Albion Fiore Review
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ก.ย. 2024
- This is a video with a few thoughts on the Albion Fiore
More info from Albion here - www.albion-swo...
Blade Specs:
Hilt: 9.75”
Grip: 7.5”
Pommel: 1.875”
Blade: 36.5”
Width @ Cross: 1.88”
Thickness @ Cross: .35”
---
Width @ 10” from Cross: 1.49”
Thickness @ 10” from Cross: .29”
---
Width @ 20” from Cross: 1.09”
Thickness @ 20” from Cross: .22”
---
Width @ 30” from Cross: .66”
Thickness @ 30” from Cross: .165”
---
Width @ 35” from Cross: 29”
Thickness @ 35” from Cross: .18”
Total: 46.25””
Weight: 3lb 5.5oz
POB: 3.5” from Cross
MSRP: $880
Advertised Specs:
Overall length: 46.25" (117.5 cm)
Blade length: 36.5" (92.7 cm)
Blade width: 1.875" (4.76 cm)
CoG: 3.875" (9.8 cm)
CoP: 22" (55.9 cm)
Weight: 3 lbs 6.2 oz (1.5 kg)
Weapon Dynamics Specs:
Mass 1516.699487
Hilt Extremity 0
Grip Reference 24.765
Blade Extremity 117.475
Center of Gravity 33.655
Lever Reference 4.7625
Hilt Node 20.0025
Blade Node 80.645
Action Point 22.86
Pivot Point 99.3902
Action Point 5.715
Pivot point 63.1825
subcaelo.net/e...
Other Videos to checkout:
Matt Easton’s comparison between the merc and Ringeck
• Two swords can be very...
Medieval Review of the Ringeck: It’s not the same but it is very similar.
• Medieval Review - Albi...
www.hroarr.com...
I've owned around half a dozen Albions through the years. I absolutely love that company. Peter Johnsson's research elevates their products to a level most companies making Western swords can't even approach.
(Side note on sharpness: that can vary from type to type. The messers or maybe type XVIIIc would probably feel better to you if the Japanese sword is your comfort zone. That style was designed to oppose heavier armor and favored thrusting slightly more than cutting.)
Love this man's content. Very informative as always Matt.
I appreciate that!
Great review as always, Matt. Glad for all the activity as of late.
Oh, btw, My take on the XV in general is: If it’s triangular and pointy, usually diamond cross-section with pretty much no curvature along the edges, it’s an XV. It’s an XVa if you can use two-hands, and it’s as simple as that, to me. I’m sure others will disagree, but hey.
The minute you start noticing a curving of the edge, you’re likely in XVIII, or some other territory.
Glad you are liking the videos. Thanks for the thoughts on the the XV typology too. Seems like more refinement may be warranted some day.
@@Matthew_Jensen Oakeshott did his best, considering there are a lot of swords out there that he couldn't fit into his typology. Swords were weapons made for individual warriors, reflecting their own personal preferences. The typology only addresses the most basic characteristics-- cross-section, profile geometry, length, etc. Mass distribution is a very different variable, and can be significantly different between two swords that share almost every other characteristic!
Your observation-- which I can confirm, having handled a Castellan and a Talhoffer-- yes, some hand-and-a-half swords feel great in one hand, whereas others definitely "prefer" two! Oakeshott XVIIIa is another type where this phenomenon can be observed. To wit, there is a theory that many later examples of XV and XVa were actually originally XVIII and XVIIIa, whose profile taper became more "linear" after multiple re-grinds...
I just use gloves when handling and using western style swords now. Keeps from any body oils getting anywhere. And they absorb the sweat from practicing. Rubbing Ren Wax into parts works great for preservation overall as well.
yeah they are pretty good for maintenance and training i always use them
Fiore style is cut to disable andprotect, thrust to kill. Swords from his era reflected that style, which was not only his, but the dominant ''doctrine'' across Europe for longswords. The reason is simple, nobles are mostly the one using longswords, they often have armor and their enemy as well, meanwhile peasants and the likes usually prefered arming swords and were more likely to fight unarmored opponents. This doesn't mean cutting isn't important for longswords of the era, actually most of your attack would still likely be cuts, but the attacks you fully comit to are more likely to be thrusts. Thrusts do not have stoping power, but they can go through fabric armor much much easier, can go through mail in some cases and are much more likely to successfuly exploit gaps in plate armor, while also beeig more often lethal (a cut will rarely get realy deep in combat situations).
Thanks a lot for this info!
Never underestimate how much the right amount of champhering & polishing can do for a grip that bites the hand. Its all about getting all those sharp edeges softened up. I've made gmany grips people thought gmfor sure would hurt the hand but didn't b/c they were sanded & polished properly in the right spots.
Hi Matthew,
I also own a Fiore from Albion and I can confirm Your observations. It's not very lively in hand.
Also, I found it interesting to see, that stiffness wise it is between the Earl and the Munich. Those two are also more fun to swing around, with the Earl being livelier, but they are very close to each other.
I especially like comparisons between those swords, because it makes it easier to get an impression on them.
The Earl was a surprise for me, since it doesn't seem to be suited to oppose heavy armor. Unlike the Fiore and Munich, it doesn't have a reinforced point, but it has more distal taper, therefore is livelier and less stiff. All three of them are equally thick at the base (~ 9 mm).
The build quality of my Fiore was superb. There is just one exeption: the pommel on mine is lobsided. That means, the surfaces of the wheel are not in the same plane as the edges are, and if You were to feel the edge alignment from the pommel, it would be off. Now I didn't send mine back to Albion, because I think, it would not be an easy repair and I didn't want to wait. With my Earl and Munich the planes of the pommels are perfectly aligned with the edges. I also own an Albion Squire, where the pommel is slightly off, hardly to notice.
In Your video, I got the impression the pommel of Your Fiore is also slightly lobsided, but I could be wrong. Can You tell, wether it is aligned with the edges of the blade or not?
The fiore I have seems to have a pommel in alignment.
Stumbled upon this and it was very interesting. Thanks for the effort you put into the review... and the rambling...
And thank you for all the details and informations every time
I own the Sempach and owned a Fiore and I think I agree. They feel like they fill a similar gap functionally, but I prefer the feel of the Sempach in the hand. The Fiore is, however, a very handsome sword IMO.
Thank you for offering your insight Matthew. I put down the money for a Ringeck, as I just enjoy the longer and stiff type of XVa, and favor that scentstopper pommel over the wheel pommel on the Fiore. I remember you used to own a Talhoffer, which features the identical blade as the Fiore and Ringeck. How does that sword handle in comparison?
I think Oakeshott never got the chance to further refine the type XV/XVa sword family as he did to the type XVIII, which was split into 6 subtypes eventually. There are two types of XVa swords, one encompassed the bastard swords with the broader and shorter blade like the Mercenary, the other one typifies the longer, more slender and more rigid blade like the Fiore. Maybe one day the community can revise the Oakeshott typology and create a XVb type to distinguish the two?
The talhoffer is fuzzy in my mind. I don't recall having the same disparity between the feeling of the merc and tallhoffer as I do the merc and the fiore. I remember the hilt being similar but preferring the merc both stylistically and fictionally. Given that the tallhoffer and fiore have very similar stats on paper and on the dynamics computer calculations I have taken, I think experienced hands would find them very close in practice. My perception of them is that they feel more different in the hand than the paper shows. That might be because of my bias, knowledge gained or lost over time, and because having a wheel pommel generally makes me shorten my grip and a fishtail/sentstopper widens my grip because I tend to use it as part of the grip. I am rambling now...
@@Matthew_Jensen I do think you are right, as I find the wheel pommel hard to maneuver around, so your offhand is never at ease, probably makes the sword harder to use. I too, feel scentstopper and fishtail are more appealing both aesthetically and functionally.
On the shape of the grip and the virtue of a Wheel pommel. This shape of grip when used with a gauntlet and especially those types of gauntlets which limit wrist mobility , accommodates a little more subtle mobility, keeping the dominant hand fixed ( near the guard) and the no. Dominant hand wrapped around the pommel and using it to “ steer” the blade. The scooped shape near the pommel gives a little more room for the turning of a Gauntleted hand.
Great!! thanks Matt!
Please, you have to make a video about Albion's The Squire, that of one hand that is usually always hanging on your wall.
It must be a very complete sword and there is no video on the net
I LOVE your sword review videos
I have a Fiore, I picked it because I prefer the disk pommels for how they rotate in hand.
These are often used at the halfsword, and the longer type 15 albions have that hanging bias. You grab the middle of the sword with your left hand, and you have a nice pointy armer opener. Get the point into a gap, and "scramble the eggs" 😳
It does have very nice point control though, or at least I find it does. But as you mention, it might come with practice.
If I started over though, I would have gone with one using the shorter blade, a Merc or Castellen.
Fiore would also look good with a scent stopper pommel.
That's amazingly simular to One of Ronin euro models but obviously better quality on the Albion...a great feature about Albion that I wish Ronin would address is the midpoint seam on the Albion is perfectly centered where Ronin is brought down lower, very annoying but nice to have Ronin as an option at less than half the price, but yes its all done much better on the Albion but I wish the pommel was made of a rust resistant material so you wouldn't have that rust issue when your hands are always on it...doesn't seem that practical for those who wish to use it....great video as always Matt...cheers
Last time I was this early swords were made of bronze.
Please do a full review of the Sempach !
Do you have a sword dynamics computer entry for the Albion Mercenary? I would like to see what that looks like in comparison to the Fiore.
Thank you for the review. I have an off topic query: In ur research have u found why JP curved swords never used western type Pommel, (counterweight to draw the PoB towards the hilt) and instead opt for longer handles to attain similar result? Feels like they could make broader and/or longer blades or vary distal tapering rate if there was a solid Pommel-esque fitting instead of the typical Fuchi kashira as counter balance w/o the PoB moving even further forward.
my sudden guess is that the reason is , the swords were not required to stab as much. Because armor was less common? tip cuts work well with a katana, so the max range attack can be a cut, you never need quite the same point control. Also, cutting swords are heavier, so a bit of counterweight won't have quite the same effect. If the sword is dainty, then a small pommel will be a huge change in balance, making it more worth it. ???
That's an awful lot of Albions you've been reviewing lately. They do have that finished look which is hard to argue with. I like the look of the "Baron" , the "Agincourt", and the "Talhoffer". But damn are they expensive ... and no scabbard ... err ... just don't know if I can be ok with that. I guess we'll see.
Cuz I need to sell em..
3:07 "long rambly" YEAH!!
Thank you 🙏🏼 Why doesn’t albion provide scabbards for their swords?
Didn't you review the DSA 2 handed Danish longsword? Wondering what the comparison between that and this Fiore.
Love ur channel and reviews, I've been watching videos on swords that were forged out of meteorites that fell to earth what do u think of it are they special swords or something?!
The novelty of a space sword is worth something but I don't think it makes them better at being swords. I think a lot of folks might argue it makes them much worse or at least potentially worse at being swords. Cool factor is pretty high though.
@@Matthew_Jensen awsome, Thanks!
Hey you have a Sempach!? Please make a video for that. That's one of the Albions I've been looking at.
I really like it. I don't find the aesthetics to be very exciting but I really like the way it feels.
@@Matthew_Jensen Yes it is a very simple and plain sword, but it looks very comfortable in the hilt.
cool stuff
you made it seem almost like it couldn't cut. did you even do test cutting? on wood, tatami, armour, or ballistic gel? if so, what was the average cut depth? and while you're at it; the average pierce(ing) depth?
wheel pommel is the best pommel :D
100% nope!
@@Matthew_Jensen 100% yess!
Is it for sale?
An elegant weapon from a more civilised time
I kept wondering how durable the tip of the sword was. It seems like cutting with the tip might not be a good idea most of the time. A normal wider tip cuts when the rest of the sword won't, but I wonder how the super thin tip works. You might need to go out of your way to not hit things with it?? Or, is it actually quite substantial it just doesn't show in the video so well, because the camera just doesn't show it well.
A type XVa has a pretty beefy spine (or it should). It was meant to exploit small gaps in plate armor and part the mail rings underneath to get to the chewy nougat center of your opponent. I haven't seen this specific sword in person, but I used to own an Albion type XVIIIb, which has much the same purpose. It also looked delicate from a distance but the tip was like a heavily reinforced (yet somehow also needle sharp) spike. You're right that cuts would be more effective a bit lower and closer to the blade's center of percussion, but that difference is really only a few inches. If your opponent tried to get out of the way and just caught the tip, it would still be a bad day for them.
I wonder when your Fiore was made?
$880??? Incredible how much they’ve increased in prices. Inflation for ya…
an absolutely beautiful sword, does anyone have any suggestions how i could get it with a scent stopper pommel lol
The Ringeck has the scent stopper pommel and same blade/cross guard as the Fiore. So, you would probably prefer that.
@@chrisgodby7472 i thought the dimensions on the ringecks blade were different on the blade dimensions than the fiore?
@@elijahoconnell the blade dimensions of the Fiore and the Ringeck are the same. The mercenary is the same typology but it has different dimensions.
I clicked so fast !!
I prefer pointy-stabby to cutty-choppy. I guess that's part of why I simply cannot make myself like katanas even though I have literally tried.
No need to force yourself. You can like what you like and not feel bad about it.
@@Matthew_Jensen , Well, I've been in a bit of a dilemma because I do consider it to be a very iconic genre of sword, and that's why I've been wanting to add one to my collection. However, after thinking about it quite a bit, I've come to the conclusion that I would be buying a sword type that I just cannot find aesthetically pleasing, basically for the sole purpose of checking a "box". For that reason, I've been considering maybe just checking an Asian "box", and possibly getting one of L.K. Chen's jian, which I DO find attractive. Don't know if that makes sense, I hope so!...😁
Collect what you like and like what you collect. Your property does not need to make sense to me. Perhaps on a side thought, there are a lot of swords from Japan that are not katana and that you may like. Wakizashi, Naginata, Nagasaki, and Yari are all pretty neat. You might find something like that more appealing.
"Hello Disorfinsends".... and then, NO drunken review. Sheesh.
Also, 7:31, "I tend to wack my noodle with these crossguard's bits"? What? Dear Sir!
Talk slowly. I had to watch the video on 0.5 speed. And do more drunken reviews, please. If that's a problem then don't, of course, but if not, do.
Oh, and nice review!