The Towton is quite a nice sword for this money, taking heed to what Joe said, I tested the Towton out a bit by bouncing the blade on a carpeted floor and noticed some looseness, it only amounted to needing to tighten up the pommel, after that it was solid.
For the type of sword it is, it certainly is not the stiffest blade around, but hey for the price and it came with a well fitting scabbard, no way to go wrong on this one!
Chad's review on the Towton helped me a lot in arriving to the decision to go ahead and get it, which as you know was just in time to get the very last one at K of A.

I go there every few weeks and posted this before but I will post this again as it's been a few months. If there is anything anyone wants me to check out at Kult of Athena please send me a message and I will write myself a note and get back to you ASAP. More than happy to do it, as we are all friends here and I am always happy to help a friend!

Bob

Yeah, I noticed that too - loosening of the hilt components on both the Towton and the Shrewsbury. Tightening helps. Just one of those trade-offs for a cheap sword (only a collector would think these are cheap - people close to me simply cannot wrap their heads around the price of a quality sword!). I can see how that might cause a blade to fail in a way dangerous to the user during test cutting.

I will also corroborate the flex of the Towton blade. Don't have much to compare it to, but it's certainly more flexible than a dedicated thruster. Still, a pretty sword, and I hope all of you out there who want one get the chance to get one. I'm betting Kult of Athena is indeed the best way to get one if you are in the U.S.A. If you are in Canada, Reliks usually ships for free.

Kult of Athena is currently out of stock on the Towton, as I am the culprit who bought the last one but he does have some on order, but as he told me sometimes they take his order and don't fill them, so it's a crap shoot as to whether he will get more.

Bob

Got my Shrewsbury the other day and I have to say, for a sword at that price point, it doesn't suck. Has a whippy blade for something that seems intended for the thrust, but i bet i could get my point across if necessary. Ahem. I find the grip a bit too thick for my hands but I bought this as a project sword so the grip was going byebye anyway. I haven't taken the hilt apart yet to check the tang and to see if the stories of a plastic core are true but all in all I'm satisfied with my purchase. If you're a grad student on a budget like me, this is a nice sword.

Anybody got any recommendations for a decent bastard sword besides the Towton?

Regards,

Jan Downs

I have disassembled my Shrewsbury before, and the tang certainly looks good based on what online research has taught me to look for in a functional sword, but what is this rumour about a plastic core? I didn't examine the handle closely (and I too find it a bit thick), but it seemed like wood.

I have done some "test thrusting" against extra thick cardboard tubing and the like, and it seems the blade is okay for thrusting. Of course cardboard is not armour...

I purchased a MRL Shrewsbury Sword way back in 1992. It had a wood grip constructed of four pieces glued together. Two of these were nothing more than "spacers" on either side of the tang, which ran halfway down the length of the grip before terminating in a welded on rat-tail (so much for their "full tang on their blades"). The suede-like grip wrap, well for lack of a better term, peeled and at the time I had no clue on how to rewrap at the time. Then, the wood grip, with nothing to support it, fell apart. I tried making a replacement grip, but it looked pretty bad. Finally, I decided I wanted a rondel dagger, so I had my uncle cut the thing in half and we've fashioned the eighteen inches that is the tip into the beginnings of a rondel dagger :D . I'm not sure what I am going to do with the rest of it.
Hopefully they've improved on the quality of the Shrewsbury, but considering the price it is available for, it's not likely. They probably just found several crates of this sword tucked away in some back closet and figured to clear them out at discount.

Hmm. Well, I've had another look, and the handle might be plastic, or just heavily lacquered wood. I'd have to destroy it to find out for sure and I'm not planning to rehilt this sword too soon.

No evidence of a rat-tail welded to the tang here, so at least something has improved over time.

Since this thread is really about the Towton, I'll add that I hope it has as good a tang, but cannot bring myself to take the assembly apart and see!

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Tang of Shrewsbury purhased in 2005

If I can borrow a digital camera from someone, I'll take pictures of what is left of mine and post them.