Game devs will see a sword like this and then proceed to give it a slashing animation

The car antenna comment made me feel old.

Maybe the German interest in dueling scars as socially significant extends back further than we believe? Because that blade seems optimized for inflicting that sort of light injury.

That kind of tip is called a stramazone. Yes I know it's an Italian word but made in Germany but that's the only name I've ever heard for it.

The fact that it flares ever so slightly towards the tip might help create a slightly bigger hole in fabrics to get the square cross section part through with less resistance.

As a cattle surgeon i know that having sharp edges at the tip of your needle is very important when trying to penetrate Cattle skin. You are not able to penertrate the leather with just the tip alone. The body of the Needle has to follow, and it can be very annoying when the tip of the needle is poking out at the other side but you can not follow through with the rest of the needle because the edges are to blunt.

Cool sword. I am absolutely loving this series. The great swords, the great background, along with your educated and learned commentary. Another great tidbit of wonderfulness. BTW, you are doing a god job of containing your complete delight at being there. I bet you feel like the proverbial child in the metaphorical candy shop. I know I would. Cheers!

Weren't some duels fought to the first blood? Perhaps that tip was for such a specialized application?

We used to play musketeers with the old car antennas :)

In Solingen you can also visit the 'Klingenmuseum' (Museum of the Blades), which we quite like to do. Sometimes they even have workshop days - e.g. Montante.

Smith: How long would you like the blade to be? Customer: Yes!

An interesting weapon indeed. I have a Swedish military instruction from a bit earlier in the period and it spends some time laying out which sidearms were allowed and not allowed for the cavalry (the men were responsible for providing their own arms). The author spends some time in banning not only 'rappirer' (rapiers) in general but also names a number of types by names which are almost impossible to connect to a type today but were clearly well known at the time. Among the types that were regarded as particularly unfit for military service were the Braunschweig thrusting swords and "four edgers". I wonder if the four edge name is a reference to this type of square blade?

the craftmanship displayed in this rapier is breathtaking. Literally state-of-the-art of that time.

That really is a clever blade profile and beautifully executed on this example! Somewhat surprising it isn't more common, seems excellent for the fencing style.

In essence, chapped more like a squared, very oversized stiletto. The tip was very interesting, and so is the pommel.

Your latest videos from the auction are fantastic! thank you Matt.

love love love the truly historical material in hand

Matt Easton goes Ian McCollum - roaming auction houses armed with knowledge and a camera. Very nice.

Love it! Thanks for showing us all these fascinating swords from the auction!

For Solingen and the Bergisches Land area, the manufacturing was divided often in two stages... The forging was done in the main company but the grind was done in litle grinding mills spreading thruout the smal rivers in the area. Oh and please do not hesitate to tell me if I am wrong cos I am not a historian but intersted unprofesional... Much more profesional I am in steel making.... The steel for the stuff made in the Solingen area is mostly from the Siegerland area, specialy in the early days. The sigerland area is famous for iron ore mining since about the 11ct and iron smelting for sure. There were mines in nearly every hill and on the riversides were many iron smelters and water driven hammers to purify the iron from the smelters and forge them ino usable barstock. At least in the 15th ct the deforestation reached its peak and the lokal nobility interfeared with a law or rule for foresting buiseness caled "Haubergswirtschaft", that means simply the buiseness of hacking on the hills. Since then the free forests were devided in plots for foresting but not per family or noble. Every famaly gets a schare and a coucill decided what plot is ready for harvesting. Biside that there are always some trees left to have more building material. Thin stock goes into charcoal making. The bark goes for tanning leather. And for sure some gose for build out the mines, Sad to say there is nothimg left of this tradidions except the names of vilages and places. Before I forget... the legend says, that the famous smith Wieland came from my reagon ( I am actualy living there 😆) who forged the sword for..... was it Hildebrand from the Siegfrid saga? Thank you for the nice video.... I always enjoy watching.

You needed very high skilled weaponsmiths in the medieval era... 😊

Wow I’ve never seen a rapier like that thanks for sharing.

Another great tutorial! Love your knowledge of swords!

I uncharitably thought the tip may not only increase penetration ability but would certainly increase damage from a thrust. The difference between a broad head arrow cutting blood vessels compared to a target arrow, say, that would only punch a hole.

Wonderful! What an interesting and specific design!

I'm Jealous.... it's way out of my budget.... but I want it !!

Beautiful car antenna. I want one!

Thanks for the video ⚔️

Rapiers are badass

An advantage of the flattened tip is also to widen the wound. more bleeding decreases the time before the opponent is no longer able to continue the fight. Plenty of duels ended when both participants bled out and died.

Brilliant dream killer duelist blade!

That is one beautiful sword. Love the hilt.

My only suggestion to all the other comments is that the unusual tip of the blade was, among other things, to strengthen the tip. Very sharply pointed blades have a habit of breaking at the tip. The F-S fighting knife was known for that, apparently enough for subsequent designs to have a shorter blade. Anyway, nice description. I'm an American, by the way, and I'm starting to pick up some proper English from you and certain TV shows. I was forever asking people to repeat themselves when we visited the U.K. a few years ago.

BTW , Matt, loving this series ! Beautiful swords, wish I could buy one.

Oh my God!!! John Clements was actually right about flared tips!!!!

How interesting. Thank you.

A beautiful weapon.

That is genuinely a really fascinating sword.

my new favourite sword

Just wanted to mention; feel like that broad sword on the is also worth a video.

great series

That is utterly fascinating to me for a slew of reasons. As far as the tip, Bill Bagwell's old book on designing, making, and using Bowie knives as dedicated fighters has a lot dedicated to the thrust. The tips on his knives aren't points but a small radius that is sharpened all the way around.

Reminds me of the Micropike multitool-it’s a spike tipped with a leaf blade, but shorter and curved to conform along one’s waist.

The square blade transitions to a square blade when it rotates by 45-degree angle. The only reason to do that is to align the tip for cutting, assuming you want to make the cutting edge on the edge of the rectangle. So that's another (weak) evidence for the cutting tip hypothesis. If it wasn't for those last few inches, I would have challenge this as being a sword altogether. It qualifies on a technicality, but that's one strange "blade". 😏 And that's how you can rank antique dealers and collectors. Some get excited when seeing a good piece of the most common known types, that ideal evidence of what it was. Other love to see outliers that were probably unique then and are unique now. P.S. When he asked the country, I was like: Germany, but I see the cup type on English transitional rapiers (but not so much that pommel).

Would it be possible to do a follow up on blades you covered on what they went for at auction to give us insight on that these antiques are valued at today?

Wow, love it!!! 😍

Those things are too dangerous even blunt to mess about with.

That reminds me of the tip Albion Swords had on their Zorro-themed colichemarde, and I very much want to commission a sword with a similar blade to that Albion partially because of how striking that spear-tipped smallsword element is.

Maybe it make the wound channel bigger!

Just amazing

I have a replica trench knife made by Boker Solingen, absolutely beautiful little knife, far more precise and well fit than any of the dozens of other handmade knives i own

Great video Matt! Love the auction review series. I know it is impossible but are you ever tempted to fence with these original artifacts from the era?

There are some absolutely choice examples in this auction. It must be wonderful just to be able to examine them.

Fascinating..you can see where the schlager derives its form from.

Looks like the blade could really have been mostly for the purpose as others have said for first blood kind of duels. The tip of the blade is definitely important for aiding in penetration, but could also conceivably be used for draw-cuts, as opposed to slashing.

My eye has been constantly drawn to this sword on the wall behind you. Lot number 152.

Looks perfect for the mensur.

That blade looks as narrow as a modern sport fencing epee!

That's no a rapier, that's a fence post from one of those old-fashioned wrought iron fences ...😁

Forgotten Melee Weapons

I've seen the Three Kings Heads of Solingen on swords, they go back a long way

I think the square bit that is thicker up near the guard must have a purpose. If not they would have tapered the transition or something.

I watched a couple of videos on German, particularly Prussian, duelling scars and the highly ritualised styles and regulated protective clothing they used to prevent too much damage. I wasn’t paying much attention to the actual style of weapon used but this item feels like it might’ve been used in a situation like that.

Built like a big sail needle

Windlass needs to get on this

7:18 Exactly this. Wide/broad tips are not efficient in that at all.

Clearly the blade was flattened to flip small flap jacks for breakfast. 🤣

A broad-head arrow is optimised for cutting once it GOES INTO FLESH, slicing internally. I surmise that this blade is flared and edged for the same reason !

Reminds me of hunting swords I’ve seen

Could this have been optimized to draw first blood in a duel with the option to go for letal thrusts if desired/required?

Quick question,how stiff is the blade?

It's unusual because it actually has a sharp point!😃 Honestly though, I think people are going to become so accustomed to seeing rapiers with blunted training points on the KZfaq HEMAsphere that they're literally not going to know what to make of one that's actually sharp! For whatever reason, this does not seem to be the case with arming swords or longswords, but it definitely is regarding rapiers.

I'm your huckleberry. Just gimme ten seconds to draw my five-foot sword.

Шикарная рапира !

Muy linda hoja.

When will Windlass / Easton be making a reproduction of this Solingen rapier? Very much like this rapier.

Im gonna make that, I happen to have a bar of cpm-3v that is 80% of that blade lol very cool

That is suuuuuuper interesting!! Kinda genius to. Im not normally a rapier guy but that sword is styling😻 Hell, if one were good enough or lucky you could even whap an assailants finger off with that bad boy.

The tip of this sword reminds me of German "academic fencing". This is much later, but the goal in academic fencing is to get scars on your cheeks you can show off to brag with.

that blade shape has a nicer transition than i do aaaayyyyyyy amirite amirite edit: i know a couple of people that could also be classed as "edged weapons" lmaoaoao i'll stop xd

Why do some blades not have a ricasso? I think it can allow a thicker tang through the guard.

Possibly a naïve comment, but it seems to me that the tip is ideal for civilian self-defence. If I got attacked by a footpad, I would probably prefer not to skewer them - corpses mean paperwork. However, the ability to slice a hand or a cheek could be a real deterrent.

Errol Flynn: "I'll take it!"

You made a video years ago about rapiers used in tournament being too light to be considered effective cutters. Do you still think that’s an issue? At what weight per length would you draw the line?

I would have thought that having the blade as a diamond point would be more effective for thrusting, then flare the blade out a couple of inches behind it for some cutting ability,were their a lot of blades like this or were they purely custom work I wonder , anyhoo cheers big chap😊all the best from sunny Troon

Lupa dah secara Maya.. lebih kepada live session.😊😊😊

When did the Heidleburg fencing scar come into vogue? This looks like a great tool to get or give a scar.

I am curious - can an opponent grab the blade of such rapier with unprotected hand?

Just making sure that I understand correctly. You said that the base was actually a hexagon because of flattened corners. Did you actually mean octagon, or are only two flattened corners? In any case, interesting video.

what would you do with this sword if the point brook off during combat?

I assume the square cross section makes the blade more ridgid in the thrust as well, right?

This blade also seems to support the idea of "civilized duels". The goal of which was to win by "first blood" but not to end the opponent.

Possibly of the type of fencing rapier. It would surly give one that lovely facial scar the Prussian/Germans were so fawned of. 0~o

Why do the twiddly bits on the end of the handle face in opposite directions? (Excuse the technical terms).

"Offer me money. Power too; promise me that. Offer me everything I ask for." "Anything. You. Want." "I want my father back you son of a bitch." - Inigo, demonstrating proper use of this fencing style

When Fire Emblem rapier sword.

Is it a rapier or an estoc? Yes, I know that the hilt is rapier style. The tip looks like an estoc or the sword used by bullfighters.

Mr Easton, a question: blade made in Solingen, understood. Was the mounting cutlered in Germany too, or could it reasonably be from other countries too? Or is that Papenheim hilt so gosh darn German? Nice sequence of videos, appreciated. Regards, Gus

Matt it's there so you can write that cool "Z" that Zorro does 😂

Maybe at the time this rapier was created there was tradition of duels to first blood? If so, this rapier would be over-specialized for that specific purpose.