Hi all,

Just looked at "new products" on MRL's site and saw that they are bringing back "by popular demand" three of its previously discontinued swords. I actually am surprised they did this since in my experience over the years, they seemed to have an uncanny habit of discontinuing any of their swords that actually seem to be decent quality, ascetically pleasing and popular. I also note they say they expect shipping in late spring 2011 so they are not yet in stock.

I am very curious if these new productions of some of their (IMHO) better swords are made to the same standard as the previous run of these three. In particular I own the German Bastard Sword and its blade is quite nice, as is the ringed crossguard. The Oakenshott XIV was one I wished I had picked up and the Ulthbert always seemed popular and one I was interested in handling prior to its discontinuance.

I also have to wonder, who made such alledged demand? I never thought they seemed influenced by customer input previously, but perhaps I was too hasty in my assessment.

There was a long thread about bringing back old models over at the Sword Buyers Guide Forum. That may have infuenced MRL.

Besides the German Bastard, the Oakeshott XIV ( I think this is the one they used to call the Type IV), and the Ulfbert, there is another re-release, "The European Sword".

See here - http://forum.sword-buyers-guide.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2027 - for the confirmation thread.

IMO, if they are bringing things back, MRL should have included the Towton Sword.

The Towton was almost my first reproduction at the end of the last century. Instead, I bought the poor man's espada ropera and that would be my other vote for a redux of those. MRL had recently pushed out that ropera hilt on mongrel wide blades. Those were labeled as Italian war swords. I could only shake my head in the negative, as I think they could have done well to assemble the remains on a lighter blade, as was the old production. Those old roperas were the counterpart to the continuing Del Tin 5160.

It will be interesting to see if they sell out the first new batches but I have noted in the past that Windlass would rather not do these bring backs only to have them linger unsold.

Cheers

GC

I was On MRL's website today and noticed this: http://www.museumreplicas.com/p-263-oakeshott-type-xiv.aspx
As I recall this sword was pretty well thought of, apparently so much so that they are bringing it back. This is great news for anyone like me who missed out on this sword the first time it was available and have regretted it since. :D

I'm really excited by the return of these. they are all swords that I have regretted not adding to my collection when they were previously available.

Wow ... back, and with price increases. Only one month ago, their German Bastard Sword was listed as $149. It's now listed as $215 - a 44% increase!

Personally, I've never really been interested in Windlass' offerings. However, having recently become curious about the handling characteristics of longswords with side rings, I had been toying with getting two of these: one as a cutter/'beater', and one unsharpened as a trainer ... now, at that quality for that price, I'm not sure I'd even buy one ...