If they don't sell them here, I could probably buy one while I'm in England later this year and bring it back with me and ship it to you, or maybe ship it from over there.
May I ask if the trip is business, pleasure or a little of both? If pleasure, please tell me that you're going to visit 100 castles and weapon collections posting thousands of photographs for us to drool over.
^^^yes, what he said!
Pleasure, how could a trip to England NOT be pleasurable?
I'll be going for somewhere around 2 weeks. I do have a number of castles on the "wish list" to see, but I still have to figure out distances and map out what would be reasonable to do, since I don't know the distance between them. My wife and I will both be taking our cameras, and I'll be taking at least one harness to lend some atmosphere to some of the pics too. At least, that's the plan - it depends on finances. It's our "18 months after the wedding" honeymoon.
Ideally, I'll find a curator or two who won't mind showing me "under the glass case", and letting me me paw at a real sword or two. No definitive time frame for the trip yet, other than sometime after Sept 1st, when ticket prices drop. I've been watching too much Highlander lately, I keep thinking when I'm over there I'll introduce myself as "James Anderson of the Clan Anderson" and give my best shot at a slight accent, and see what happens.
I should ask my dad if we still have the pictures from when we took a family trip 15 years ago - the only time I've been. We went to the Tower of London and I had a great time at Warwick Castle. I also got to meet a umpteenth generation smith, who had his smithy before the town even existed. I got to hold a claymore that he made from a section of railroad track. Really cool guy. I hope those pictures and VHS tapes weren't amongst the items we lost when the basement flooded years ago ... crossing my fingers!
I'll post a new thread when I have a time frame booked, and see what I can do about bringing a thing or two back with us. It'll probably depend on size, weight and quantity.