Joke of All Trades

Roman underwear? "Sub ubi," amirite? Okay, maybe not Roman-- not quite. This is a pair of commissioned 1st century "braccae," based upon the fascinating finds from Marx-Etzel, Germany. During this time, pants weren't really a thing in Rome; they were seen as foreign or effeminate, and the fashion among men was to wear a coptic tunic at knee length or so with no leggings. Coptic tunics were sleeveless, long and baggy, bunched in various places depending on the activiy. But the tribes of Germania had different sensibilities, favoring tight-fitted trousers and leg wraps, seeing sporting bare chests as masculine. That's what makes the Marx-Etzel find so interesting. It consists of a diamond-weave wool sleeveless tunic and these shorts. The tunic is made exactly like a Roman coptic tunic; two large pieces of woven-to-size wool, sewn together with holes left for the neck and arms. Except this particilar tunic is smaller, more tightly fit than a Roman variant. And ...

  Review time! Let's talk chainmaille. As anyone who has bought maille knows, the market is absolutely saturated these days. Inexpensive maille and their often-shady makers are a dime a dozen, usually complete with very high shipping prices, long wait times, and the ever-present danger of just being totally scammed. And even when the product gets to you, most of the time the maille is of the lowest possible quality and functionally worthless anyway! It can very a frustrated experience, and sometimes it just seems safer to spend the extra money and get something more locally secondhand or from a big company. But there IS a way to take advantage of this market with less risk and still come out in top. Our group has used an online India-based company for our maille for quite some time. The results have been middling, not great but not disastrous. The price is very nice and the order process is simple; the maille is generally "good enough" and it holds up alright. But when I ...

Just got my Germanic sword from Sims Forge and I am blown away! This was the product of a trade we arranged last year, finally come to fruition. This is based on the early germanic sword found at Asby, as well as better-known finds from Vimose, where a large deposit of metal objects were committed to a bog (as seems to be a thing for germanic tribes). The grip is black walnut secured with brass pins, and the blade is blunt for reenactment combat. I'm very happy with it. Also pictured is an early germanic axe based upon the topologies found at Nydam as well as other places, made by John Henry's Hammer and graciously gifted to me for Christmas. This one is sharp, and I'll be using it as a camp axe at germanic events. The war knife and sheath was made by me, based on an example from Illuerp Adal-- it's humbling to see it sitting next to these other beauties! The batavian helm based on Krefeld, and the hex shield based on various depictions such as Trajans Column with a Vim...