Collectors' Guide to Swords, Daggers and Cutlasses [Hardcover]

Gerald Weland (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2001

A lively, fact-filled text and hundreds of full-color illustrations highlight a comprehensive collector's guide to edged weapons, from Turkish scimitars to SS daggers.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Grange books (March 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555217265
• ISBN-13: 978-1555217266
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,836,214 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars At least the pictures are good, but ..., January 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Collectors' Guide to Swords, Daggers and Cutlasses (Hardcover)

This book is decent, but I question its accuracy. Its best section is on cutlasses and naval weapons. The pictures are good, but woefully mislabled. (E.g..- the lables for a page with five daggers is supposed to read clockwise from the top. In fact, the labels are completely mixed up.) Also, some categories lack even sketches of the weapons (e.g.-the Indian bhuj) and his verbal description makes no sense. Overall the book will fill out a weapons library, but I would recommend Anthony North's "Swords and Hilt Weapons" for starting out.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Collectors Guide to Swords, Daggers, and Cutlasses, January 12, 2002

By 

"carddeals" (DEFUNIAK SPRINGS, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Collectors' Guide to Swords, Daggers and Cutlasses (Hardcover)

This book should have been titled a historical analysis of Swords, Daggers, and Cutlasses. It gives a working basic knowledge of edged weapons. However there is no pricing information to be found in this book.
It has many excellant pictures of edged weapons. However it gives a limited perspective of each catagory which leaves the reader salivating for more.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Excellent photos, bad text, marginal reference, bad research, November 14, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Collectors' Guide to Swords, Daggers and Cutlasses (Hardcover)

This book abounds with errors... Page 31..although the picture is from McIans book on the Scottish clans, and is from the 19th century, the sword that the highlander is wielding, is in fact a "claidheamh mor" (claymore). This type of sword was in use dating back as far as about mid-16th-century. The sword that Weland refers to as the classic claymore is no doubt the "claidheamh da laimh" or sword of two hands.(see "Culloden, the Swords and the Sorrows" National Trust for Scotland, 1996) Page 32..photo caption..on Scottish sword. This actually is a claymore. Page 33..paragraph 2..total fabrication. Page 51..paragraph 2..two-handed swords were wielded by troops known as Doppelsoldner who drew double pay, and whose job it was to break pike formations. Hard to do if you don't have the swords. (see Page 52..photo caption..on two-handed sword,"Katzbalger"? Katzbalgers were one-handed short bladed weapons for close-in work, like finishing off wounded enemy troops. The name means cat-gutter. (see Peterson,"Daggers & Fighting Knives of the Western World" Bonanza Books, 1968, pages 44/45.) Page 95..photo caption..the German soldier is not, in fact, "kitted" out with any dress daggers. He does, however, have some stick grenades stuck in his belt in typical German military style. Page 113..Daisho..paragraph 1.."while the second, originally known as the tanto, was the wakizashi." The wakizashi was always the short sword, while the tanto was always the dagger. There are quite a few more errors, buy this book, it's inexpensive..and you can amuse yourself looking for errors.