here's a video for those new to sword
collecting who wish to acquire a blade
or two or five or fifty you know how it
sometimes goes with collecting and as
with many other hobbies there is a lot
of information to get into so I'm trying
to make this as kind of a brief
introduction orientation for beginners
and might not turn out to be so quick
because like I said there's so much to
cover first of all if you're looking to
purchase a sword I would highly suggest
googling sword buyers guide or going
directly to sword - buyer's guide calm
it tells you about real swords as
opposed to that cheap junk especially if
you click here on fantasy swords this
drives home the point of the hazards of
buying cheap wallhanger junk those are
also in the sword community called sword
lag objects or SLO s and yeah you can
see the problem with this there is
literally just a threaded rod welded to
the blade that's it so that breaks very
very easily and on top of it it is made
of cheap stainless steel stainless steel
doesn't have to be bad in case of knives
there are plenty of really high-end
well-performing steels but in case of a
sword is pretty much an automatic
failure because stainless steels are too
hard and too brittle to make any blade
out of it as longer than say machete
length and usually those cheap old wall
hanger things are made of the cheapest
stainless steel available it's typically
420 j2 or 440 and those are the really
low end stainless steels for for TCE is
kind of okay but the others are really
bad and especially for swords if you
were to try to strike something with it
or do test cutting the thing would
simply break the blade may fly right out
of the handle just from swinging it
around and fly into your neighbors
window or impale their cat or whatever
the horrible things may happen so it is
really important to keep that in mind
this is an excellent source as is my
armory calm another really really highly
recommended website it is full of tons
of valuable information you have lots of
articles and essays about you know
history typology terminology all kinds
of things and then you also have a lot
of reviews and those are really good
because the people who are writing these
reviews definitely know what they're
talking about so yeah you can definitely
trust their opinion and again very good
information so let's get to it if you
want to buy a sword where do you go in
Canada you can check out relics calm and
warriors in wonders calm they both have
pretty reasonable prices although you
have to keep in mind that Canadian
prices are generally higher and I have
ordered from both before so I know that
they are reliable my personal favorite
is cult of Athena calm it is one of the
best online stores for swords if not the
best mainly because not only do they
offer really low prices they also have
very reasonable shipping rates they do
offer worldwide shipping and if you are
in Europe for instance sometimes it can
actually even with the increased
shipping cost and even import taxes or
customs duty even with all of that it
can still be cheaper than buying locally
sometimes depending on where you are and
the other nice thing is that they
organize everything really well and
offer a lot of information if you click
on this category for instance what you
can do in order to get rid of most of
the junk is click on show only
battle-ready and what battle-ready means
is that the sword is sturdy enough to be
able to be used better ready is of
course hypothetical because you are not
going to go into battle nowadays with a
sword but it means that you could do
things like test cutting with it and
ideally it would be as functional as a
historical sword which as you will see
is quite often not the case with the
cheaper stuff what you have to keep in
mind is that you get what you pay for if
you see a sword for $110 yeah that's a
clear warning sign that means that it's
going to be cheap materials cheap
assembly in general anything below
$800 is kinda suspicious there are
exceptions there are some really good
sort functional sorts for less than 300
but in general if you want something
really good you have to start at about
500 usually the really good stuff starts
at 800 here you see Albion and yeah
that's typically where it starts 800,000
I know it's a lot of money and money is
tight I get that but the thing is you
can actually go for a payment plan both
Albion and arms and armor which are both
really high quality manufacturers do
offer payment plans so the way that say
pay $150 for six months and that works
pretty well because in case of Albion
they usually have a backlog because they
simply get too many orders and it takes
a while to make them of course so their
current backlog they told me was five to
six months so during that time you can
actually accumulate quite a bit of money
by just saving whatever $100 150 200 a
month and then you will be able to
afford it or you can go for a custom
sword made for example by all n swords
or Tinker Pierce
there are various high-end custom sword
makers the difference is that those guys
hand forge their blades
whereas production swords often are not
like Albion uses machines to cut out
their blades which doesn't make them
inferior by the way a lot of people
think that hand Forge is always better
but not necessarily what really is
decisive is the quality of the material
it has to be high carbon steel with a
good heat treatment and the assembly has
to be good a threaded pommel is usually
a sign of a cheap sword that is cut off
not as good there are exceptions like
angus trim for instance who has made
some really good swords with threaded
construction the thing is the cheaper
swords are assembled in such a way that
they simply slide the guard
the grip and the pommel onto it at the
end of the tang is threaded so they'd
simply thread the pommel onto it so
that's the simplest and weakest
construction it relies on putting
pressure on to the grip in order to hold
everything together with use that may
loosen up the wooden grip can compress
then you have to keep tightening the
pommel and eventually it will just
compress the wood so much that cracks
develop and all kinds of problems arise
a peened construction is generally
better although the cheaper versions
also rely on the compression fit so they
may have some of the same problems in
that case it can even be worse sometimes
because if it loosens up in that case
it's even worse because it's much more
difficult to tighten it up once it comes
loose because what peening means is that
part of the Tang protrudes through the
pommel and you hammer it down a better
way of doing that is the method that for
example albion uses where they make the
guard with a very tight-fitted slot and
they hammer it onto the blade so that
it's secure in and of itself and then
they force the pommel onto the tang and
heat the end of the pommel up and then
hammer it down which is called hot
peening and there is a much more secure
attachment and then the handle is simply
glued onto it into parts and wrapped so
the bottom line is if you see a cheap
sword it's most likely going to have
issues with the assembly especially if
it's threaded but it can also be a
problem if it's pinned I don't really
like to rant about particular
manufacturers but in this case it is
appropriate Deepika I cannot recommend
them all the reviews that I've seen so
far had some problem with the fitting
stuff came loose they had a sloppy
finish things of that nature so kind of
problematic it has been awhile since I
read up on those reviews so they might
have changed things but it's still
suspiciously cheap so I don't have high
hopes and the other thing well a lot of
people have asked me about cold steel
and I can only recommend you to stay
away from them it's not a secret that
I'm not a fan of cold steel mainly
because of the way
they over hide their stuff if a company
can have an overinflated ego yeah cold
steel definitely has that and that's
also the reason why I will go off on a
bit of a rant about them because if you
act like you're the [ __ ] and your stuff
is the best in the world well then you
can very reasonably be criticized if
your stuff is actually not good and yeah
that's a problem here if you go to call
of Athena's scratch and dent blowout
section this is where they have all
their flawed swords which came to them
damaged or some kind of problem with the
quality control and yeah look at that
nothing but cold steel swords this
section used to be a lot larger they
also had swords from other manufacturers
which have problems and I've been
looking at it frequently for about two
years or so and every single time
predominantly the swords that they have
in this category were called steel
swords and it's always the same problem
here the hilt is slightly loose the hill
does lose the hills lose lose hilt lose
hilt lose hilt it's always the same
problem that's because they don't
assemble them properly you can also see
fishy things like this epoxy if they
rely on glue to hold the parts together
yeah that's a bad sign another really
bad sign is this okay
it's a Messer it is made with the
simplest and most secure ways of
attaching a handle this kind of
sandwiched wouldn't handle scale design
yet even that they managed to make so
that it comes loose so yeah with that
kind of problems it's not exactly
warranted to overhype your stuff that
much I know they have all their sort
proof videos and everything where they
drop all kinds of stuff but guess what I
don't think that promotional videos that
the manufacturer makes can necessarily
be trusted so much another name that I
personally stay away from is Ritter
steel the problem is this right here
those things are incredibly ludicrously
heavy and they have nothing in terms of
historical accuracy I know you may not
always
be looking for that but the reason why I
mentioned that is that well historical
designs are the tried and true it does
not mean that fantasy designs cannot
work it just means that if they take a
historical sword and then change it in
some way they kind of mess with that
optimized design so yeah you can run
into problems and this here is
particularly bad because it is a fairly
short sword and it weighs as much as a
two-handed great sword which is way too
heavy so yeah and on top of it it's also
a threaded pommel that's just not good
news if you're really on a budget and
you cannot afford a higher quality sword
not even on a payment plan I would
suggest you can look into legacy arms
they make reasonably historically
accurate swords and the good thing about
those is that they are built like a tank
they tend to be a bit heavier than they
should be but it's really good quality
it's tough high carbon steel and it's
properly pinned people have done all
kinds of abusive tests with them they
are really good again they do not
compare to a historical sword in terms
of handling they may look like one but
trust me it is really quite a difference
the difference between a $300 and $1,000
sword is absolutely striking I can
guarantee you oh and one thing to keep
in mind is if you're interested in the
windless sword which those can be a bit
hit or miss they have some surprisingly
good swords for the price they are made
in India so it's lower production cost
they also have some problems some of
their longer blades tended to be whippy
I'm not sure if they still are but they
were overly flexible and what you have
to be aware of that they come completely
dull they are unsharpened so you have to
add sharpening service if you want a
sharp blade okay so I was actually
hoping to make this shorter but yeah
like I said it's simply way too much to
cover and I just had to go into a bit of
detail there also to answer some
recurring questions so I hope this was
helpful and sorry about my rant there in
between but yeah
maybe you got something out of it in any
case thanks for watching