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Armor exhibit at the Folger Shakespeare Library in DC

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Sword Chick:
I'm supposed to be making dinner right now, so only a quick thought or two...

Wow!  What a fun afternoon!  The exhibit was nice and compact with a few pieces that had me quite excited.  My favorites were a youth gauntlet (a gauntlet that would fit my hand!) and a "boarding sword" for fighting on board ship.  The edge had giant saw like teeth for cutting cables and a flat profile for storing in your sea chest.   Plus this wicked spike on the end for punching through light armour.  8)

Tommy had a blast reading the digitized version of one of the Shakespeare Folios.

I'd love to get my hands on the books on display.  Besides a Fabris and a Paulus Hector Mair there was a little rule book on honor and dueling. 

Oh, and then there was the illustration of Roman reenactment. 

We took a library tour and got to see an original painting of Elizabeth I.

I could go on and on, but dinner's burning.  :)  Thanks for meeting us there Ed!

And it was all free.  (I even spent less than $25 in the gift shop, 2 book and a tattoo.)  :)

Sir Edward:

Yeah, I had a great time too!

That boarding sword was pretty cool. If I had seen that in one of the online catalogs, I'd have thought it was purely fantasy, but having an extant example is fantastic. As simple as it was in appearance, I think a modern reproduction would probably be pricey, since that insanely thick armor-piercing tip would require an awful lot of stock removal on the rest of the blade.

I loved looking at some of the other swords, including those that were badly corroded. One thing I was noticing was that the pommels were all rather large... generally larger than on most of the reproductions currently on the market. I'd have loved to have had the opportunity to handle them and see how they were balanced.

And I really wanted that halberd we were admiring.

Sword Chick:
Oh, my!  That halberd was really something!  <heart beats faster, starts to sweat,...>

I also liked the "rapier" with obvious edge damage.

Das Bill:
Glad you guys had fun. I need to find time to make it out there myself.

RE: the boarding sword: If I recall correctly, that particular model was actually a failed attempt to make a sword that would function for both ship-wide tasks and combat, but failing at both. Supposedly it was issued, but no one wanted to use it. I don't have any sources for that info; I just remember a discussion about it on SFI many, many years ago.

Sir Edward:

Well, that makes sense. Still, it was a surprising find.

I'm still irritated that we couldn't take pictures, but oh well. :)

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