My first sword: what do you guys think?

In appearance, this just represents some diffrent etching from the Union officer sword from Windlass. These represent the American 1850 foot officer swords, which in turn came from French patterns. There is not a historical counterpart, as far as what you should call it other than what it is. Some of the reproductions do mean to be reproductions of specific CSA swords but this one is really just a difference of marking. The difference in the guard itself is just the CS instead of a foliate and or eagle pattern seen on these.

The price looks ok for what it is. I believe KOA does price matching, so the prices there are fairly steady for most items. I notice KOA just put several pieces up in their dent and scratch section.

The most important thing is that you enjoy the sword. I hope you do and let us have some more feedback once in hand.

Cheers

Hotspur; KOA troubles my budget but they have listed a lot of bargains

Being in the market for a saber myself, this is actually my "reserve" sword, which I'm considering getting if the other options I'm looking into do not work out. If nothing else, the price is very attractive.

From what I hear of Windlass their swords aren't bad, and for a decent practical saber, this is about as inexpensive as they come. Anyway, if you're not going to be using it for anything but display, I don't see what you have to lose. (Unlike me, who'd be swinging it around on a daily basis.)

Thanks for the extra confirmation. Once I get my hair properly cut, i'm going to go apply for jobs (don't want their first impression to be "Hah, he looks like a girl!"). If I manage to get one, this is definitely the sword i'm buying.

Michael,
There are many books. There is so much variation in military sword design from country to country that no one definitive book is really possible. Is there a specific country, region or era that is of interest to you when it comes to military swords? The newest general reference that will give you a small sampling of most Western swords is Harvey Withers' Illustrated Encyclopedia of Swords and Sabers. The best book on the subject of British military swords is Brian Robson's Swords of the British Army, and a good reference on late 17th century and 18th century European and American swords is George Neumann's Swords and Blades of the American Revolution. I'll let Glen fill you in on his sources.

Mostly reading books and articles, as well as discussions with others. The internet is wide open for gathering what one might be interested in. Here is a brief related shared bibliography from last summer.

forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?t=90613

myArmoury and SFI both have bibliography links and reviews. SFI has a dedicated non-fiction subforum that is largely ignored but is there to browse. It really becomes a matter of getting back what one puts into it. Before many of the books I have bought in the past five years or so, I picked up a great deal doing my own legwork on the internet.

My bookmarks for one folder that relates to mostly 18th to 20th century swords references totals to 205. That's just for that specific category of sword history. A mere 59 sites bookmarked for general history research portals with bookselves on several. 105 specifc genalogy bookmarks, most of them portals with yet more links. I have 70 books on my Google bookshelf. Half a dozen partly related patent sites, the lists go on. Peek in the A&M room of SFI and look at the sticky tips thread. I put up sword related Google books when they relate specifically to my hunts on swords. Have you ever read anything by Horace Greely?

Look for Harold Perterson's title on American swords. It is really still a platform for any interested and I have mentioned it several times in this very subforum. Interlibrary and JSTOR for students should be wide open for any that care to.

I just last night backed up more than 3 gigabytes of pretty much nothing but my own sword files and most of those simply archiving swords of interest to me (Jonanthan feeds me some treats every now and then).

Total book marks at Opera? Several more hundreds than listed so far. 127 ebay sellers. 223 sword related dealer sites. 44 sword and blade related forums. We haven't really touched on other interests I study. Many of them are related to each other in one way or another. Side roads of interest. Days and days of looking at, say, Denver Colorado history and Colorado history in general.

Never a dull moment. Formula One is having a vacation this month and then back to Valencia. ALMS and Grand American Road Racing. I don't follow NASCAR, Indy and CART much but there are the MOTOGP and other motorcycle races.

Cheers

Hotspur; My knowledge of sabres is just a drop in a very large ocean that any can choose to investigate.

I don't think I've quite lived long enough to match up to that, yet o.o

I avoid going "interneting" because I know how much absolute crap there is. I'll see what I can find, though. This morning I discovered (!) that the m1840 was a 6 pound POS called Old Wristbreaker.

It also apparently lacked sharpness, which is alien to me.

M.

Wise man say: if you never look, how do you know? You make an assumption about how much you know and yet unless you look you can't actually know how much you know. Also you need to learn discernment as to what is semprini and what isn't. It's all about research the more you research the more you know what is and what isn't semprini and where to go to avoid the semprini, that simple really

Hotspur has a period "Wristbreaker" that weighs 2.25 lbs., which sounds about right for a saber of its type. Six pounds is laughably far off the mark. ;D

You know, I'm starting to wonder if there actually are any "heavy" post-Renaissance swords. I say this because I think I might have had my impression of what is heavy and what is light somewhat skewed by my 3.2 lbs DSA Squire - the only proper sword I've had for reference.

Even the 1796 Light Cavalry -which most people seem to agree is one huge saber- only weighs about 2.1, which I've come to think of as light after swinging the squire around.

(Interestingly, KoA lists the Cold Steel Indian Cavalry Saber as slightly heavier then the 1796. I'm not sure how that is even possible.)

I don't even want to think about trying to handle a six pound sword. o.O