[Corey Skriletz]

You can't really be too surprised. Look at MRL's product line for the past few years. It's just...embarrassing. Have any of you seen their new "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" line that's coming out. If memory serves, they came out with a few Holy Grail pieces a few years ago. Now they've replaced those decent-quality pieces with this junk.

http://www.museumreplicas.com/g-33-monty-pyth...grail.aspx

All the armor is polyurethane. All the maille, is of course, fake. When did MRL become a cheap (and I mean cheap as in quality, not price) costume distributor?

[Nathan Robinson]

[Corey Skriletz]

I understand the marketing to it, cater to those who make up the majority of your customer base. My question is what kind of customer base would pay $140.00 for something so cheaply made? It's no higher quality than something that one could get from a Halloween store like Spirit, so it stands to reason that the buyer would only wear it on occasions that call for costumes and not reenactments. So who would spend so much money for something that could be worn in such few instances. How's it any different than something like this, besides the fact that they put the Monty Python brand name on it.

http://www.spirithalloween.com/product/medieval-knight-costume/

[Nathan Robinson]

[Josh Wilson]

Maybe its just me...

But I think their sword designs lately (as in the past 3 or 4 years) just suck. They used to carry an awesome celtic sword with the anthropomorphic handle (is that the right word I'm looking for...?) but they discontinued it. Their older viking sowrds were way cooler too.

[Lewis Ballard]

The Celtic short sword is, I point out, the Deal of the Day (or Weekend, rather) at present, going for US$80.

I remain something of a Windlass fan, albeit a cautious one. They seem to do better with shorter blades, for instance. I have both the kindjal and the qama, and both are cutting little beasts. On a mad whim I picked up a Windlass Cobra Steel kopis with the express intent of fiddling it into something that would pass as a yataghan at a distance. For a take on a tactical kopis (and certainly considering the price), I have no objections. The only longer Windlass blade I've owned was their American Revolutionary War saber. I finally tracked down what it was supposed to be in Neumann, and yes, it was a poor iteration of that saber (too thin of stock to start with, a very boxy and primitive iteration of the guard), but with that said, it was well tempered and the point of balance seemed to fall within historically acceptable parameters.

They are what they are. Like the little girl with the little curl, when they are good, they're really quite good. (And when they're bad, they're horrid.)

I applaud the reintroduction by Windlass of several models which had gone out of print, such as the infamous "Type IV" and the German bastard sword. That shows some market responsiveness, which I find encouraging.

I prefer to think that, in this post, I am praising with faint damns rather than damning with faint praise. They certainly do not compare with A&A or Albion or Gus Trim or Del Tin, but then, that'd be asking far too much, wouldn't it?