Chad, the Sempach looks great, bud... hadn't seen one with this grip color before. I do like my red hues, but wouldn't have gone there on this - and I would have missed. Fits this better than I would have thought.

Bob Burns wrote:

Aaron, the rack of Albions is a beautiful sight to behold, I look forward to filling a rack of Arms & Armor, with 4 of their swords and 1 rapier I have a good start.

Collection has grown a lot since then... need to update some pics and post them... It'll be a while, though... head back offshore in the morning, and have other things I need to tend to. Oh, and yes, you are off to a good start!

Bob Burns wrote:

Something else I very much enjoy, the different kind of collections, like Patrick, you gear towards a particular kind of sword and a time period, and have umpteen versions, I think that is very interesting indeed. For me, my interest is in the diversity of sword types, which is why somewhere down the road I will probably acquire the Albion Mainz Gladius. My collection as it grows will look like "Time Travel". LOL

Actually, both Chad's and Patrick's collections are representative of a fairly broad timeframe... with no repetition within the collection. If I recall correctly, all are of a different Oakeshott Type. They both do have fairly well-defined goals to the collections, though... My collection also looks fairly 2-sided - 6 single-handers, 4 longswords (and 2 more on order - the Svante and Munich). It covers a range from 11th to 16th Century, though... with a few holes that I plan to fill in. My Knight and Squire may look similar, but are very, very different.

Very nice Chad! The more I play with this one the neater I think it is.

Overall I very much like Chad's choices in grip color. In fact, many of them have made me regret my choice to go with an all black grip theme. I absolutely LOVE the blue regent grip. As far as I'm concerned that's *the* grip color for that sword.

If I had it to do all over again I'd choose the following colors for the swords I now have.

Regent: blue
Baron: brown
Sempach: dark red
Jarl: green (maybe still black)
Knight: plumb

If I were to buy an Albion, my first selection hands down, would be the Caithness. Nobody has the Caithness?

Next additions to my collection are to be the Arms & Armor Edward III, St. Maurice, Black Prince, 12th Century, Katzbalger, German Branch Sword, perhaps the massive 15th Century Two Hander. Definately one of the first few will be the German Rapier for my wife.
Oh yeah, I always request a nice sharp edge on everything I buy. Geeze ya know what? I need to start playing the lottery! One thing for sure, if I were a wealthy man, I'd have Chris, Craig, Mark and the crew rather busy!

Oh another Albion I greatly admire is the Sovereign. I have something like it, the A&A Henry V, which is one formiddable cleaver and thruster of a short sword! Believe me, I put it to the test. I collect cardboard from the neighbors, forgot how much fun cardboard boxes can be (48, quite a number of years since childhood) but then again in many respects I am just a grown up kid.

Still don't know how an Albion collection can be complete without a Caithness! LOL


Happy Collecting,

Bob

Thanks for the kind words, everyone. I think certain swords lend themselves to certain grip colors. The Baron in black really fits for me (that's why I bought it). It's an austere, severe sword: absolutely class, no-frills. The cross in the pommel only adds to that for me. The Regent needs something more flamboyant than black, but not as flamboyant as a red (sorry, Aaron :) ). Hence the blue. I went with the Magenta for the Mercenary because I wanted something different. I like it so much that when I replaced the Mercenary with the Sempach, I went with Magenta again.

I like something more flamboyant for the Sempach. During the late parts of the 14th century I think warriors were very colorful. Effigies show surcoats (or coat armour) with heraldic crests over decorated haubergons and aketons. You see so many helms with enormous crests, shaped like horns or people's heads, animal's heads, etc. They scream "Look at me!"

I find it hard to believe that someone wealthy enough to afford a sword like the Sempach with a complex pommel and blade would opt for a basic color like black or dark brown for the grip. :) A future project for my wife and me is to re-cover this campaign scabbard. Should be fun, though we won't get to that for a while.

I think the question of grip colours is interesting and would like to know if anyone has a consolidated source on what was or might have been used. I remember there was a previous thread about cloth colours where I mentioned something I'd seen about a huge new range of colours coming into Europe from the middle east in the 14th~15th centuries, largely apparently as a result of off-shoots of alchemy experiments - into painting primarily and presumably into cloth and other dyes also and that this altered the colour spectrum in art. There were a couple of useful links provided by members on that thread to articles or sites on the subject. I wonder if the same occurred with sword grips in the range of available colours. I suppose it's one of those topics so specialised that there may only be one (or none) book on it.

Daniel

I got this one...

[ Linked Image ]

I did not say these swords were exactly the same, I only alluded that they were somewhat the same in relative size and that both are short but deadly cleavers and thrusters, though yes the Henry V is a better thruster.

Bob