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Post by blackjack on Dec 8, 2023 19:22:50 GMT
I consider myself very lucky to have gotten a Principe with custom grip, professional sharpening and custom scabbard and belt for an amazing price. If I went by the new Albion price for the basic Principe including shipping, I spent less than $100.00 extra for all that custom work and no waiting period. imgur.com/a/QPGr481Attachments:
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Post by takitam on Dec 8, 2023 22:02:45 GMT
Short update, Ljubljana has arrived, only 20 km away from Ljubljana. It has been a long shipping process, and I still don't even know what went wrong in the first attempt so I anxiously watched the package status, and in the end it took a week for customs in my country to finally do their job. But this was expected, it's December already and I guess they're flooded with Black Friday and holiday shipments. I also have to thank the Kult of Athena in the end for covering the import costs and taxes, which for an item this costly aren't a small amount. But all the savings from that have already gone for scabbard raw materials - leather, glue and paint, thin model birch plywood, and I also bought Tod Cutler chape and brass belt set, and I sent all the parts to be silver plated. The brass parts, not the leather and plywood. I hope I'll be able to complete the scabbard by the mid-January, my re-enactment company is taking part in an event in our National Museum of Slovenia, the place where the Albion Ljubljana original sword resides, and is for the past 11 years accessible to the public. Congratulations! You finally got the sword. I'm looking forward to a review, which I hope is in the making? If you don't mind me asking, what do you mean that KoA covered import taxes and fees? How and why did they do that?
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Post by curiomansion on Dec 8, 2023 22:41:09 GMT
Short update, Ljubljana has arrived, only 20 km away from Ljubljana. It has been a long shipping process, and I still don't even know what went wrong in the first attempt so I anxiously watched the package status, and in the end it took a week for customs in my country to finally do their job. But this was expected, it's December already and I guess they're flooded with Black Friday and holiday shipments. I also have to thank the Kult of Athena in the end for covering the import costs and taxes, which for an item this costly aren't a small amount. But all the savings from that have already gone for scabbard raw materials - leather, glue and paint, thin model birch plywood, and I also bought Tod Cutler chape and brass belt set, and I sent all the parts to be silver plated. The brass parts, not the leather and plywood. I hope I'll be able to complete the scabbard by the mid-January, my re-enactment company is taking part in an event in our National Museum of Slovenia, the place where the Albion Ljubljana original sword resides, and is for the past 11 years accessible to the public. Congratulations!!! This is the resolution to a story that began over a decade ago on that other forum! Long journey indeed. Please write us a long review when you've had the opportunity to get to know the sword. This is the king of my collection; I hope it is for you too!
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Post by eastman on Dec 9, 2023 2:07:50 GMT
good to see that your Ljubljana has arrived
always a good day when you get a great new sword
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Post by pellius on Dec 9, 2023 2:48:14 GMT
Congrats on a happy ending to a challenging chapter.
Another solid move by KoA
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Post by bwaze on Dec 9, 2023 12:55:25 GMT
Congratulations!!! This is the resolution to a story that began over a decade ago on that other forum! Long journey indeed. Please write us a long review when you've had the opportunity to get to know the sword. This is the king of my collection; I hope it is for you too! Story actually begun about 20 years ago! At that time I borrowed a Master's degree " Oboroženi stan srednjeveške družbe na Slovenskem na osnovi materialnih virov. Primer: meči" (Armed class of medieval society in Slovenia, based upon artefacts. Example: swords) by Nabergoj Tomaz (then Curator for archeology of high and late middle ages in Slovenian National Museum) and copied it - as a Master's degree it wasn't sold, there are only 3 copies in libraries. This sword really caught my eye even as a drawing, and I wanted to find out more about it and others - but our museum didn't have any of them on regular exhibition, and the last time they were displayed was in 1971 in an exhibition. I got that exhibition catalogue, Orožje in bojna oprema, Ferdinand Tancik, 1971, but it was very basic, had very little new info and a terrible photos of swords. But that and the detailed drawings and data from Master's degree by Nabergoj Tomaz were enough for me to try to make a "digital reconstruction" which I then published on MyArmoury forum back in 2005. That post is unfortunately now without photos since hosting died and I can't edit it due to age. It got a bit of attention, and that increased 4 years later when I posted a photo of me holding the original. That photo was actually from 2007 when our National Museum cooperated with a Western Martial Arts workshop, and we had the privilege to see some of the swords from the depot, and even hold the ones that were better preserved. Those were quite different times back then - although I had the opportunity to hold the sword it was forbidden to take photos - fortunately we had guests from Slovakia in the workshop who didn't really care about our rules. But we were still warned only to use the photos for private use, and it took two years for me to post them publicly. The photo and my description caught Peter Johnsson's attention, I translated some more stuff from Tomaz Nabergoj's thesis, put him in a contact with our museum's curators, they lent some swords including this one to the Stockholm Museum where Peter could research them, and Peter Johnsson and Albion then prepared "The Ljubljana" replica in collaboration with our museum just in time for the opening of great exhibition on arms and armour in our national museum " Vitez, dama in zmaj" (The knight, the lady and the dragon") in December 2012. To show how different the times were - museum had to change the rule of replica making, which stated you can't make the replica in the same material or in the same scale, because they feared this could lead to forgeries! And even in 2012 and 2013 it was still forbidden to take photos in museum (I was fortunately allowed since my re-enactment group participated in various events there). This sword and many others are now a part of permanent exhibition, so anyone can go and see them in a museum, and even take photos for the past couple of years. For now, I see more and more museums throughout the world actually prohibit taking of photos to control the rights to the items in museums. As I have written before, I was offered a generous discount by Albion back then for the help with the data, translations, I even did some translation for the Albion presentation of replica for the exhibition. I really loved the look of The Ljubljana, but it was way beyond my means, so I bought The Earl, which was less than half the cost of Ljubljana. I carry it to all re-enactor events here in Slovenia so the visitors can get a glimpse on how a real sword might have looked and feel in hands, and I plan to do that now with The Ljubljana - even if that means it will be in less than pristine condition after a few years, and we really aren't paid for wear and tear of our equipment. I will post a longer review after I make the scabbard and have the chance to get to know the sword a bit better, but it's really everything I hoped for. I have of course held the replica at the exhibition more than 10 years ago, and after that on an event by the museum when we again had the opportunity to handle the originals, but I kind of forgot how different it is from Albion Earl - even though they are both categorized as Oakeshott Type XVIIIb! The Ljubljana is a bit heavier and much more thrust oriented sword, the blade remains much thicker towards the point, pommel really looks huge, but it really feels very nimble in hand! Together with the much greater rigidity due to really thick blade it's really an interesting weapon. And it still looks fabulous to me!
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