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Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2010 18:05:24 GMT
Because they are badass. Need I say more?
Has this reason been covered yet?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2010 18:25:35 GMT
...I honestly can't imagine NOT owning a sword...
-Midori Kurogami of Sword N Armory.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2010 19:05:40 GMT
What is the appeal to most of you? You just like chopping water bottles or you like history? Is it self-defence? How many swords do you own? I like the craftsmanship of it. Mine are mostly for show but if I had to use them I guess I could.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2010 20:13:37 GMT
Because for my love of history and the great warrior of the past who used them.Also to me there are works of art.
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Post by bull on Feb 3, 2010 22:13:38 GMT
Put aside what they were designed for and just appreciate there beauty-elegance-and I cut crap up in my backyard.lol!!!4-all Katanas-one more on the way and looking for a gladius.I'm customizing each to suit my personal tastes.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2010 0:15:53 GMT
Hi Everyone
This is my first post so I thought it fitting to share why I collect.
For me it is as simple as this: all of my childhood heroes used swords. It is the sign of the hero and the power of the chivalrous. Knights, He-Man, Lion-O, Luke Sky-walker, Conan, King Arthur, Percius, William Wallace and the LOTR characters are just to name a few. They all had certain attributes I wanted to have. They had courage in the face of danger, were larger than life, and it always felt so good to watch them beat the bad guys. They were the hero and that is what I wanted to be.
One of my first swords I ever owned was a wedding present from my wife about 9 years ago. A wall hanger called the sword of Solomon. I didn't know anything about swords or how completely none functional it was. I just knew that light came out of the blade and with it I was 8 years old again and ready to save the maiden and slay the evil wizard or dragon.
That and also the fact that it is sooo gratifying to cut up jugs in the backyard. Makes me feel like a million smackers!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2010 0:46:35 GMT
Well I guess since this is back up on the main page I'll toss in my two cents.
The Art.
It takes time, patience, and finesse to make a sword; To learn how to use one properly; To gain the ability to sit through the wait while ones coming in.
The way I see it the end result is its own art form.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2010 1:30:22 GMT
Hello, my name is Tibbs and I'm a swordaholic. It's been 1 month since my last sword purchase and all ready the craving is coming back. I've tried to to dilute the craving by dispersing my attentions to my other acquisitions but, the craving just comes back. It doesn't go away by looking at those wonderful web pages chock full of sharp/pointy objects but I'm afraid that there is no cure for my malady other than more sharp/pointy objects. It's an affliction I've been wrestling with for over 20 years and I don't think I can stop.
Oh well ;D, I guess I'll just have to deal with it.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2010 3:05:19 GMT
around Christmas I was driving long distance with my wife. She said "Josh, you need a hobby. " In the past three years, I got married, got a career job, bought a house, suffered through a few family hardships and loss. Yada yada yada... Sometimes life just consumes you and that's that. I'm 34. I haven't felt like "myself" in a while. Feel like I grew up all at once or something. In my 20's I just traveled and worked as a broadcaster and hung out with friends. I developed good foundations in martial arts I suppose, but my body didn't want to cooperate-at 28 I was forced to stop practicing tae kwon do and western style boxing because of an achilles injury. A bad one.
When she said that I needed a hobby... it was a call to arms, personally. After some long reflection and a conversation with my father about a person's life and the legacy they leave, I remembered swords. The power and humility of holding a live blade. The real thing. The katana. The hand-and-half sword. The legacy of warriors and their sacred arts. Family swords passed from parent to son/daughter. How they represent a person's spirit in some cultures.
An internet search provided me with a Paul Southren destructive testing video for the Oniyuri, cutting wood like an axe. After picking my chin up off the ground, I found the SBG sites.
I am ashamed to say I actually forgot how much I love swords for a while. Never grow up. The feeling of opening that UPS box was better than any Christmas morning since I was 10. The artists/craftsmen that forge and customize and remount and add the details of all the swords reviewed, criticized, sold, bought and cherished here... bless you and your talents. You helped bring me back! I own 1 sword. I plan on owning 5, all to be customized. All will be personal and I'll keep them. Inside my head I can almost see them. The details. The blades. The fittings. The color and themes. I sometimes just write it all down just to look at it on paper. The estimates. The shipping info. Which companies/websites to use. Possible forum members that can lend their expertise. I imagine taking each one out back and standing alone, focusing on my breathing; quieting my mind before I cut water bottles or mats.
I own a sword because I like who I am now that I've rediscovered swords. I'm a better version of me. Being passionate about a hobby does that to a person.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2010 3:43:10 GMT
I wouldn't limit myself to just owning swords for my answer, since it is blades that I groups swords with. For me, I find that humanity has had many great inventions that changed the course of our evolution. The wheel, how to create fire, sliced bread, writing, Simpsons, etc... ;D Blades rank right up there. As thin skinned , small toothed, tiny clawed creatures the invention of a tool to cut, stab, slice, chop, shave, etc the blade opened many new avenues for humanity. We could even use them as defense and offense against the other animals that out tooth and clawed us. Trying fighting a bear with hands feet tooth and nail. Wouldn't a nice sharp sword, or spear, or axe give you a much more fighting chance? Blades made humanity able to dig, cut, chop, slice as well or better than most of the rest of the animal kingdom. This gave us a fighting chance to survive, in a world that survival often depends on how well you can kill, or keep from being killed. Still in our tamed domesticated sterilized worlds where blade & swordplay in not often needed I have found the choice is nice to have.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2010 5:07:02 GMT
this is easy! come on ask a hard one like why is there air? O.K. 1: I have all ways loved arms and armor, knights, SWORDS! as a kid I read everything I could get my hands on, history, fantasy, the exhibit at the philadelphia museum of art, started collecting swords when I was around 10. 2: oh yea and there really good when the ammo runs out. 3: some, several, a few, I mean come on who doesn't have a pile of swords in the corner? really what could be better?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2010 7:15:35 GMT
1) Because they are, quite simply, awesome. This is by far the most important reason to me. When someone sees a sword, they automatically think "Whoa, a sword, awesome!" After 2 years since I got my first sword, I still think that every time I look at my sword. They have timeless awesomeness.
2) You can do things with them. You can simply hold it in your hand, grinning like a sonofa, which I am guilty of doing often. You can cut with them, which results in much more grinning. You can practice martial arts with them, which is something I have considered, especially after learning there's a historical swordplay school not far from me.
3) you can learn about them. How they are used, form and function, construction, and history.
In short, swords are the perfect combination of awesome, physical activity, and learning.
As for my collection, it stands currently at 8, hopefully to grow soon. Thankfully I found the Internet before purchasing, and so I avoided purchasing wall-hangers.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2010 8:08:59 GMT
Huh, I somehow missed this thread the first time around.
It all goes back to Disney's The Sword in the Stone. I think that was my first introduction to swords. It might have been He-Man, but I think it was Disney. After that, I was hooked. Anything larger then me had suddenly turned into a dragon or some other malign beast, and every sword shaped stick became my dragon slayer.
As a kid I always dreampt of finding a long forgotten sword in the woods. I thought surely just over the next ridge, there it would be all shiney and new, stuck in the ground. This dream was soon crushed once I started learning about America's past and how we didn't have knights, or even an abundance of competent sword wielders.
But as a child, I had promised myself that one day I would own a "real life sword."
So here I am.
Fortunately I never promised myself I'd stop at just one.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2010 8:20:05 GMT
...I've collected knives my entire sapient life... I think I acquired my first folder at age 5. I've always had a fascination with cutting things (RED FLAG! ), much the way I've always had a fascination with reading a good story. Anyway, as I got bigger, so did my knives. At age 12, I saved up money made from mowing lawns and bought myself a genuine WWII-styled USMC Ka-Bar combat knife from my local military surplus store. They didn't even have a problem selling it to me, since I wandered in on my own with sixty bucks in my pocket. Anyway, I'm a lot bigger than I was then, and my taste in blades has gone up accordingly. I bought a stainless bastard sword SLO(hesitant to call it that, since it has stood up to a decade of abuse, being used as a machete. I still use it occasionally) when I was 19, and just as I have gotten smaller and more solid since then, so have my swords. Also, I need a backup if I run out of 12 gauge shells and .45ACP cartridges during the zombie apocalypse.
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Post by Tom K. (ianflaer) on Apr 16, 2010 8:23:12 GMT
I really thought I had posted to this thread but I see now I haven't. odd. anyway, my answer as to why is best stated in my reviewer profile where I wrote this:
I have always loved swords. I cannot remember a time when I didn’t. I can remember a time when I didn’t know any stories about knights and swords and I can remember the first time my mom read me Tolkien’s The Hobbit but my passion for swords predates all of that. I often joke that I was born holding a sword but I can’t back that up and besides my mom is still alive to put the lie to that story. When I first picked up a real sword I felt just like Sweeny Todd in the recent movie when he held his razors aloft and said “At last, my arms are complete again.” So the need to collect good quality swords of all types is very visceral and deep-seated in me. Many of my fellow forumites talk about the symbolism of the sword and what it means to society and I understand that, but to me it’s like waxing poetic on just how wet is water. I collect swords (and the occasional mace, war hammer, pole arm, or axe) to find the missing parts of myself.
At present I own something like 17 real swords and two wall hangers but that might be off a little.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2010 8:50:40 GMT
I collect swords and sell swords and collect more swords in the hope of finding that one sword that is the missing part of myself as Tom said, as of yet I have not found it.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2010 16:16:01 GMT
I watched a lot of TV and Movies growing up, but it was solidified when I went to medieval times and my parents bought me a wooden sword and a "real" axe. I could not stop playing with either, I kept experimenting with half swording, and holding the sword by the blade and striking things(read: furniture) with the cross. I never imagined that those were legitimate ways of using a sword. Suffice it to say, I didn't put that sword down for almost 2 years. As a matter of fact, there has been only a handful of days in my life since I was 8 that I haven't held a sword, or sword shaped object. When I am not holding one, I feel incomplete, small, and alone. I didn't have many friends growing up so swords were always there to keep me company.
I only have 3 swords I can say are functional. I have a hanwei practical Dao, a No-Dachi given to me as a gift, and a VA Malatesta. though, I will probably expand this collection dramatically because of my job.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2010 18:09:56 GMT
Well like alot of you I have always loved Martial Arts,swords, knivesand the like as far back as I can remember.And anything having to do with them,movies, books, etc. For me there is just a really primal feeling in holding a sword.I never really knew someone like me could afford real swords.All I was aware of at affordable prices were wallhangers so I didnt waste my time. Now I have a son about to turn 18 who has trained Yoseikan karate for several years and he wanted a sword.Last November A buddy of mine bought a sword at a yardsale for$20 and sold it to me for my son for $20.I started looking on the internet and found out my $20 had just bought my son a near perfect Hanwei PK+.I found all these real functional affordable swords online.Now I own 7 and am about to order another.HELLO.MY NAME IS JOHN,AND I AM A SWORD ADDICT.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2010 19:01:22 GMT
When I was a little kid, I talked my dad into buying me a hunting knife. Then later it was a long bayonet. Then a mace. Then a junk saber at a garage sale. Then a Gunto. After I got out of college and got a real job at IBM, and found a martial arts store run by a Chinese woman, it went downhill rapidly from there. I like to cut things with swords, and they work so much better at that than any machete I have ever owned. Plus, when I get a picture taken with one, the picture is so much cooler than anything else, except maybe high end guns and then there is that coming zombie apocalypse
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Post by Cottontail Customs on Apr 16, 2010 21:25:58 GMT
ditto to everything said already plus - what happens when you run out of bullets and the bad guys are still comin at you?
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