Customer Reviews

Collectors' Guide to Swords, Daggers and Cutlasses

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I have never seen a published nonfiction book by an author more ignorant of his subject.

Many other reviewers have pointed out Weland's inaccuracies on land swords, and it falls to me only to point out that his chapter on sea swords is no better.

Page 58: a captured "vessel could be dismantled and sold off to help pay the expenses of the successful navy." Of course, money from sold captures did not go to pay the navy'e expenses, but was given as a reward to the captain, officers and crew who made the capture, as an incentive for performance.

Page 62: "[B]y the time cutlasses had appeared, the hey-day of pirates was long past." This would certainly come as a surprise to such famous Golden Age pirate captains as Bonnet, L'Ollonais, Kidd, and Fly, all of whom are documented in contemporary sources as using cutlasses. Not to mention the judges of the Old Bailey during the same time period, who frequently found themselves judging assault, robbery, and murder cases involving cutlasses.

Page 63: Weland informs us that swords that are not curved are "useless for cutting." While a curved blade is indeed ideal for cutting, Weland's exaggeration would consign to uselessness such famous cutting weapons as the Scottish basket-hilted broadsword, the two-handed sword, and the medieval military longsword, all of which had straight edges.

Page 69: Weland misidentifies the Dutch writer Alexandre Esquemeling as a Londoner.

But the crowning error is right at the beginning. On page 9, in describing the parts of a sword handle, Weland completely misidentifies the ricasso! This is an error as fundamental, and as discrediting, as a driving instructor misidentifying the turn signal.

Not only is this rife with errors as other reviewers have mentioned, but it completely glosses over Asian edged weaponry and labels it as "mediocre" and "uninteresting".

The book should not be sold as a guide or as a handbook or as anything short of an incomplete and inaccurate school report on European weaponry.

If this is the first book on collecting swords that you get, make sure that you get a second and a third before you even -think- of going shopping. If this were the only guide that you were to bring with you into the world of sword collecting, there is a good chance you will embarrass yourself in front of even slightly knowledgeable dealers. Throughout the book, the proofreading is poor; that is, if it was proofread. Numerous captions are incorrect, and the authors research and conclusions are questionable at best. Conversely, this book does have some excellent photographs (many of which I have never seen elsewhere). Given the inexpensive price, it is worth purchasing for that reason alone.

Numerous historical and editorial errors throughout. Page 33, second paragraph - completely inaccurate; Page 34 has descriptions of the Epee and Gladius swords, but the photo on page 35 is a Turkish sabre; Page 36 shows a French rapier but is described as a Spanish cup-hilt, while page 37 has a picture of a Spanish cup-hilt rapier, but is described as a French rapier! Page 49, second paragraph - "...made the smallsword one of the least hazardous weapons ever used." Incorrect. "The blade of a small sword was deadly and a serious wound was almost invariably fatal" (Anthony North, Swords and Hilt Weapons, 1989, page 70); Page 115, two photos described as "Japanese dirk (wakizashi)". Incorrect - the wakizashi is a short sword (Victor Harris, Swords and Hilt Weapons, 1989, page 171; Leonid Tarassuk & Claude Blair, The Complete Encyclopedia of Weapons and Armor, 1979, page 248). Museum listing and Bibliography (described as "comprehensive")in the back of the book are woefully incomplete. Pooly edited, researched, proofed. Fortunately, it is not expensive and can unboubtedly be found in a book store's bargain section at a considerable discount.

This is a very good book for the money. My only wish is that it was bigger. Beautiful pictures.