[Steve Halston]

A sword has come into my posession from an eBay purchase which was advertised as a Windlass Steelcrafts sword, going by the name of the Catalonian sword. Upon examination, I found indeed that Windlass Steelcrafts has been stamped into the blade by the hilt, and the sword bears a strong resemblance to the Medieval European Sword, made by Del Tin, which has also been advertised as the Catalonian Sword.

I have never seen this sword produced by Windlass Steelcrafts and I can find no on-line references for it. The steel is much stiffer than my Sword of Acre, also made by Windlass Steelcrafts, which has been photographed with the Catalonian sword for comparison.

Though the Sword of Acre has a much wider blade, it is much more flexible than that of the Catalonian sword. I would typify the blade of the Catalonian sword as being very stiff, for a Windlas Steelcrafts sword, though quite capable of flexing out-of-line to a great degree without taking a set.

The sword sports a beefy tang, and the pommel is of the screw-on variety. The former owner has had a knife-edge put on the sword instead of an appleseed bevel, but it seems to be a reliable cutter.

Does anybody have any knowledge about this sword? Specifically, I am interested in how old it may be, as it may be an earlier example of good work from Windlass Steelcrafts if it is an older sword.

http://img227.imageshack.us/my.php?image=catalonian2fq4.jpg
http://img236.imageshack.us/my.php?image=catalonian3tr2.jpg
http://img236.imageshack.us/my.php?image=catalonian5gs6.jpg
http://img236.imageshack.us/my.php?image=catalonian7bc2.jpg
http://img236.imageshack.us/my.php?image=catalonian8zk3.jpg
http://img236.imageshack.us/my.php?image=catalonian9ca4.jpg

[Gary A. Chelette]

I have MRL catalogs going back years, I'll look to see when it first shows up.
From what I remember, it was some years ago that this piece was sold. There was a time when MRL and Del Tin had some sort of partnership as I have two of DT pieces from MRL. I don't think this is a DT piece. DT used Krupp steel and most of those came out of the DT forge.

[Chad Arnow]

Del Tin has reproduced that sword for a long time. It was probably among those sold by MRL back when MRL was a Del Tin dealer.

MRL reintroduced its own version in 2005. See here for a thread that talked about new (at the time) MRL items: http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=4907 . Unfortunately, MRL has moved all their pictures so many of the pictures we tried to link to from their site in the thread are gone.

Here is a pic of the sword it's based on (courtesy of Nathan in the thread linked above):