[Chad Arnow]

Today is myArmoury's official 20th anniversary. Though the site is a little older than that, the start date of the forum, 8/25/2003, has always been marked as the site's birthday. What had started as Nathan Robinson's personal collection gallery (literally his armoury), expanded on that day with the forum's introduction, creating arguably the internet's most civilized, informative, medieval weapon-based discussion board. The forum includes:

~35,000 users
~36,000 topics/threads
~340,000 posts

Around the same time, a team of enthusiasts was assembled to flesh out the site's knowledge base, adding reviews, articles, and additional collection galleries. This small team, plus additional volunteer authors, led to the creation of:

~150 feature articles
250 hands-on reviews
~275 collection gallery pages

All this from 65 authors. For more than three years, we published new content every two weeks. After that, production slowed to a (slightly) more sustainable pace, and has slowed further as the content creators' lives/jobs/families/interests have changed. Still, in 20 years, we have added batches of content to the non-forum parts of the site more than 120 times.

Content from this site is regularly mentioned/referenced/linked in YouTube videos, on Wikipedia and other websites, as well as in books and journal articles on arms and armour. Though many people have moved on to different platforms, there is still demand for the kind of information myArmoury provides, even as traffic lessens.

It's no secret that the site is technologically out of date and less stable than it used to be. That and the inability to add new registrations are ongoing issues. I wish I could say with certainty what the future looks like, but I misplaced my crystal ball. So, I will simply say: thank you. Thank you to all the forum members who have added to the discussions through the years. Thank you to all the members of the myArmoury content team and all our volunteer authors for top-notch content that remains a gold standard in this hobby. Thank you to the donors who keep funds rolling in. And thank you to the creator, owner, and ideological driving force behind the site, Nathan Robinson.

[Stephen Curtin]

I don't visit this place anywhere near as often as I used to, but I'll always think of here as the best place online to talk about historical arms and armour, and other related topics. Happy birthday myArmoury, and thanks to everyone that made this place great.

[Bart M]

I have been reading content on this site for close to 20 years myself, although I only started posting not so long ago. The amount of knowledge that had been shared on this forum throughout the years is priceless. I'm not sure how many enthusiast forums like this one still exist on the web, but I'm hugely grateful to people who posted here, helped me learn about the past and sparked my interest in historical weapons. It's funny how I was only able to start collecting quite recently.

This is a site where a single post by a knowledgeable individual was (and is) often more valuable and credible than an article on an established museum's website. To gather so many educated folks, freely willing to share their knowledge and experience in one place, is a rare accomplishment indeed.

Thank you to everyone who has been a part of myArmoury throughout the years. It might be true that the popular internet nowadays is dominated by mega corporations and hobbyist websites are now few and far between, but the fight is not lost yet! I have two little reviews coming in the near future and wish more of us keep contributing to keep this place alive!

[Leo Todeschini]

I found myArmoury back in 2006 and before that I was making a limited range of pieces, fairly badly and I really had very little solid knowledge. myArmoury really made me sit up and look and read and learn partly from other members knowledge and partly from seeing other makers work. This was all unavailable to me before.

I learn't my trade here, learnt history and detail here, I certainly learned that internet interactions could be polite and engaging here. I also could sell here, outside of the limited UK reenactment fairs I was previously selling at, so it enabled me to make a living.

It is a fair statement to say that where I am as a crafts person and where my business has got to I can directly trace back in part to myArmoury. So on many levels I owe this place and will always wish it and of course Nathan all the very best.

So Happy 20th Birthday myArmoury!!!

Tod

[Sean Manning]

Later this year I will be publishing a peer-reviewed article which thanks two sites for helping me collect sources. One of them is myArmoury.