[Bart M]

Ok myArmoury people. I have been thinking about this for quite a while. As a guy who has spent countless hours looking for information and ads about swords online, inspired by many different media, stories and legends consumed by me since my childhood, I have gotten to a point where I am seriously tired of this addiction.


Yes, there will always be new swords to buy, reviews to read, and new pictures of someone else's collection to browse. Yes, every sword is different and there are so many areas of the hobby to explore. At the same time, after you have gotten some experience under your belt, all swords seem the same. While you can always try to 'rationalize' that this one has a different maker, balance, blade type, guard, grind or steel, is it really worth it doing this forever? What's the end game? What's the point in engaging in excessive, never-ending consumerism?

I feel like my tiny collection is basically complete. I have had enough swords to understand what I like and dislike, and I feel that continuing on this road is a pointless waste of energy. Yet my monkey/addict brain keeps continuing the cycle. It is quite pathetic to be fair and I have some regrets.

This is probably one of the last posts I make on the forum. I wonder if others feel the same about this 'hobby' of buying new things again and again, hoping to satisfy some undefined crave? Are you still passionate about buying new swords? What are your goals? Are you having second thoughts about all the time you have spent online fantasizing about new projects and equipment?


PS
History and martial culture of our species is a fascinating subject, and interest in it can lead to a better understanding of life and oneself. Something like that is priceless. This post is about the material side of this fascination and issues that come with it.

[Matthew Amt]

Blasphemy! Heresy!!

Nah, just kidding, friend. All seriousness aside, though, I strongly suspect that "consumerism" has never really been that much of a thing for the folks on *this* board. Sure, we may buy the Made-in-India pieces, but there's an emphasis on the custom-made items which looks to me more like an appreciation of art and craftsmanship. People struggle and debate with themselves endlessly before deciding what to buy, getting advice along the way. Sure, there may be a humorous feeling of "having the most toys", but I don't think that's really our driving force!

For myself, I'm a reenactor as well as a collector (though I don't really *think* of myself as a collector!), so anything I spend money on is something I consider necessary for displaying a particular kit to the public. BUT I hate spending money, and like making things myself. So I'll buy leather and fabric and rivets as needed, or things that I really "need" but can't make myself (spearheads, a reasonable pair of 17th century boots from another reenactor, etc.). Doing a half-dozen school visits per year more than pays for all of that. (Schools WILL pay you to do show-and-tell for an hour, just check about weapons beforehand!)

So my thinking is that if you don't like spending money, either because you don't have enough or because you don't want someone else to have it, great! Doesn't sound to me like a "tiny" collection of swords is going off the financial rails, but that has to be your call. If you're seriously spending more than you can afford to, sure, that's a problem, though again I'm not sure I'd blame it on "consumerism". I like my stuff, and generally do not want to be parted from it, partly because it has been a long investment in money and time and energy, but partly because it's just what I've always been interested in and I DO learn a lot from it! And I try to pass some of those lessons along.

Fair warning, though: If you give up on sword collecting (and it's relatives), you may well end up spending all your time and money on motorcycles or antique furniture or ballcaps or beer bottles... As a hobby, ours is FAR from the worst option, in any number of ways.

Matthew

PS: You really need ARMOR to go with those swords, ha!

[Chad Arnow]

Bart,
Interesting question. I'm reasonably convinced that most people collect something that is not entirely necessary for their life/job/health/etc. It could be magnets from places you've visited, Pokemon stuff, stamps, baseball memorabilia, swords, or whatever. People collect for all sorts of reasons. Unfortunately for almost all collectors, once you get beyond being a casual liker/lover of those objects, many types of collecting get really expensive really quickly.

For me, a good portion of the fun is in the browsing/research/study/learning that goes into deciding what to buy. The kind of things I like to collect have become too expensive for impulse buying. My collection has no swords newer than 2008, though I did buy (and subsequently sell) a sword in the interim. My most recent dagger/knife purchase was in 2023. I display my collection in a stand inside a cabinet which puts practical limits on the numbers of items I can stuff in there. I've reached the point where there are no open slots and I like everything too much to sell it to make room for another item I'd have to save up for. Oh well. So there isn't a lot of energy going into buying something new. But that doesn't stop me from looking, because that's fun.

I have a lot of books, but I'm running out of shelf space. There are some books I'd consider selling, but they're not worth a ton and wouldn't clear up much space. So that's tailed off a bit, too. But I still look around, because that's fun.

I have a few pocket knives and have to stop myself from buying a ton of those. But I enjoy checking out reviews of those.

I guess I'm a collector/hoarder by nature. It's either a charming quirk or severe psychological flaw, depending on your perspective.

Having kids changed my funding priorities and placed real limits on my spending which was probably a good thing. I think it's important to have some kind of limits to collecting, whether those limits are philosophical, financial, or practical (like space considerations). Otherwise it is easy to move from collecting (which sounds charming) and hoarding (which they make TV shows about). Also, on some level, collecting should bring joy, entertainment, and/or satisfaction on some level. If it no longer is, consider stepping back from this hobby and seeing what other hobbies scratch itches. It's possible that you're a collector by nature and that your tastes, interests, budgets are moving on to something else.

[Dan Kary]

I think for me there's a pretty well defined endgame. Sure the goal posts might be moved, but I do think that I can't keep up the pace forever, and I don't even want to. I have my stuff on my office wall and I like it - I think it looks cool on the wall and I can always take something down for some tactile joy. I don't want to overdo it though. I don't want to have a pile of swords sitting in a closet or something. I don't want my collection to become a hassle, I don't want it to obstruct a hallway or anything like that. How it is now, it only takes up wall space. I look at my collection every day, and I enjoy it every day. I love my small, well curated, collection. My wife doesn't like it, but it isn't out in public - it is in my personal workspace and it doesn't affect her at all. Lot's of people visit and have no idea I even have a collection. That's fine with me. It's just for me anyway.

As for the endgame, I have it more or less clearly defined. I want one of everything within the cultures I am interested in. I'm almost there. I'm not interested in having 5 longswords or whatever. One is fine. There's a few things I'd like that nobody makes, or makes to the quality/accuracy/aesthetics I want - so that's where there's some possibility for growth if somebody filled out those gaps. The other possibility for growth is if I get into a new culture and buy stuff from it. But I suspect to be done in the next year or two. My collecting has slowed to a crawl, and I don't mind that at all. I take a lot longer to pull the trigger on stuff because the gaps in my collection are getting smaller and smaller and soon there might not be any.

I'm with Chad on this. The absolute best part of the collection hasn't even been the collection itself. It has been the journey of learning.

[Pedro Paulo Gaião]

You are proposing a rather philosophical question. Pretty much all people will eventually find their hobbies and dreams empty as they gather or fulfill the stuff they have been into. There are several proposed answers to that emptyness feelings ranging from common sense to religious and philosophical.

I just moved from sword collecting to Yu-Gi-Oh since 2024 and I think it's way worse considering how empty your attempts to buy new stuff to keep competitive turn out to be (and doing worldwide hobbies in Latin America is one of the worst things you can do, since it costs too much for something an American dude would find extremely unexpensive). I almost made into Magic the Gathering if it wasn't for ppl inside that community saying it wasn't that different anyways.

The cost factor prevented me from starting early or getting too many swords: I just took some stuff I really wanted, while the rest was mostly "it's cool, but I wont expend money to get another one". There are thousands of different swords, so you may never "get them all". Simply accepting that reality is a huge step to control consumerism.

At least a sword is a patrimony that can be passed away, and can be used as a physical activity. For some reason armor and sword communities dont blend as a person would think they should. Try using your knowledge for something else: play a Historical RPG (through my experience, RPG was one of the least empty of my hobbies; you have fun, it's light on your pocket, and it's a social activity), do some fencing classes, move on to other weapons (or armor), perhaps do some swordmaking. Or move on to another hobby, who knows.

P.S.: when I started doing an internship in Brazil, I remember how most people in the office would try to ridicularize or pretend to be clever on how "exotic" and "expensive" having swords was and then immediately talking about their boring hobbies about the 73737384 soccer competition in that year, how they lost money on bets and how a random French dude would play on an ancient, sub-division bankrupt team. Never really enjoyed Super Bowl and other local American sports too (though I worked with very addicted people from Nebraska on how their football team was really really important, but ppl in other states couldn't care less). I prefer to keep my swords while they keep their crap.

[Ryan S.]

I think this is mainly an issue if your hobby is shopping. I had to buy a suit for a wedding and I did research before buying one. I found myself still looking at suits after I bought one. If you have every sword you want, then shift that energy into something else.