Well it´s just speculation at this point but if it´s true that the Cluny would be more favorable in Northern Europe and the brescia spadona more in Southern Europe it does destroy a certain stereotype. That of Southern Europeans being flamboyant mustache twirling guys with pointy feeble swords while everyone north of the alps hasn't got beyond using giant meat cleavers. it seems to be the opposite.

/end-speculation-and-slightly-offensive-regional-profiling

I'm wondering, have you been able to get the Cluny's tip to cut through clothing or anything with a tip cut (basically racking the point across the target)? My XVIIIb has a very similar tip geometry and despite being highly polished, I couldn't get the tip to do anything but tear through some layers of wet newspaper, linen stopped it cold. In the thrust it's ridiculously easy obviously to go through even several layers of thick linen and wool but in the cut the entire first 10-12cm are useless.

I'm surprised by that stereotype, as a practitioner of the German longsword school "meat cleavers" are the last thing I think of when it comes to northern european weaponry... obviously there were some massive cutting swords but the typical northern european longsword is a type XV or XVIII (prime example: the sword the Albion Munich is based on).

Drawing conclusions from just one 'northern' and one 'southern' sword is a bit quick as well, I believe :)

Regards,

Hence I said it's speculation and regional profiling.

Not to mention that the Brescia's blade was actually made in Passau, Germany and it would probably be a bit of a stretch to assume the maker, knowing how Italians like their swords, made the blade specifically to be used in southern areas ;)

Consider this encouragement to please continue posting your fascinating data.

Jean

Seconding that^

This is a fascinating thread. For fairly obvious reasons I'm quite keen to see how the Albion Alexandria fares against the pig. If the edge geometry of this sword is anything like that of the original Alexandrian XVIIIc pieces, I would expect it to be a superlative cutter! As was mentioned above, although these swords are very thin in cross section (about 4.0 to 5.5mm at the forte on the originals), the great breadth of their blades combine with an extremely subtle hollowing of their faces to impart a reasonable degree of strength.

Waiting patiently for the rest of the tests ;)

Any updates or further testing? Has the review been written again without incident?

Any word from the original poster?