[Nathan Robinson]

I think you've articulated your points well, Joe, and I agree with you. You've done a far better job at making those points than I have.

[J.D. Crawford]

Is Albion best? Depends what you are looking for. I'll only comment on ones I've owned.

IMHO, if you mean production swords, Albion remains the best. The museum line, although very pricey, accurately represents specific historical pieces, and the next generation for the most part represents generic types. The pieces are made with modern precision and a high degree of quality control. The downside is that you can only get what they offer, and if you care about the historicity of the methods of construction and things like blade inlay, they certainly are not the best.

Conversely, if you are willing to even spend even more, you can get custom swords that are much more authentic in terms of historically accurate construction methods, details like metallurgy and inlay. Jeff Helmes is an example of this type of Artist.

I think that some of A&A's production pieces are on par with Albion next generation line, but where they beat Albion is willingness to customize or go full custom. If they have specific measurements and clear expectations, they can equal an Albion museum line piece in terms of fit and finish. Unfortunately many people don't realize this, so the resale value is less.

I have a few pieces from Maciej. He's a true student of historical sword production but so far keeps to relatively simple mono-steel construction (like Albion & A&A). He's got a real understanding of blade form and function. Although lately I've noticed a trend for some of his pieces to increase the profile taper compared to originals. He's the anti-Albion in the sense that he believes in re-creating originals warts-and-all, rather than having a perfect shiny modern production look.

I've owned a couple of Michael Pikula monosteel Viking pieces and think they are superior in their way. Unfortunately he's not making them regularly any more, and when he does work they tend to be of the higher end Artisan type.

Rob Miller has been around a long time and I agree that he is under-appreciated. I've owned one piece and have another on order. The one I had was not accurate to the original in terms of the blade dimenions (and likely handling), but in other respects (historical pommel & guard decorations) surpassed anything Albion offers.

A few other newer people -- Davis Productions, the Sulowski brothers (especially Mateasz) -- look fantastic, but I haven't tried them yet.

[Lee O'Hagan]

To add to the above of the learned gents,
Albion are a great producer of swords, although not a customer i'm gratefull for all their hard work over the years,
experiences with Mike and Peter have shown it's not just about sales, as they were helpful while researching and helping others,
the fact they are selling a lot means the guys I go to have a slightly shorter waiting list, so win win for me,,

they are very good at what they do, as are A+A,
if i was Stateside they would be alot more appealing, more so with the shipping and customs issues we currently endure,
but,
for me,

~Rob at Castlekeep is mentioned,
i've had six or seven swords from Rob,
business standards have been mentioned, Robs havent as yet,
from start to finish and years on,Rob is in a category only matched as we speak by Vince Evans, of all the people i've dealt with in 30+years of collecting and buying these guys set a standard all should aspire too,
its easy to ignore customers once monies have changed hands,
Rob and Vince dont do that, they take payment when the sword is done, barring specific deposits if requested, and it is that, small deposit, materials percentage on personalised, thats listed on the site, not my experience,
delivered on time or early, and payment when convenient, or when exchange rate may favour etc,
add to that product delivered, well above what is charged,
Rob took on a couple of projects for me that were well outside the norm, but he couldnt have been more helpfull overall,

Aside from Rob,
i've dealt with Mark Vickers of St George Armoury for some years now,
Mark is an hour away and again an absolute gent, his work is amongst the best there is over here
if Rob is underapreciated Mark is overlooked,his site is very basic, mainly showing ren swords etc, but his sharps are amazing,
its mentioned about having experience with museum pieces above,Mark has produced alot of different swords for museums over the years,toured and measured alot of different works, having flicked through a couple of his notebooks and finished work pictures its now a real shame he's so busy with armour the swords take a back seat, huge rep on the ren user scene over here,
And next comparable standard you would have to move up to Raven Armoury,
Simons historical works are some of the best out there, fit finish actuall in hand swords they are wonderfull works,
expensive,but great swords,

Albion look to be producing alot of swords, there have been a couple of issues mentioned, but from my reading its a rarity theres an issue, more so if you consider how many are sold, also seem helpfull on after sales service
same with A+A long time between negative mentions, which is great overall,
not currently up with wait times so that excluded,

[Craig Peters]

[Nathan Robinson]

[Joe Fults]

[Joe Fults]

I would also like to apologize to the original thread poster for taking his topic on such a complete romp through the scenic countryside! Hope you got some of what you needed/wanted in between all of us talking about the cows and chickens!

[Michael Kelly]

[William Knight]

Speaking as a recent sword buyer, I might as well weigh in. I'm a reenactor, rather than a pure collector/HEMA guy/test cutting enthusiast, so my needs may be different from yours. But one reason I went with Maciej for my sword (which I love) rather than Albion, in addition to the wait times and the comparable cost, is that his 'warts and all' approach is, IMO, better for those of us who want to have swords that will have the right look when talking about originals to the public. The imperfections of original pieces aren't just accidents or flaws, they are a direct result of how these swords were made, and when we use our swords to educate the public reproducing these bits of 'personality' gives us a useful teaching tool.

[Joe Fults]

[William Knight]

Oh absolutely, Joe. Maciej was a pleasure to work with, and he does a good job balancing history, faithful recreations of originals and customer desires. I would definitely say that because you get a truly custom piece and something with a more 'hand made' look to it that Maciej is offering something more to people like me than Albion is, and for a similar price point. At least if you do stuff before the later 15th century - as has been said, he's mostly a high medieval guy, though he did a beautiful job with my c. 1470 English sword.

With where the pound is now I think that at this point Tod isn't that much more than Albion, and his stuff is also stellar, though I don't own any swords by him.

Also of note is Dr. Fabrice Cognot, who is doing amazing things with original construction methods and whose prices are in the 1500-2000 Euro range - more than Albion's next gen line, but at this point not necessarily a huge amount more, and probably less than the Museum Line.

And none of this is a knock on Albion at all! There stuff is gorgeous and if you don't mind (or even desire) the more 'perfect' and symmetrical finish it can be really great. But with the increases in prices and wait times Albion is now in the same class as a lot of custom makers, and as people told me before I got my sword - if you're going to wait that long and pay that much, you might as well get a custom piece (unless you fall in love with an Albion, in which case you won't be disappointed!).

[Christopher Lellis]

[Christopher Lellis]

[Christopher Lellis]

[Lance Morris]

Hey.

There has been some great upwards movement in the sword community in the last few years.

There are many makers on par with Albion and many well above.

Albion may be the best mass producer however.

[Kai Lawson]

I haven’t handled any of his pieces, so I can only comment on visuals, but aside from Todd, Maciej and a few others (no one mentioned Peter Johnson as a maker, even though he still does make swords; was Pikula mentioned too? He’s out of the game though...), I’d have to say Gäel Fabre looks pretty good, for the most part. Much of his work, especially the later period stuff looks reasonable, though it does look like some liberties or deviations are taken. That said, your choice of ferrous material for the blade and the recent option of a matched sharp and blunt is pretty cool!

[Ian Hutchison]

If you are interested in messers and other 'volksschwerten', I would heartily recommend Landsknecht Emporium. I'm not sure if anyone is regularly producing messers who understands them better.

Their attention to handling is superb, they capture the correct aesthetic, and although their manufacturing processes are not all historical, their adherence to historic construction details is impressive.

They are also very pleasant to deal with, nice guys.

[Jean Henri Chandler]

Just a comment on the notion of "medieval artifacts are hand made and therefore vary a lot"

This of course is true on the face of it, but it's also highly misleading.

We don't know that much about sword production in the Iron Age through the Migration era, but we do see remarkable similarities in many of the characteristics of the swords in things like weight (for a given length) profile and distal taper, balance and blade profiles and metal composition. More than you might expect.

By the High medieval period, we see a marked tightening of design features including things like blade harmonics and ratios of the various dimensions. We also start to have a lot more written records that survived and therefore at least potentially far greater insight into how they did their work. The truth is we are just skimming the surface right now in terms of how much has been transcribed, translated and subjected to analysis, but even that small amount which has been done has already given us very useful revelations.

Peter Johnsson, the Swedish cutler and researcher who is partly responsible for Albions success, has done some very good research on this. I don't have time to post multiple links to his videos maybe someone else can. But he does give us some insight for example into why the grip of a longsword might be one specific length relative to the blade and not another.

The comparative conformity of design features for given sword types is most likely due to craft guild regulations. Swords were not made over a camp fire by some bare chested dude with a beard like you see in movies. By the Late Medieval period most industrial production was done in a systematic process with many steps by different craft organizations specializing in each phase of production. Iron was produced in a large bloomery forge or a blast furnace (usually outside of town somewhere in the countryside). This was made into billets of the appropriate types of steel usually in a Catalan forge (powered by a water wheel) with a water-wheel powered trip-hammer. This in turn would go to town, to another workshop where billets of various types of ferrous metals were combined (forge welded) together in different combinations to make a sword blade "blank".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFpLuJMYJdE
Water powered trip hammer in use

A cutler, who designed swords, would order sword blanks in batches of 20 or 50 or 500, and in his or her workshop (there were female cutlers) these would be shaped according to specific geometric concepts in another forge, also probably water wheel powered. The swords would be finished according to the cutlers design specifications. Then the blades would be sent (in batches of 20 or 50 etc.) to another workshop for sharpening, then another for polishing, then to a hilt maker and then to a scabbard maker.

Then they would be subject to guild and / or city inspection. Swords were important export products and both craft guilds and towns regulated their production (like all weapons and most other products suitable for export). The craft organization, the town government, and the merchants who sometimes exported them long distance, all had a vested interest in making sure the quality was high which also imposed a certain uniformity. If the swords coming out of Nuremberg or Sollingen were not very good, a buyer from say France or Scotland could order instead from Cologne or Hamburg... or Venice

So there were certain consistency especially in some key design traits such as those that Nathan alluded to upthread. There was a high level of sophistication in probably a majority, though certainly not all, swords made in Europe between roughly 1200 and 1550. Peter Johnsson is probably correct when he said that sword design in this period was more like an airplane wing than the 'sharpened crowbar' of Victorian history books.

Of course it was still a pre-industrial system. There was some mechanization or automation based on water-wheel powered machinery but it's not like a modern factory with robots. And swords as a technology were in reach of smaller operations, some were made by small town or even village blacksmiths (probably inside and with a shirt on, but who knows). This is where a lot of the outliers in terms of quality and design originated.

And it certainly didn't last forever. By the 17th Century, though very high quality swords still exist, there are a vast and growing number of what you might call 'munitiions grade' arms being produced for larger and less highly skilled armies, and by the 18th Century and into Napoleonic times, some swords were being produced on an industrial scale and issued to soldiers without even being really sharpened.



So you do have wide ranges of quality especially in poorer areas and in later eras, and even if you had say a sword from Nuremberg or Sollingen in 1400 it still could be made to less than the normal regulatory standard. However most of them were, so there is some range of predictable qualities that modern collectors and replica makers can take into consideration. And these in turn seem to reflect better handling, cutting properties and so on (obviously depending on the specific sword type).

Jean

[Nathan Robinson]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

You are welcome. It's what we are all here for, to learn and share. Thank you for keeping this very useful site going for so long and at such a high standard.