The Armour Archive

Finally ready to sell my 11.5 lbs ~18 gauge German-made welded maille shirt. Gave up fighting a few years ago after doing it since I was 16 (and I'm almost 44). I tend to doubt my almost 13 YO son will get into Dag, he plays baseball at a high-level instead. And likes girls, so I'm fine with that. Need to finance my new and much more expensive hobby: firearms and shooting.

Getting this armor was ridiculously tough to manage because the German company will not sell to anyone in the U.S. for litigation-avoidance reasons! In the end, I found a very cool Armour Archive member in Germany who speaks German (duh) get it and mail it to me, back in 2006. I tailored it a bit and even found a local SCA armor weld each new link closed used to modify the shirt. Weighs a total of 11.5 lbs or so. Great coverage, looks spectacular, and I'll even throw in a chemical blackening agent specifically made to blacken stainless steel (which was also a pain to find and obtain) if the owner wants to experiment with changing its appearance. Barely used. Fits me at 5'10" and 190 lbs perfectly, probably good +/- 2" and a person weighing up to 210 (after that, it would be too snug). Keep in mind that in Dagorhir combat, I did not need to wear a gambeson under it.

Attached is a picture with me in it, doing Dagorhir. Serious inquires only, and I can take more pix and email if needed. This is armor that should last a long time with zero or minimal maintenance, and is VERY light, which is of key importance to us older fighters.

I'd also sell my spring steel 16 gauge butted maille shirt. I had a spring making company in CT make the links to my specifications in 2000, so 5/16" inner diameter, galavanized, I can support the entire weight of the shirt with one link and it never threw a single link. I almost developed carpal tunnel syndrome making it with 10" linemans pliers. That armor weighs about 21 lbs and has slightly less coverage than the other shirt. Much cheaper too.

Basically, is anyone is interested, please PM me and we'll go from there. FYI: the SS maille was not cheap.

How much do you want for it?

Sent you a PM. Thanks for the interest.

I sent you a PM too.... just interested in the price.

PM sent as well Kelby.

Tentative dibs. Going to send you a PM to sort out payment details.

***SOLD*** to Kelby, definately had that "meant to be vibe" so thanks for looking!

PM sent.

And once again I believe I miss out again by seconds

And I missed out by -4 months and probably $800. I would have bought this in a heartbeat instead of the titanium I'm getting.

But hey, maybe Kelby & I will start a fashion at our practice for chainmail!

By the way, that's far and away the nicest dagorhir kit I've ever seen.

Thanks Corby! We in the Vardrotta (our late-period Viking unit) strived to set a good example in not only our fighting prowess, ridiculous amount and variety of weapons (e.g., do I take the greatsword, short glaive, spear, or long spear to the birdge battle...?) but also are hard (relatively) and soft kit. That is my low-end fighting kit. Unfortunately, taking pride in Dagorhir kit is now the exception (when I started, it was much more common).

I did spend a year in the SCA, Black Diamond in Atlantia (aka Virginia Tech) when Count Thorbrandr was 19 and I was 18. Problem is, he was 6'5 lefty, me 5'10" and 160 lb joe ROTC right-handed dude. Stuck with Dagorhir.

Just wanted to post an update.

Since I was going to be in the area anyway, Guntar invited me to meet him in person at his house to do the deal. I arrived Saturday evening after calling ahead to confirm he would be around.

He took me down in his armory and showed me a bunch of his Dagorhir gear. He has some very very cool stuff.

The maille turned out to be exactly as advertised. It fit me perfectly. I paid in cash and he threw in a nice Norman conical parade helmet for free that he said he had no need for.

Guntar was a pleasure to do business with. He said he still had the butted spring shirt shirt for sale. If anyone is interested it looked really nice.

Anyways, I can't say enough nice things about the maille or Guntar. 5 out of 5.

Thanks again for working with me. The maille worked and looked great at the practice I went to on Sunday. Hope to see you around sometime!