- Joined
- Sep 9, 2003
- Messages
- 2,361
Earlier this month I returned from long planned research trip to London England. If one embarks on such a journey with the idea of researching swords in general they will go entirely insane within the first few hours and probably accomplish very little in the way of in-depth study due to the overwhelming and endless numbers of items to choose from in a place like London. For years I have been dabbling with a style of sword that has always fascinated me with its unmatched elegance and lethality, that sword is the rapier. But its most endearing quality for me is the lack of popularity that other swords enjoy. I cannot bring myself to work in areas that are trendy or too common place, and have always enjoyed the challenge of taking the road less traveled. Rapiers are unique in both appearance and the way in which they were used, and so few replicas I have seen seem to be able to capture this. It appeared to me that this blade was not only very difficult to make properly (the ones I have made so far bears this out entirely), but very little study of the original blades has been done to help capture the essence of their function.
Too many times I have bit my tongue when handing one of my rapier blades to people with sport fencing experience, who immediately doubted my skill while pointing out that it didnt feel at all like their epee or foil, all the while thinking to myself because it isnt an epee or foil- its a rapier! Often the commonly available replicas I have handled where either way too heavy (simple and quick manufacturing methods) or way too light so as to approximate fencing blades.
So knowing a blade making spathaphile such as myself would go entirely insane trying to see all the swords I would like in London, I bit the bullet, restrained myself and focused almost exclusively on rapiers. Of course if there happened to be a beautiful 13th century blade setting right next the rapiers it couldnt hurt to measure it as well.
With the help of friends in the conservation field and months of preplanning I was able to locate the better rapier treasure troves and provide enough credentials from my profession to gain some behind the scenes access to these fascinating blades.
After many hours in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle, The British Museum, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the Wallace Collection, I am now home and have the daunting task of analyzing, organizing and assembling all the information gathered on many dozens of rapiers. I will be a few months at it, but my appreciation for these magnificent swords has already multiplied many times. The preliminary graphs, based upon the cross section numbers, shows an incredibly complex and intentional blade design that most have indeed been missing in modern times. While the hilts often have been reworked from the originals, what remains is still the artistic equivalent of any decorative metalwork I have seen from any culture, and there is much of it that I will spend the rest of my life developing the skills to reproduce.
The down side is while I would love to share some of the hundreds of digital images I have, most collections have restrictions on how you use photos taken at the collections for your private use, and in order not to jeopardize my standing with them for future research I prefer not to test any of the bounds of some of the agreements I signed. You can rest assured, however, that any of the rapiers I make using the information gathered will be always available for your viewing.
As mentioned- man cannot live on bread alone, so in my studies I also managed to study blades from the 13th century and some Roman swords to add to my understanding of how the manufacturing of the raw materials and the final blade evolved over time. Perhaps I should return to London one day just to be a tourist since my trip was rather single minded, and I barely had time to sleep much as less sight see.
Too many times I have bit my tongue when handing one of my rapier blades to people with sport fencing experience, who immediately doubted my skill while pointing out that it didnt feel at all like their epee or foil, all the while thinking to myself because it isnt an epee or foil- its a rapier! Often the commonly available replicas I have handled where either way too heavy (simple and quick manufacturing methods) or way too light so as to approximate fencing blades.
So knowing a blade making spathaphile such as myself would go entirely insane trying to see all the swords I would like in London, I bit the bullet, restrained myself and focused almost exclusively on rapiers. Of course if there happened to be a beautiful 13th century blade setting right next the rapiers it couldnt hurt to measure it as well.
With the help of friends in the conservation field and months of preplanning I was able to locate the better rapier treasure troves and provide enough credentials from my profession to gain some behind the scenes access to these fascinating blades.After many hours in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle, The British Museum, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the Wallace Collection, I am now home and have the daunting task of analyzing, organizing and assembling all the information gathered on many dozens of rapiers. I will be a few months at it, but my appreciation for these magnificent swords has already multiplied many times. The preliminary graphs, based upon the cross section numbers, shows an incredibly complex and intentional blade design that most have indeed been missing in modern times. While the hilts often have been reworked from the originals, what remains is still the artistic equivalent of any decorative metalwork I have seen from any culture, and there is much of it that I will spend the rest of my life developing the skills to reproduce.
The down side is while I would love to share some of the hundreds of digital images I have, most collections have restrictions on how you use photos taken at the collections for your private use, and in order not to jeopardize my standing with them for future research I prefer not to test any of the bounds of some of the agreements I signed. You can rest assured, however, that any of the rapiers I make using the information gathered will be always available for your viewing.
As mentioned- man cannot live on bread alone, so in my studies I also managed to study blades from the 13th century and some Roman swords to add to my understanding of how the manufacturing of the raw materials and the final blade evolved over time. Perhaps I should return to London one day just to be a tourist since my trip was rather single minded, and I barely had time to sleep much as less sight see.
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