Posts: 740 Location: Netherlands
Fri 21 Apr, 2006 1:18 am
IMO when you want to do something as specialized as Iron Age blades, you have to create your own market, rather then wait for it. Most people simply aren't very familiar with it, so their interest has to be awakened and nurtured. Make cool stuff, show cool stuff, and get people to notice that the material from that period is actually exceptionally cool. Sooner or later people will come towards you that will want to buy your swords.
Just look at what happened with bronze age stuff for example. A couple of years ago, only very few people were even familiar with them. There's now a pretty large group of bronze age enthusiasts (nearly a hundred members now over at Bronze Age Center!) , only because that small group of bronze addicts started showing around cool shiney stuff. I've personally just started to get involved in early iron age living history (Hallstatt). This is a period that so far has received almost no attention yet (aside from the German Hallstatt group). And I wanna bet that in a few years time there will be quite a few people wanting to have their own Gundlingen and Mindelheim swords! :) Well, the Gundlingen is already getting quite popular, since Neil Burridge started producing them (see
http://www.templeresearch.eclipse.co.uk/bronz...r_sale.htm ). And I haven't even been showing around what the fully finished piece looks like (which will be finished in a couple of days). Before he started producting bronze swords, there wasn't much of a market for them. But the more people get his swords and show around with them, the more people start getting interested in them!