[Shane Allee]

It has been awhile since my last update. Things have been pretty slow the last couple months, and a katana project really held me up. Just a few things have been added to the website, but there should be another update in a couple weeks. Added a page for a saber project I'm currently working on and it should be done very soon, holding back on in progress pictures until I'm finished. Added to the future projects page is a contemporary tanto by Patrick Hastings that I'll be mounting and keeping for myself at some point. Very wicked little blade that I'm so happy I got. Then of course there is the Paul Binn's anthro dagger added to the my collection page.

Sometime in the next week or two I will be putting up for sale a couple of tanto blades that I just don't even want to work on at this point. These are blades that I got while I was still going over to Rick Barrett's and working out of his shop, originally I planned to mount both and keep one. At this point I'm just going to keep the one from Patrick and sell these two as is. One is a contemporary damascus blade without hamon and the other is 1075 blade, neither signed and without file work. I could file the tang. Other than claying the 1075 blade neither are blades that I made, so I'm not sure if the will go up on my website for sale or if I will put them up in the classifieds.

Finally to the main point of the post. I have been having a difficult time gauging what people are interested in and what they don't care so much about, so I'm looking for feedback from everyone. I think with the polls you are limited to only one pick, so I'll just do it this way. Below is a list of swords/blade types I am interested in doing, and will be over the next year or two. I'd like for people to post what they would like to see most up to like five in the order they would most like to see them.

La Tene I: 22-26” hollow ground blades

La Tene II lenticulars
A. longer narrow (fat lenticular)
B. shorter with high profile taper (flat lenticular)

La Tene III long blades (Port styled sword)
A. double fullers
1) round point
2) medium apple seed point
3) long point
4) modified triangular point
B. lenticular
C. diamond cross section good continuous profile taper (15th century looking)
D. wide flat blade with no tip

Northern British:
A. bronze hilts (ex. Embleton, Thorpe, Worton)
B. organic based crown and cocked had hilts

Anthropomophic hilts
A. forged iron
B. stylized or pseudo anthro (bronze)
C. classic anthro (bronze)

Falcata

Non La Tene swords

Early migration era: Nydam bog swords

Migration era: non ring

Solid Vendal period sword

Various migration era sax and war knives

Thanks for the help everyone, it is very appreciated.
Shane Allee

http://www.ironagearmoury.com/

[Patrick Kelly]

They all sound good to me but I'm a sucker for celtic and "dark ages" stuff.

I'm afraid that doesn't help.

[Folkert van Wijk]

Hi Shane, this would be my choise:

La Tene I: 22-26” hollow ground blades
I am working on a reproduction of the Liebau sword hilt at the moment, so a desent hollow ground blade for it would be great...

La Tene III long blades (Port styled sword)
A. double fullers
2) medium apple seed point

B. lenticular

Falcata

Wether or not I would buy the swords I mentioned above (offcourse) also depent on the prise tag you will put on them...
So I wanted to ask you if you can gif a prise range for them?
I do understand that it also depents on the amount of work and the complexity of the hilt.
There for I suggest a simple wooden hilt, one or three parts nothing fancy.

Folkert[/b]

[Geoff Wood]

Falcata

Geoff

[Shane Allee]

Of course I forgot to mention that I'm not just looking for opinions of potental customers here, anyone and everyones opinion is encouraged. Wish that I had sketchs of the blade designs I mentioned, but those are still in the works. Anyone has questions about a particular style I'll try to give a better description or pictures.

Folkert, I'll send you a PM tonight about your questions.

Shane

[Steve Grisetti]

Good grief - you expect a choice?? I will give it my best shot.

These are the top 5 items from your list that would interest me the most, but not necessarily in this order:

->La Tene III long blades (Port styled sword) with A. double fullers and 1) round point, or 2) medium apple seed point

->Anthropomophic hilts - C. classic anthro (bronze)

->Early migration era: Nydam bog swords

->Migration era: non ring

->Solid Vendal period sword

Naturally, timing, pricing, budgets and collection planning all come in to play when it comes to actually buying.

[Shane Allee]

Thanks guys keep it coming.

Patrick, one of these days we are going to get you pinned down on what celtic stuff you like the best.

Shane

[Chuck Russell]

what one needs to do is jsut make every frekin sword. then u can compair ehhehehe go for migration thru norman conquest. hehehe if 600 years of swords isnt enough.....

[Nathan Bell]

Hey Shane,

Well here's my .02.

The market, such as it is, has a few La tene II blades out there. I think you should look at:

1. La Tene III long blades--round pointed and medium pointed double fullers, long lentoid cutters with points, AND the longer, slimmer lentoid/flattened diamond blades

2. La Tene I short blades (hollow ground would be nice!)

3. British swords---northern and the later Romano British types

The reason for this is that most people and most Living History groups like to look at the Roman/Celtic conflicts in the late period, and there are virtually NO swords out there which fit this period. And pretty much nobody does a proper early blade right now. And there is not much exposure for the later period swords(British or Continental), even though that is the period eevryone thinks of when thinking about Celts, go figure

After that it would be nice to see the falcatas

And the really early war knives would be very cool---a big gap there that nobody really does.

From Migration forward though, lots of folks cover that ground in the market, why duplicate it?

[Shane Allee]

Thanks again everyone.

The Dark age, migration era stuff has been done more in a way. Outside of a few makers though, most seem to have been more inspired by rather than even trying a specific style. Even so, there are still pretty big gaps where people simply haven't done anything like the swords before. There are a couple from Nydam that I wouldn't mind doing, wouldn't mind trying something like the Klein Hunigen sword without the gold foiled grip. No one that I know of has done the organic hilted single edge swords from the Vendal period that transition into the Viking age. Same goes for the Peterson type A that is another transitional period. I think there is plenty to do without overlapping on other though, mostly I think it is just a matter of showing people what some of these swords really would have looked like to get their attention.

Shane

Forgot, just a couple more blades to layout and I should be able to take pictures so everyone can get a better idea of the styles I'm talking about with the above la tenes.

[Darwin Todd]

I would like to see:

La Tene II
B shorter with high profile taper

La Tene III
3. long point
4. modified triangular point

falcata

I say bring on the La Tenes! There are not nearly enough being reproduced these days.

[Shane Allee]

Updated the website with some blade drawings to help show some of the different types we are talking about.

I have three blades of the double fullered variety with a bit of discussion of the variations.
http://www.ironagearmoury.com/double_fullered_series.htm

A couple of the long cut and thrust blades here.
http://www.ironagearmoury.com/cut_and_thrust.htm

Then finally a diamond cross section dedicated cutter here.
http://www.ironagearmoury.com/dedicated_cutter.htm

I'll probably start working on the hollow ground La Tene I this evening. Feeling like I need a bit of a break from drawing, so I may hold off on some of the others for awhile. The remaining types are more commonly known and pictured, so it shouldn't be as big a rush in getting them up.

Keep the opinions coming.
Thanks
Shane

[Folkert van Wijk]

Hi shane and others.

Is there a book or something out there that shows some of these Port finds..?

Folkert.

[Folkert van Wijk]

Oh.. eh.. by the way...

Ill go for the lowest la Tene III dubble fullered sword...
Next would be the most upper one.
And lastly the middle one...

But honestly all three do wet my apatide...

Folkert

[Nathan Bell]

[Shane Allee]

Added a La tene I sketch today, although the tip may get changed a bit before I have these made. I'm thinking a bit more pointy.

http://www.ironagearmoury.com/la_tene_i.htm

Also I modified the tip a bit on the Long tipped double fullered blade to give it a bit sharper point, although I'm not sure it was enough to notice in the pictures.

Shane