Excellent post, Kevin, that's exactly why J?l started this forum to begin with. I'm also jealous as all get-out!
I applaud those who seek out the originals of what they are trying to reproduce. I have been lucky enough to get to handle well over a hundred original 18th-early 19th century flintlock rifles over the years, as well as almost that many tomahawks and knives of the same period. That experience has convinced me that one simply cannot reproduce an item through dimensioned drawings or photos and have it come close to the feel of the real thing. Thus the proliferation of clunky-looking tomahawks and rifles that assault the brain with their essential wrongness. Here I'm speaking only of reproductions, not the modern evolutions of the genres.
The eye for "line" or "flow" our ancestors posessed in the pre-industrial world is amazing. Not to mention the level of skill achieved by the guild systems. The chiselling and modelling on some of those rapier hilts makes me want to quit trying to do metalwork and take up thumb-twiddling or jello-mold stuffing or something more suited to my abilities. I'm not bemoaning the sole authorship model of modern bladesmithing at all, it just never fails to astonish me just how good some of those hiltmakers were.
As for sport fencers who don't understand the difference between an epee and a rapier, well, having been a sport fencer for a couple of years in college I can only say they must be idiots. That, or the people I fenced with had done thier homework on the history of the sport. We were all serious sword geeks, anyway.
Keep fighting the good fight and spreading the word, Kevin! Education is the only way to save the world, after all. Thanks for all you do.
