DOTROM's arms, the journey...

It's been about two three years since I joined the FB SBG forum and started asking rookie questions to find the right sword. I was going to get only one viking sword, nothing too fancy... 

My collection has since ballooned and shrunk. I bought a ton of budget stuff, and then inched my way towards better stuff. My aesthetic taste is ever evolving, but I definitely began to appreciate quality over quantity by the end of year two. When you experience the magic a well balanced sword, how do you ever go back. As I cut more frequently, I developed a different set of likes and dislikes in sword design. 

These days I am getting away from bigger longswords, and I am getting away from budget stuff all around. I went on a dagger kick, which receded. I then went on a seax kick, and I am currently on a Bauernwehren and migration kick. 



LS/HNH

**Valiant Armoury - Irish Ring Pommel XIIa/XIIIa... Brown grip with antiqued furniture. Light brown scabbard. Very light for such a beefy sword.  Love the scabbard itself but I wish the leather straps were thicker and not so dry out the box, and I wish buckles were thicker and less LARPy.

**Arms and Armor - English Longsword XVIIIa... A fine specimen, and one of my favourite to swing.


SEAX

**Kram Msciwoja - Tiny little work of art with beautiful detailed metalwork on sheath.

**Brian Kerce - Custom Brokeback langseax 25" with inlaid/cloissone Sutton Hoo style hilt

***George Ezell - Custom longer seax in the works, 24" or so

***Wes Beem / LWF with Huerta Grip and Brian Kerce pommel - An amalgamation in the works, 29" Brokeback seax with rune carvings, new school migration style guards with Kerce's Sutton Hoo pommel cap, 9" hourglass grip with ring in the middle... in the works, almost here... this is my recreational destruction toy, no judgements pls.



SINGLEHAND SWORDS

**Chris Levatino - One of his new bronze antennae sword styles that, as of right now, has not been released to the public. Holding this thing is historical magic.

**Arthur Säuberli (Cutlaria Säuberli) - Custom gladius, guard and pommel are Brasialian jacarandá mimosa wood, handle is bone and brass. Very impressed, great price. 

**Vinícius Ferreira Arruda Hjörvar∂r - Tiny custom type M with super-carved bone grip.

**Balaur - Single Edged Viking (H) 

**Albion - Thegn...  its just magic. Scabbard in production.

**Damian Sulowski - "Thunar" custom Saxon/Viking style sword, Thegnish in stature, blackend, tooled knotwork grip and scabbard...

***Brian Kerce - Sword length English/Italian style baselard... Brian is wrapping up a baseboard for me, blade only. I will be doing the hilt work with antler and blackwood. 

***Bjorn Gisili Jarnskeggr Forge - custom holy grail of migration swords, Bjorn is getting towards the end of a really exotic migration piece with burly wood organics, detailed rivets, and a Hakun Risti bear pommel. 


MESSERS / BAUERNWEHREN

**Bjorn Gisili Jarnskeggr Forge - custom Langes Messer... Beautiful olive wood handle, light and nimble. Detailed scabbard. Love it. Cuts like butter. 

**Tod Cutler - TC71 

**Bjorn Gisili Jarnskeggr Forge - A giant Bauernwehr, a masterpiece. It's really a small sword. Angler handle with detailed rivets. Nagle is complex as all hell. Scabbard has great tooling detail too.

***Adam Bodorics - Project in the works... That multi-fullered, Hans Sumersperger thingie he has been tooling with--- MINE!!!

***Josh Davis (Davis Reproductions) - Project to begin next year. 



DAGGERS

Tod Cutler - TC54 Scottish Dirk ... Beautiful wood handle, nice color contrast. Great fit/finish.

Tod Cutler - TC56 English/Italian Baselard 

Tod Cutler - TC86 Landsknecht 'S' Quillion Dagger ... Pretty, but needs a lot of oil. My wife loves this so much she threw it at my head once. 










Background:

I only collect European swords. My focus initially centred on viking and medieval arming swords, but it quickly expanded to longswords/hnh'ers. I transitioned into a migration and Celtic kick, and then to messers and daggers. I went cold turkey from acquisitions for a month or so, but my willpower is nil... such is the riddle of steel.

I am an historian, but my specialty is miles outside of European history. I focused on European history as an undergraduate, and I did a pinch of renaissance work in my MA studies, but my specialty is the Cold War and inter-American relations. I reached a fork in the academic road; I weighed medieval European history, but the job market is abysmal in the humanities, especially so for medievalists, so I went with the other area I am passionate about-- I am polyamorous when it comes to my "passions" it seems. I'm quite happy with that decision for a number of reasons, but I do kick myself sometimes when my archaeologist and/or medievalist colleagues are playing in the mud on digs and I am grinding in digital archives. I'm well enough versed in European history... I've taught honours world history when I used to teach high school, and prior to mobile phones I kept Colin McEvedy's historical atlas series as a toilet topper for 15 years. And so I found the sweet spot with European history in that its not my job, and I can still fill in my knowledge gaps with imagination/romanticisation, so it hasn't lost its magical element for me. I'm not a scrooge about historical inaccuracies either. That said, I took as academic of an approach as one possibly can to swords this past year in that I read extensively on the subject, but I was limited in my ability to go to museums or put my hands on any originals. It's in the works. Also, I suspect that I will be pursuing a cert in cultural heritage/museum studies so that I can hopefully spend the final decades of my working life handling swords in a museum and not talking to anybody.

Thanks for reading. 




***Edited 19 July 2023... bought and sold a lot since then...