Now THIS is a thing of beauty

The new Museum Replicas Limited catalog showed up yesterday! I absolutely love getting this catalog -- it's so much more fun to go through than the Web site. Primarily, it contains quality, functional replicas of (mostly European) historic armaments -- and, oh, they are gorgeous. I took fencing in college, so I'm a total sucker for their replica rapiers, in particular, and also their Scottish Claymores. They also sell period costuming, though I question the authenticity a bit since my friend Georgette -- an expert on historic garments -- tends to get bent out of shape whenever I show her a Museum Replicas catalog ("That's NOT how a Surrey Chemise would have been constructed!").

In addition to period weapons and clothing, Museum Replicas tends to carry a lot of items from science fiction and fantasy films, comics, etc. Case in point: check out this life-sized, wearable, classic Thor's helmet:

As I say in my header, it is a thing of BEAUTY. Too bad it's so darned expensive. Museum replicas also carries an Iron Man helmet and a Magneto helmet (from the films), and Thor's hammer, amongst other things.

Then there's the stuff from Frank Miller's 300:

Leather briefs. Oh. My.

As I said, though, I like the rapiers. I want the Grantham Rapier REALLY BAD:

Pretty, pretty, pretty.

So, how good are the weapons? Well, I can't exactly use the rapiers for fencing -- they ARE real swords, well made, well balanced, and highly dangerous. I got my brother a Zatoichi (walking stick) sword for Christmas one year, and it was suprisingly well made -- there was no way the blade was separating from the wood any time soon.

We DO have a German battle mace, originally from the catalog, that's seen better days. In the midst of a bathroom remodel, we decided to use it during the demolition to see how would handle the punishment. It did just fine on the tile, drywall, and sheetrock -- that mace pounded them into powder without getting a chip or dent. THEN we made the mistake of hitting a wall stud. The mace handle actually BENT. I guess maces weren't meant for taking out wood beams. Oops.