[Bart M]

Link to the maker's website with pictures and stats:

https://artofswordmaking.com/gallery/stella-aurea-ii-14thc

I bought this sword a few years ago. It was a second hand purchase. The sword was advertised as sharp from the maker, yet it was not. The previous owner had sharpened the edges on a WorkSharp, which means that my review is not a review of the sword as it came from the maker. The sharpening was skillfully done and only affected a small part of the edge. It must be, nonetheless, noted.

In this review, I'm going to focus on the sword and my impressions of it. It is already very long, and I'm going to exclude any historical musings, descriptions and examples. myArmoury has a rich reservoir of articles and wonderful forum posts on typology and many other historical topics.

First impressions

When I first saw this sword on Maciej's website, I immediately wanted to have it. It looks so good in pictures. From the colour combination of the handle and the pommel, to the shape of the blade, it is just a very pretty sword. My favourite part of it is the guard, which tapers in both dimensions away from the centre. The sword looks simple, but has a certain regal feeling about it when you look at it. It is probably one of my favourite swords that Maciej has made, based on aesthetics only.

Fit and finish

Fit is very good and so is the finish. This sword is properly constructed and has an aura of solid craftsmanship and a hand-made feel, as it should. The blade has a lower grit polish, and it is possible to feel its roughness with a fingernail. It has, as the previous owner commented, an organic look when compared to a higher grit satin finish. Yet is is simply a result of a lower grit polish, possibly with some remains of a filework from the previous stages of sword manufacture. The guard is polished to a higher grit, perfectly adequate. The grip has three risers in the middle which give it a unique look. I also like the combined look of the maroon leather wrap and the brass pommel with a coin inside, which add a level of refinement to the sword.

Pommel

The pommel is shaped well. It is round and does not taper on the side. It looks bigger and heavier than other pommels I have seen on single handed swords. I cannot measure its weight though. The custom coin inside is made from a different metal and is very securely attached. The edges of the pommel are chamfered just a little bit, but I consider them too sharp. Handling the sword and cutting with it resulted in some abrasions first and then in my skin being cut on the outer part of the palm. After some time, patina started to develop on the pommel. I imagine it could be easily cleaned with some metal polish.

Handle

The handle is pretty. The leather grip is well done and has stayed in place without issues. There are five risers on the handle, two of them close to the guard and pommel, and three in the middle, with a special decorated riser in between the other two. The cord imprint on the leather was well done but has started to become less pronounced after some use. While the three risers in the middle look good, comfort wise they are a bit of a nuisance. They are too wide to simply fit in between your middle and ring fingers and get in the way a little when using the sword and changing grips. The shape of the handle is comfortable otherwise, at least in a bare hand. I imagine it might be too big to provide good feedback on blade alignment in a gloved hand, but I have not tested it on any targets this way. The handle is bigger than on the Albions I have held. This is neither a positive nor a negative, simply a matter of preference.

Guard

The guard is my favourite part of this sword. It is moderately thick in the middle, where it has an interesting swell, and then slowly tapers towards the tips. This taper is not linear and there are no straight lines on the guard at all. I think this is the reason why it looks so good. It cannot be fully appreciated from the pictures, but when you have the sword in hand, it shows. The guard is like a great sculpture - there is no more material left to remove in it.

Blade

As my favourite sword reviewer says, it is now time to talk about the pointy, pointy, stabby part. The blade is a cross between Oakeshott's type XV and XVI. It is straight and has no visible ripples. It starts quite wide and has a non-linear taper towards the tip. The profile taper looks hollow at first, as the wide shoulders of the blade get narrower, and then starts to look a tiny bit convex as it keeps tapering towards the tip. It is not simply a narrow triangle, the edges waver just the tiniest bit for this to be noticeable from the profile. I think this further adds to the handmade aesthetic of the sword. After the fuller, the grind looks to have a diamond cross section, but it is not very pronounced and in reality a cross between a diamond and a very thick convex cross section. The distal taper results in the sword having some unusual properties. It tapers from the base till the end of the fuller, where it again gets almost as thick as at the base. As a consequence the area just before the fuller ends is where the sword bends the most. From after the fuller, sword starts tapering again and gets very thin in the last 7cm before the tip. The tip can be easily bent with two fingers and does not inspire confidence.

Handling and performance

It is now time to talk about swords performance. I'm going to focus on two main areas - edge grind and handling.

Let's begin with handling. Based on looks, one would expect this to be a sword which primary function is thrusting, while cutting would play a secondary role. The problem is, the tip control of this sword is the worst of around 20 single-handed swords I have handled so far. Even my iron bar 1.5kg 'buhurt' type blunt has a better tip control.

When you point this sword at your target, the tip wanders when you extend the hand, and it is considerably more difficult to hit a small target compared to my other swords. I can only speculate why that is. It might be that the tip is too thin and too light, while the pommel is too heavy. Maybe it is a close point of balance connected with a pretty long blade. I really cannot tell. One can still use the sword to thrust of course, and it is still a dangerous weapon as long as the pointy end goes in the other guy

Cutting wise, because of the heavy pommel and a close point of balance, it is easy to accelerate the tip. The problem is, there is not enough mass past the point of percussion to deal any considerable damage, even to a person wearing thick cotton clothing. The area around and past the CoP is also not ground for cutting. I tested the sword, as is, still decently sharp after the previous owner sharpened it, on a cotton jacket, and the sword was not able to cut through it. Only draw cuts with a lot of force applied to the jacket against a rigid padding resulted in small incisions. The sword does not feel natural to cut with CoP and it feels better designed to accelerate the tip. It might be because of the heavy pommel. It is also the only sword I have, where it feels like the pommel works against your hand in the cut. It takes extra effort to stop the pommel when dry handling, as it wants to keep moving in the opposite direction than the blade. It is a peculiar sensation, like your weapon wants to work against you, and not with you. In fact, the whole time I had the sword, I couldn't stop but to feel that this sword needs a lighter pommel and some material removed from the main bevel past the fuller. It can still just about cut a water bottle when your edge alignment is good.

It is hard to say how to best grip this sword. With a typical grip, firm or loose, it feels all right but the tip control isn't good and the pommel can cut your hand. Thumb on the blade doesn't feel useful and the risers do not help when holding the sword this way.. I found another way to grip it, with your pinky around the pommel and your thumb on the side of the grip, saber style. This improves the tip control a bit and makes the cuts with CoP feel better. Unfortunately it also decreases the control you have of the sword. The owner of another Stella Aurea told me that he also likes this grip.

Edge grind

Now let me talk about the edge grind. I have attached a rough sketch that shows the cross-section around the point of percussion. The edge is thin and looks like I would expect a sword's edge to look like only in the part close to the grip. The trouble is that nobody uses that part to cut. Past the fuller and around the CoP the edge becomes extremely thick. I consider it thicker than an edge of a wood felling axe. I would expect things to be the other way around. To have a thicker, damage resistant grind (which would also help with mass distribution), in the half close to the grip, and more cutting oriented grind around the CoP and tip. Maciej has his own vision on sword's use. Here is one of his articles, which I personally find questionable and a little bit amusing. Responding to it fully would probably double the length of this review, so I'm not going to do that. Here is the link, so that every reader can form his own opinion:

https://artofswordmaking.com/gallery/sharpness-of-the-medieval-swords

I see a sword as a back-up weapon in times of danger or war, not as a main battlefield weapon. I also like knives and have a lot of experience with different types of grinds and edges. To me, a sword that cannot cut a single layer cotton jacket on a hard round pillow backing, which is supposed to roughly imitate a limb or a torso, is simply not a functional sword. Such a target is nothing compared to a gambeson. Most swords, especially arming swords are not very good as impact weapons. They need to cut. Some historical swords and sabres actually have edges thinner than a lot of modern utility knives. Maciej saying that his swords are not designed to cut paper, because they are designed to cut maille over gambeson without damage, like on historical battlefields, is just silly. None of us know how exactly were swords used in times of war 700 years ago. I, however, consider it likely that the physics behind cutting hasn't changed with time.


Back to Stella Aurea II - this sword would not do any cutting or impact damage to an opponent wearing maille or plate. The tip is also too thin to be considered usable in an armoured context. It feels like it would easily bend or snap after one misaligned thrust. It is clearly not a battlefield weapon. Is it a civilian duelling sword then? Its thick edge and its inability to cut a single layer of clothing would suggest otherwise. I consider it to be a very good looking sword, solidly constructed and pretty to look at. It just misses the mark in two areas important to me - handling and cutting performance.

One important area left to discuss is the thickness and distal taper. This sword is advertised to be 6mm thick at the base. Based on my electronic calipers it is between 4.5 - 4.8mm at base. The former value if squeezed tightly, the latter with a more relaxed measurement.

Blade length - 82.3cm

CoP - around 49cm

Distal taper (with relaxed measurements, subtract 0.3mm when pressing on the caliper's jaws):

0cm - 4.8mm
10cm - 4.3mm
20cm - 4mm
30cm - 4.5mm
40cm - 4.5mm
50cm - 4.3mm
60cm - 4mm
70cm - 3.3mm
80cm - 1.7mm

Summary

I have corresponded with the owner of another Stella Aurea and his experience related to his sword's thickness is the same. I have looked at many Maciej's swords on his website, read several reviews, and it feels to me that a lot of them share a similar trait - they are significantly thinner at base than advertised, do not distal taper much, and have heavy pommels to balance, no matter the type. I believe it would be better to do more balancing with distal taper and less with a pommel weight. My impression as an owner of Stella Aurea and an enthusiast of quality replicas is that Kopciuch also cuts some corners to increase his output and advertises it as a medieval aesthetic and authenticity. A good distal taper, nice polish and proper edges are very time consuming to do. But this is a purely personal opinion. On another note, I thought I was alone in these impressions until I saw that one of the sword youtubers published a video on the subject. Kane Shen has recently posted a video where he is very critical of Maciej's swords performance. Significantly more critical than me. He has a peculiar online persona but is very knowledgeable about swords and has a critical eye, which I value. His findings on Kopciuch's sword cutting performance agree with mine. Around 23.45:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q9XH7FJOxY


Would I recommend Kopciuch's swords? It is not an easy question to answer. On the one hand they are well made and feel solid in hand. A lot of his swords and scabbards are also beautiful to look at. IIRC, I read on his website that Maciej graduated an arts high school, which would explain his eye for visual details. On the other hand, the one I had misses the mark on two most important sword qualities - handling and understanding of edge grind and cutting performance. I would consider buying another one of his swords in the future, but only after handling it in person.

I do not have many pictures and the sword is not longer in my possession. I will try to attach a few pics as a thank you to every reader who managed to get through this wall of text

[Sean Manning]

That does seem unusually thin for a type XVI blade, but people who have handled many historical weapons such as Craig and Nathan at A&A agree with Maciej that most high medieval swords were not like the blades that people like for mangling mats. They were thicker at the edge and along the spine and may not have been polished so finely along the edge.

Art and literature imply that the way swords were used on armoured opponents in the high middle ages was not much like the treatises from the 15th century.

Edit: I like how Kane Shen demonstrates that he can cut meat and cotton cloth with other swords, but not with this sword. Sharing competition cutting videos is not so good since the swords for that tend to be real outliers by the standards of European swords 1350-1450. But its also a bad sign when you make a wide, thin-spined blade and it can't cut soft targets.

Any good book on Japanese armour will talk about how it was often rawhide. I don't know that anyone expected to cut through a rawhide armour with a sword on foot.

[Sean Manning]

In another video by Kane Shen I see someone who measured the original of the one-handed type XVIII sword with the iron-bound handle in the Oakeshott Collection and found it 8.9 mm thick at the base of the blade. Does anyone know of other medieval swords with that kind of 'rapier-like' distal taper? Not a lot of people who handle original swords share that information and replicas have the problem that its more expensive for us to make swords with a heavy forte than it was for medieval people.

https://www.arms-n-armor.com/collections/single-handed-swords/products/oakeshott-sword

[Bart M]

The topic of distal taper of original swords and its effect on handling, is probably the least explored area of medieval swords reconstruction. I have spent countless hours online looking for this information and it is extremely rare to find distal taper stats on museum websites. If you are lucky, you will get the length and weight, and it is a special day when you find the thickness at base of a given sword. Not to mention any other stats. I think museum curators simply have different priorities than sword hobbyists. Fortunately, there are books. Unfortunately, not many of them provide this data.

The vast majority of sword enthusiasts have never had an opportunity to handle and measure historical artefacts. We are indebted to people like Peter Johnsson, who has shared his knowledge on this and other forums plenty of times. He once wrote that, in general, a cutting sword should taper quickly in the first third of the blade, then slow down in the second third, and again taper more in the last third of the blade.



I don't know what the research process is for most custom sword makers. How many of them have actually handled and measured historical originals in good shape (and if they did - what is the number of swords they have personally measured)?

Do they get permission from museums and spend their own money to fly to another city/country and stay there for a few days? Are they that passionate and curious? Is it something they value so much that they are willing to pay out of their own pocket for? And maybe lose a lot of money on something that may not bring any profit?

Or do they do what the rest of us do - read popular books on swords and browse museum websites, looking for scraps of information? Maybe they get some extra information from a helpful museum employee sometimes, who may or may not provide accurate measurements.

Let's assume that a maker really goes out of his way to get personal and accurate measurements of many swords of different types. Then another question appears - is it viable to recreate a sword based on this data? Will I profit from grinding a sword from a thicker piece of steel that may cost me a lot more because it is not a popular size? Will I profit from spending 3x the money on grinding belts or from spending 3x the time on forging the blade to shape etc.?

I think that these factors, combined with a fact that most customers of sword replicas do not delve this deep into the matter of authenticity, are the reason that most sword makers cut corners here and there. It seems inevitable in a niche market like this. Many of their customers are probably happy when a sword looks good, feels hand-made and 'authentic', because they believe the maker's marketing/narrative. They have too few other points of reference.

The thing is, I really don't know how it looks like from the perspective of a maker/businessman. I'm only interested in the topic because of my interest in history and my appreciation for quality, functional recreations of ancient weapons (originals are out of the price range of anyone but a millionaire, not to mention that the market is flooded with fakes).

My own experience with historical originals is very limited - only some later sabres, a rapier and a few other weapons. But handling those authentic weapons has helped me immensely to build a feeling and understanding of what edged weapons are. And how many important details are missing from modern replicas.

I know I'm grateful to Peter Johnsson for what he did with Albion. His designs are much better functionally than a few custom swords I have handled.


PS

I originally intended to respond to your post Sean, and mention one thing about distal taper and mass distribution, that I seldom see discussed online (but then I got carried away).

We know that distal taper is usually more extreme in swords with limited profile taper. Those pointy ones with pronounced profile taper do not need to have a lot of distal taper. This is always a compromise. When giving information about distal taper, I think it is very important to consider the cross-section of the sword. A sword that tapers from 5mm to 2mm can have significantly different weight and handling, depending on the cross-section. I attached a crude picture of what I mean. It only shows variations of a diamond cross-section: a typical one, a convexed one and a hollowed one. By looking at it it becomes obvious that there is a huge difference in weight between the three examples. This is why, I believe, a sword with a hollow ground cross-section must start significantly thicker than a convex one.

It becomes interesting when we realize that some swords combine different cross-sections along its length. Combined with profile taper, the matter of mass distribution starts to become even more complicated. I sometimes wonder if I don't put too much thinking into this. After all, a sword is a simple object compared to, e.g. a bicycle. Yet there is so much that can go wrong so easily, as many swords, both cheap and pricey - like the one in this review, demonstrate.

I mentioned in my review that I also like knives. A knife is simpler than a sword, yet a good one is not easy to make at all. Let's say that a knife market, which is significantly bigger, has its own share of problems. There are so many knives, and companies that want to profit from our consumerism and addiction to buying, produce more and more knives priced at 500-1000 dollars and above (and I don't mean art knives), which fail to perform their basic function as a knife. It has all become quite ridiculous. Fortunately, there are some diamonds in the rough out there.

PS 2

Here are a few new longswords from Maciej. Compared to the picture of the Stella Aurea in this review, they look to be visibly thinner at base. Maybe even approximately 3.5 - 4mm? Does anyone truly know how historical that is? To me, it just does not feel right.

https://artofswordmaking.com/public/photos/original/stella2_07-1575637075.jpg

https://artofswordmaking.com/public/photos/original/ms_07-1726590030.jpg

https://artofswordmaking.com/public/photos/original/mkgelp_06-1726571945.jpg

PS 3

Your example of the Arms and Armor sword is perfect here to illustrate the challenges and issues of modern sword replicas. When we compare the 3D model of the original on the sketchfab website, with pictures of the replica on A&A website and the youtube review, it is clear that these are two completely different swords which only share a similar silhouette. And this is an original sword which is in possession of the maker of the replica!

Its thickness at base is completely different (9mm vs 4mm if we can trust the measurements online), its distal taper is completely different, its cross section is completely different (hollow grind vs flattened diamond) and even the weight is off by around a 100g (the replica is heavier).

[Sean Manning]

The makers who handle a lot of original objects are definitely limited by 1) what their customers expect, and 2) the economics of making swords by stock removal, where its very time consuming to make a blade with a thick forte and a thin foible.

It seems like the people who grind swords by hand out of steel stock usually make blades no thicker than 6 or 6.5 mm. Some of Albion's blades are thicker but I think they use CNC machines (and for a replica sword company in a rich country they are pretty big).

A&A have talked about how their customers these days want lots of type XV and XVIII longswords and they wish they could sell a wider variety of medieval swords.

I have not handled any late medieval swords or seen any studies of the thickness of a few hundred swords so I can't comment on how thick a type XVI 'should be.' A long sword 4 or 5 mm thick at the base doesn't seem like it could be a stiff thrusting sword.

[Bart M]

As I see it, the problem with a cutting longsword which is 4mm at base, is that a longsword is usually quite long and hefty. The consequence of a thin base, which does not properly support the rest of the blade, is that it will flex while you are swinging it, before even hitting a target. The result of that, is that edge alignment becomes significantly more difficult to manage, when your blade bends in the air. You will have a cutting sword that will not do its job properly. It is not a problem if you don't use your swords to cut.

This is one of the reasons why balancing a sword with distal taper vs. a heavy pommel are not the same. The static properties will look the same on paper, yet the functional characteristics will be very different.

4mm may be perfectly fine on a shorter arming sword.

I don't have a good explanation on what exactly the reasons are that the Stella Aurea in this review does not work well as a sword. It is not related to a lack of stiffness, but it is definitely related somehow to mass distribution and points of rotation.

[Sean Manning]

The Albion Wallace, a reconstruction of a corroded original, has a blade 4 mm thick at the forte and 851 mm / 33.5" long. Most medieval longswords have a similar blade length (the big ones tend to be either swords you wear on your saddle, or after 1450 when the rules that governed knightly swords start to be broken more often).

Some of the 18th century backswords and broadswords have similar blade lengths and maximum thicknesses. A&A have informal measurements of a few in videos like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIIypm61WE4 But the backswords and broadswords have broad flat blades not four-sided blades with a long narrow point.

[Sean Manning]

Also, visiting a museum and measuring swords is in reach of almost everybody in a rich country. Some people might need more money than others (its cheaper if you live in Copenhagen or Leeds than Nebraska or Adelaide), and some might need help wording their emails and figuring out who to write to, but by the 16th century there are so many well-preserved swords that museums don't know what to do with them all.

Right now, the people who measure swords from the later middle ages in three dimensions are mostly swordmakers who keep the measurements for themselves (or archaeologists studying early medieval swords). Nobody can collect a large sample without devoting their life to the project, but most people could measure a few original swords.

[Bart M]

Albion's the Wallace is a good example of a one-handed sword with a longer blade and interesting and unusual handling properties. I really wanted to buy it when Albion announced it, but then decided against it. It seems like a blade that is easy to accelerate and perform a powerful strike with, at the cost of being more difficult to stop and control. If there was ever a historical way to use a sword to flourish it around you, this one seems perfect for it. It does however look like it also bends a little when swinging it.

I have seen the A&A video, it is one of the most valuable ones they have posted, thank you for linking it here. Like we both said, there are one-handed swords which are thinner at base. But even the last backsword in that video is more than 5mm thick at base. These backswords seem to usually be much thinner in the foible as well than a typical modern longsword replica. So their structural integrity may be completely fine. I also always wonder (assuming these are all authentic historical swords) how many times they were polished during the last few hundred years, and how much weight and thickness they have lost.

I don't think that we can draw a conclusion that, because some one handed swords also start 4mm-5mm thin at base and aren't much shorter than some longswords, the two would behave similar. Even a light longsword is usually heavier, 8cm longer in the handle and 5-10 cm longer in the blade. This combined with using two hands gives them different properties and would result in the blade bending in a different way. There is a lot of nuance in blade flexibility. Some of it is beneficial, some of it is not.

I think I have gotten a little bit off-topic here. With the two reviews I have posted, I wanted to give back a little something to the sword community out there. I have learned so much from the people here on myArmoury, and I hope that my little contributions may provide useful information to someone.

I appreciate your last point about museums. Maybe I should give it a try one day.

[Sean Manning]

There do seem to be some questions about how closely some A&A swords match the originals they are based on, from your and the YouTuber's observations of the sword with the iron-bound hilt, or Pedro on Gustav Vasa's rapier in the catalogue and photos vs. the reproduction, or how the Serenissima Rapier's blade seems later than its hilt. But on the other hand they share a lot of information about original swords which is hard to find anywhere else.

Some of that may come from their relying on Ewart Oakeshott's notes and measurements from back when he was teaching himself about swords, others might be early decisions to turn original swords into something they can produce at a price people are willing to pay. I am sure they have learned things in the past 30 years. They did not have custody of the Oakeshott Collection until after 2002.

I enjoy the academic articles by Maciej K. but I have not handled any of his work https://artofswordmaking.com/articles

[Sean Manning]

Maciej Kopciuch has an essay on the maximum blade thickness of medieval cruciform swords https://artofswordmaking.com/gallery/blade-thicknesses-and-distal-taper Its not always clear to me what information is his own observations and what comes from catalogues and scholarly publications.

The Sword in the Age of Chivalry came out at the peak of the market for popular books on scholarly topics, the same time that Isaac Asimov and L. Sprague de Camp dropped fiction for nonfiction so they could feed their kids. These days its harder to justify spending the time when you have another way to monetarize your research such as making swords.