Where to buy a Rondel?

[Jonathan_Kaplan]

Where do I go to buy a good Rondel? I guess I want to know what the various types are -- an accurate plastic one, an accurate wooden one, I guess one that is made as accurately as possible, or maybe one that looks a little bit nicer?

I just want to know where the best places for each "type" are. Thanks!

[Benjamin Smith]

With a dagger one need not be quite so selective as one ought to be with a sword. Most hickory replicas are perfectly serviceable. Try looking up waster makers on the links page. As for an actual dagger, I believe Arms and Armor has some models here: http://www.armor.com/dagg130.html

[Ken Dietiker]

I have two wooden Rondels from Little Raven and they are excellent. I don't think anyone makes a triangular wooden blade with one, and these are square though with rounded off corners. Very sturdy. I highly recommend them.

http://www.little-raven.com/RS/MA/weste ... chor761624

And, as Ben says, Arms & Armor has some fairly nice economical pieces. Here's their Rondel;

http://www.armor.com/custom920.html -and-
http://www.armor.com/dagg110.html

[Craig Peters]

Might I also add that Eric McHugh of Albion Armorers makes very nice rondels, and since he's gone on research trips with Peter Johnsson, he's had chances to handle and take measurements of antique originals: http://www.albion-swords.com/inhouse/eric-rondel-1.htm

[Ken Dietiker]

Might I also add that Eric McHugh of Albion Armorers makes very nice rondels, and since he's gone on research trips with Peter Johnsson, he's had chances to handle and take measurements of antique originals: http://www.albion-swords.com/inhouse/eric-rondel-1.htm

Yeah Craig, I looked at those before and they're gorgeous blades, but the problem with Eric's stuff is that he doesn't have any on stock, they are all custom order, and if you look at his rondels pictured on the site, they have already been sold. The problem with limited custom orders is also that they are much more expensive. Sure, you can order something specific and get that one blade you always dreamed about, if you have the budget for it, but if he's not making any blades in groups to appeal more to mass market (in the same way Albion does for their sword lines, 100 sets of a particular design) then limited budgets just have no outlet there.

[Benjamin Smith]

The big reason I recommended A&A as opposed to Eric's is that unlike the swords of those two companies, where the difference in performance is significant, the difference in performance of daggers, particularly rondels, is much smaller, perhaps not even noticeable. Eric's do have longer blades though, which seem to have been very popular in the German manuals.

[Randall Pleasant]

Where do I go to buy a good Rondel? I guess I want to know what the various types are -- an accurate plastic one, an accurate wooden one, I guess one that is made as accurately as possible, or maybe one that looks a little bit nicer?

I just want to know where the best places for each "type" are. Thanks!

A couple of weeks I was able to handle a Rondel dagger made by Crescent Moon Armoury, which is owned by ARMA member Parker Brown of the ARMA DFW study group. I was very impressed with the dagger. Below is the link to the Crescent Moon Armoury web site.

http://crescentmoonarmoury.com/home%20page.html