Building a Sword Collection

“Swords are for everyone and we view it as a shared culture. Everyone can play along.”

When it comes to building a sword collection, there’s almost no better expert than KOA’s founder. We sat down with Ryan for the second of a three part interview series to learn his tips on building a lasting and diverse sword collection. From budget, to use and what you’re interested in, he goes into detail on what to focus on – especially if you’re just starting out. 

Listen to Ryan’s Complete Thoughts on Collecting or Read the Highlights Below

The Parameters:  Budget / Interest / Use

-It comes back to finding a budget you’re comfortable with. You can spend thousands of dollars if you want, but start by deciding what you want to spend and source a few pieces you like. 

That might mean one really nice sword or a dozen lower end items because you want to decorate – it’s all about what works for you.

-From there, the next thing is what type of sword interests you? Maybe you have a cultural significance towards a type of sword based on your ancestry, or a favorite movie, or maybe you’re a westerner but you’re really into anime and you want to  Japanese culture and katana – go for that. 

We don’t discriminate, as far as trying to pigeon hole people into buying a certain type of sword. 

-And then we move on to use. If you won’t be doing cut tests with your sword, you can get away with a lower end temper and save some money. If you’re looking to do martial arts, test cuttings, or forms, you’re going to want something more durable which might cost more. And if you’re looking for something for combat sports – in which case you’re going to want some blunted weaponry – that’s something to keep in mind as well. 

I think those are the three most important things: Budget, what is exciting to you and ultimately use. 

A Master’s Collection

Because I have exposure and access to so much, I’ve started to develop an appreciation from every type of culture and eras in history. With that said, there are still certain types I gravitate towards – one of which being Viking swords. I like the simplicity; they’re rather simple designs in most regards, you don’t get the comlex hilts or blade structure compared to later European swords, but they have their own level of complexity. The Vikings had to deal with inferior materials a lot of the time. They dealt with bog iron oftentimes and were able to develop pattern welding and establish different techniques around that. 

From a historical standpoint, I find that fascinating – and I have Swedish ancestry so there’s that connection as well. As far as my interests are concerned beyond the Vikings, I am very interested in ancient world history. I study the Greeks and Romans a lot and the Roman gladius is one of my favorites. I also appreciate a lot of the Asian weaponry, specifically the katana and some Chinese swords. I have some great ones in my collection and, in a way, I don’t feel like a sword collection is complete without a good katana. It’s a quintessential sword, especially if you want a diverse world collection.

Some people collect geographically where others hyperfocus on time periods. The diversity amongst the sword as a weapon is great. A lot of people view swords as specific to a finite time in history, but obviously that’s not how it was, there were thousands of years of sword development. These hyper specific collections may be items only from the ancient world, and to narrow it even more, if someone just wanted ancient roman swords, the collection doesn’t end at three swords. There’s a ton of variety to go through, much like Viking swords. 

I take a different kind of perspective that I know a few customers do as well, I tend to do a sword representative collection. I’ve talked to other collectors who do similar things where they have a sword to represent every single time period or every culture. I collect more that way. Even though I really like viking swords, I don’t want to have two dozen viking swords. I’ll take a few I really like, and then add in a few Chinese, Japanese, Indian swords from different eras and cultures that are the best representation or quality that I see. 

Historical accuracy is very important because of the direction I am coming at this from. I collect swords because of a love and understanding of history. So to me one of the most important things I look for in swords for my collection is accuracy. I want them to be as close to the originals as possible. That’s not how everyone collects but it’s an important factor to me. Others may lean towards extreme durability for cutting tests or post apocalyptic scenarios. Some people want a connection to the past, or a specific decorative look, or even a heavy duty anti zombie weapon. There’s a market and a niche for that where more modern materials are used. They aren’t historic weapons anymore but they are historically-inspired modern weapons.