specific about a piece shown I can slid in and take a look for you.

Chuck Russell · Posted: Mon 23 Jan, 2006 6:31 pm Post subject:

save your money. thats all i got to say. the shape, articulation and look are all wrong for what it is representing. the only thing half way so so is the helmet, and its too thin for ANY combat. the cowters are flat, the guantlets do not move with the fingers ther breastplate is too flat the spaulders/pauldrons are just wrong and do not move correctly.

trust me, i too thought about this harness. but i'm glad i did my research and thought about it seriously.

Alexander Ren · Posted: Mon 23 Jan, 2006 7:05 pm Post subject:

Thanks for your replies.

My initial thought when I saw it was to get excited at a gothic harness that was less than $1000 but after a bit of thought and reading your advice I realize it is one of those cases of "it's too good to be true." It would probably drive me crazy to have spent a large amount of money on something that couldn't do what it was supposed to do. Impatience never pays.

Again, I appreciate your advice... Alex

Alexander Ren · Posted: Mon 23 Jan, 2006 7:10 pm Post subject:

Not that I would be able to afford any of these any time soon but do you know anything about Valentine Armouries' gothic armour?
http://www.varmouries.com/vcat_06.html

Thanks... Alex

Chuck Russell · Posted: Mon 23 Jan, 2006 8:42 pm Post subject:

UG MY POST DISAPEARED ON ME

IF YOUR GONNA SPEND THAT MUCH GET ! OF THE TOP 3. oops, my caps lock or shift key was on, sorry. Robert MAcperson http://www.lightlink.com/armory/armory.html , Jeff Hedgecock of http://www.historicenterprises.com or PAtrick Thaden, http://www.thadenarmory.com/.

there are others out there that do almost as good of a job too.
http://www.armour.cz/gallery.htm
http://www.mac-armour.cz/index_en.htm
http://clang.adkinssoftware.com/index.html
http://mysite.verizon.net/tulkaz/index.html
http://www.medievalrepro.com/
http://www.whiterosearmoury.co.uk/
http://justus.pair.com/index.html

i'm not a fan of valentines stuff, its just a personal preference. theres a ton out there, have a go at some of these links. come back, i got more

Nathan Robinson · myArmoury Admin

Alex-
I'm betting Bill Grandy will certainly have a bit of input for you on this.

Bill Grandy · myArmoury Team

Bill Grandy · myArmoury Team

I agree with Chuck on that list. Valentine's stuff isn't bad, but I'm not crazy about it in terms of historical accuracy, particularly for the price.

Martin Wallgren · Posted: Tue 24 Jan, 2006 2:42 am Post subject:

Check out http://www.viaarmorari.com/

Michal Plezia · Industry Professional

www.tomala.lublin.pl try this...for Central Europe the prices are terrible but for American or English not bad

Christian Henry Tobler · Posted: Tue 24 Jan, 2006 6:24 am Post subject:

As Bill said, Ben is indeed wearing the MRL cuirass. I did modify it a bit though - the fauld was just too long, both practically and aesthetically, so I removed one lame. I also added some pierce-work on the fauld so that it was less plain and more harmonious in appearance with the rest of the piece.

While I recall the catalogue listing the cuirass as 18g, I believe it's thicker - likely 16g in most places. Combined with the structural benefits accorded by the fluting, it's a very stout piece - nothing flimsy about it.

I think it's not bad for the money, likely because they based it on a prototype by armourer Peter Fuller.

One of my guys owns the arms, which also aren't bad, although the couters are a bit flat.

As for the gauntlets, unless they've modified the design, listen to Bill and don't even consider them.

All the best,

Christian

Jeff Hsieh · Posted: Tue 24 Jan, 2006 9:50 am Post subject:

Bill Grandy · myArmoury Team

Hi Christian,
I actually hadn't realized you'd modified the cuirass as much as that. That's actually really cool that you added the piercework to it.

Jeff,
The pieces I've seen from Valentine were overall very good, but I feel that if you go to certain small-time armourers you can sometimes get a better value for the price. Valentine also uses a lot of modern buckles and butted mail, which is fine if you don't mind that. Personally I really hate the look of a well made harness that uses chrome-plated buckles from Wal-Mart. Valentine can certainly do higher end work, but it costs more money, naturally, on an already pretty expensive harness, which is why I say I agree with Chuck's opinion.

As for the fechtbuch armour, I haven't seen it in person, but I do like it from the pics. In fact a number of years ago I was looking into investing in it myself when it was almost half the price that it is now. I asked around, and the opinion of most was that it good functional armour, but too thin for most modern combat groups. Actually, Christian, I believe it was you who convinced me there on a thread on SFI. In anycase, if you have $5000 to spend on armour nowadays, though, then you've got a lot of options.

I hear Valentine's customer service is really good, though, which really does make paying a little extra worth it. I know I've had quite a number of problems in the custom realm (good armourers aren't always good businessmen), which is why I ended up buying the MRL arms. I do demos, particularly for kids, so I needed to complete "the look".

Bill Grandy · myArmoury Team

For whatever it's worth, here's a picture that shows me wearing the MRL arms and pauldrons.

http://www.myArmoury.com/albums/photo/12530.html

It's hard to see them, but you can get a general idea. The rest of the armour came from different makers.

Don't worry, I didn't really get killed there. Happy

Bill Grandy · myArmoury Team

It just occurred to me that Best Armour isn't on any of these links:

www.bestarmour.com

Craig Peters · Posted: Tue 24 Jan, 2006 10:42 am Post subject:

Bill Grandy · myArmoury Team

Dominic Dellavalle · Posted: Tue 24 Jan, 2006 11:09 am Post subject:

Alexander I was in pretty much the same boat you were a year or so ago. While out of college for a few years now, a first house purchase along with the other assorted bills made it difficult to drop a large chunk of money for a harness.

I did some searching around on the web and ended up finding Illusion Armoring. After a few back and forth emails last spring I finally took the plunge and ordered a harness from them. In between that I had the opportunity to see up close a breast plate and set of arms that a friend of mine had ordered from them previously.

I'm not sure what your budget allows for at the time, being in college and all. Based on the link you provided that Gothic harness there works out to over a grand so I'm assuming you have that much to work with. Illusion has some decent prices for their munition armor. The period suits start to get up there but they are still a far cry from 10,000.

My advice pretty much falls in line with what others have already said. Do some searching, send some emails, ask questions.

~Dominic

Chuck Russell · Posted: Tue 24 Jan, 2006 12:17 pm Post subject:

illusion is ok. their customer service has been called into questioning. while the armour looks nice, some things need to be revamped. the knight in my group has manily illusion armour, but 90% has had to be redone by robert macpherson in order for it to be correct in looks and in useage. they cater more to the sca croud, not that anything is wrong with that please!! i'll not start a flame war.

best armoury is a link i couldnt find last night. i love there stuff. i dont think they sell the mail on the webpage, so yes its butted . helmets uusually are sized small so make sure of the sizing when ordering. they are also working on an English armour line. the marshalsea in our group jsut got a suit and its sweet. although he has to fly over to be sized for the greaves.

valentines Fechtbuch German Armour http://www.varmouries.com/fecht_01.html i do not like. i ahve never seen those spaulders before in my books http://www.varmouries.com/vpics/fecht01f.jpg . now i could have missed something i am no expert here. but it looks big and clunky. the cowters look to flat, the fluting looks to be done with a jenny and not with a stake. the sab's dont fit the wearer http://www.varmouries.com/vpics/fecht01b.jpg. also, if you look at the back palte pictures the faulds do not ahng correctly. on period suits they do not go out at an angle, the bevel out slightly and rest on the dishing of the previous on. i dunno its an estetic thing to me, the leather looks like chrome tan and the buckles are all nickled and wrong shaped. call me a snob but if i'm paying 5k for a suit i want the lil things right.