Gladius, Greek sword or shortsword, want to buy..

Hello,

Just a tip...
In the 'Classifieds' forum we have a "Want to Buy" subforum. A lot of our members have swords that they might be willing to throw your way.

Aside from that, yes, Albions are way up there (it's a minor issue of contention in some ways). There are a number of different makers, but Windlass has the 'Lakonian'. However, at least one of those has had a pretty thin tang, which isn't particularly safe. Deepeeka are focused on the re-enacting market, so they have pretty thick blades and nonexistent edges. With some work you can put an edge on, though. Hanwei makes a gladius that's a pretty good knockoff of the hispanieus type. Museum Replicas Limited also has a number of gladii, as does Kris Cutlery and Generation 2...

Tell you what, check this out:
www.kultofathena.com/roman.asp

American site but they ship international. Looks like Deepeeka, G2 and Windlass are your best bets as far as price go. Historical accuracy, well, is another story...

No problem...

I'm not necessarily recommending Deepeeka though, they do tend to be pretty good as far as historical accuracy but like I said they need a lot of work to make them actual cutters. If you just want a wall-hanger or a re-enactment weapon they're fine, but if you want something to cut out of the box go with a MRL or Windlass; you might need to order a sharpening done on them, though. But I'm not the best source on gladii here; RicWilly would be one of the people to ask.

Hanwei has a special this month. Their Tinker line swords are unbelievably inexpensive. I just bought the Hanwei/Tinker Norman from Kult of Athena for $110. I'm sure they have sales at other places too though. You'd have to decide quick if you want one though because it's only until the end of the month or until supplies last. Oh, and the cool thing is, you can buy them in either blunt or sharp, for either sparring or cutting, and the blunt ones are a tad bit cheaper. Hope this helped.