The Armour Archive

Hey folks,

My dear friend Justin Guidi (and now co-worker) and I have gotten our domain name for our new site. It's www.varangian-wares.com With the help of Jared, who runs yoyofreak.net, a good website builder, we're starting into our miniature business venture!

Our basis will be making reenactment goods for Scandinavian, Slavic, Rus and Byzantine civilians and soldiers. We'll be focusing on goods for men (particularly warriors) at first, but hopefully expand with time and increased funds/time to work with.

The two of us are high school sophomores, and are avid in reenactment, and hopefully working into the SCA soon. But, between school, athletics, and time spent doing other things (such as this hobby!) we don't have lots of extra cash lying around! So, we're planning on using this site as a launch-pad for furthering our collections of equipment, etc... And doing the same for others!

I really don't have a lot to show for our work right now, but within a couple of weeks, I plan on having several items up for sale for folks to check out. I plan on having will a couple of fur caps and phyrgian style caps, some winingas, a seax or two as well as a couple of axeheads and some other miscellaneous items for the first set of "stuff" we get up.

I'm working on putting together turnshoes at the moment, and will hopefully have a proper pair made by the end of next weekend. I also want to make a pair of Rus shin-high boots. Also, belts will be available, with buckles, strap ends and plaques from Beathan over at www.armourandcastings.com But, they'll be completed and ready to wear for only the price of materials plus about what I'd expect for about the hour of labor that would go into them! Also, no hassle for payment from Ukraine, or the foreign shipping rates will be necessary. I'll factor some of that in, to pay for my own loss in bulk, but it will make buying individual pieces much easier for everyone else!

Here's a quick scan of what we plan on making and sellin', currently...

-Tunics
-Trousers
-Turnshoes/Boots
-Fur Caps
-Phyrgian Caps
-Belts
-Pouches
-Cloaks
-Small Jewelry Items
-Seaxs w/Sheaths
-Axe Heads
-Shield bosses (and hopefully shields, eventually!)

We'll be selling the weapons unsharpened and as "costume" items. But, they will be made with amateur tempering, and we'll be taking custom orders after we've put out some stuff as examples to show the level of work we can achieve.

So, expect the site to be up with some stuff in the next couple of weeks! Any suggestions would be great, and if someone would like to bounce in with some kind of material donation, patterns, etc.. We'd really appreciate it! Thanks!

-Gregory-

Haha - I'll drink to that!

I'd just like to add that we'll have quite an assortment of weapons, in time. Only seax's and axe heads are mentioned, but within that there will be many variations of seax's along with many types of bearded axes and some Danish.

And as for armour, my current project is to dish a few experimental high gauge conical helmets (maybe a few spangen) and when they're worthy of selling, I will be taking custom size orders.

So many things to look forward to, so little time!

Arrivederci!
-Justin Guidi

Gregory,

Sounds great. I wish you guys the best of luck with this venture, I had been contemplating such a sbusiness for a while but never got it past the "what if" stage.

Cheers,
Tim