The Armour Archive

Hey folks,
Here are a few duplicate Armour books I have up for sale. Many are hard to come by. All are in very good condition, I just ended up with multiple copies.
The German ones:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Rare-Out-of-Print-G ... dZViewItem

This one has some great stuff.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Rare-Out-of-Print-G ... dZViewItem

Another good one:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Rare-Out-of-Print-G ... dZViewItem

Here is a very interesting Russian book on the 14th C.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Russian-Medieval-Ar ... dZViewItem

A great polish one. I have the english translation to this one, I will include it for a board member if they win it.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Polish-Medieval-Arm ... dZViewItem

A must have book for Roman armour, tons of photos, exploded drawings of armour. Great book.
http://cgi.ebay.com/The-Armour-of-Imper ... dZViewItem

And the best for last. The mother of all Italian armour books.
L'Arte Dell'Armatura in Italia
http://cgi.ebay.com/Rare-Italian-Armor- ... dZViewItem

Here are some other items plus the globose kit and some Men at Arms books.
http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZprops256QQhtZ-1

Thanks,

I have this one and it is an absolutely incredible book......


A must have book for Roman armour, tons of photos, exploded drawings of armour. Great book.
http://cgi.ebay.com/The-Armour-of-Imper ... dZViewItem

Would you care to fill us in on the reserves?

You might want to note weither the breast plate kit is for combat use or not.

How far back does the Polish book go? Does the work discuss the 10th or 11th centuries?

Thanks,

Mord

Alcyoneus wrote:Would you care to fill us in on the reserves?

I see this all the time with auctions and I don't understand it.
Please don't take offenses to this, but I am always surprised at people asking about reserves. Reserves are there to insure the item is not sold way under a selected value. They are secret, so the bidders are not put off and bid freely at amounts they feel comfortable bidding. If a bidder bids what they are willing to spend for an item, and it's over the reserve, then it’s the same as the seller feels that the item is worth. If it isn't, they have no obligation to buy the auction item.
Why do people want to know? (Other than idle curiosity)
Again, this is not aimed at you, it is just something I see all the time and I don't understand what purpose it serves.

I think the interest in the reserves is people feel like they are wasting their time bidding if it won't hit that. Reserves work better as sales tools at a live auction, where the heat of the moment will get the price rising and push it over the reserve. I don't see it work as well on Ebay, but it does protect the seller, which is the other half of the equation.

Chris, If I had known you had a spare L'Arte, you probably could have sold ME a book, instead of the other way around.

Sir Gaston,

in no way is this meant to be confrontation so please don't take any slight in what I have to say.

I will not bid on auctions that have reserves. To me it's a way of getting people interested because they think they may be able to get a fantastic deal.... and I know when I first found ebay I would always end up going higher than rational thought would allow me to try to get the item if it had a reserve. Something that I would be willing to pay $20 for I would bid up to $30 figuring I HAD to be at the reserve by that point. I interpret reserves as "hey... look at me... I may be a fantastic deal so you should bid on me.... I'm just not going to tell you how good a deal I really am until you throw a price at me..."

When I sell items on ebay I set the opening bid on exactly what the minimum I'm willing to accept for the item. If I will take $100 and not be completely slightly by that then the opening bid is $100. If I get more then my minimum I'm happy. Everything else just seems like playing the auction game to get as much as you can out of the deal.

That being said god bless capitalism that allows us all to pursue the most cash for what we want to get rid of.... we all remember the days of garage sales and being lucky to get 1/10th of what something was worth for it!

I do see your point in regards to reserves and thank you for your insight, no one has quit explained their rational regarding reserves quit that way before and it's something for me to ponder now.

in service
Will

William,
That's fine. Although, I wouldn't have thought it a "game", ebay is an auction. My appologies to any who feel that it is unfair or some type of trick to have undisclosed reserves. My business is not reselling on ebay,
I just want to make sure these items are not sold for too little, if so I would just keep them.
BTW It is still possible to find "Garage sale" deals you just have to look a little harder. (Although it is still eaiser than driving around to garage sales).
Plus, how many garage sales did one have to go to fine a rare armour book, let alone at 1/10th the value. I have been collecting armour books for 25 years and I'm sure I have found more deals on ebay then I ever found in yard sales or old book shops. All while sipping coffee in the comfort of my home or office.

Sir Gaston,
I am always impressed by the items you post on the AA. Your work is very nice. I did have a question about the goblose chest plate.

How do you form yours? I have mixed results forming HPDE and Kydex, sometimes it forms well and hold others it relaxes a bit.

From the pictures you have posted it looks great, and even though purists would say "Yuck, plastic" I look at it as a way to reduce weight and since it will get covered anyway, it won't have the nasty habit of rusting either. I still have some of both, probably enough to make a nice corizanna, similar to yours, and I would only aspire to have mine turn out as nice as yours.

Sir Gaston,

Are you planning on doing another run of Corrizina kits? I want at least two at this point. My fiancee is going from fencing to heavy and doesn't like the look of a seven piece I could probably drum up a couple of more locally pretty easily.

Odo of the Abbey of Saint Martin
Champion of the Grand Company of Leonthas

Sir Gaston,

I lost the bidding for the brestplate kit and I despertly want one, is there anyway of getting one at or near the price it went for? ( I was out bid by $5 at the last min. )
Cheers,
Leo

Sir Gaston wrote:

Alcyoneus wrote:Would you care to fill us in on the reserves?

I see this all the time with auctions and I don't understand it.
Please don't take offenses to this, but I am always surprised at people asking about reserves. Reserves are there to insure the item is not sold way under a selected value. They are secret, so the bidders are not put off and bid freely at amounts they feel comfortable bidding. If a bidder bids what they are willing to spend for an item, and it's over the reserve, then it’s the same as the seller feels that the item is worth. If it isn't, they have no obligation to buy the auction item.
Why do people want to know? (Other than idle curiosity)
Again, this is not aimed at you, it is just something I see all the time and I don't understand what purpose it serves.

Simple. I don't want to place a bid that has no chance of winning. So I much prefer auctions that start with a minimum bid of X, then I at least know what I have to spend just to be in the running. And if I can't afford it, I don't waste the seller's time or my own.

Though I understand the reserve concept, you want to be sure you get a price you are at least willing to sell at, but if you disclose that price, bidders often don't want to pay much more than that (does not matter why), so you often make more money by having a reserve instead of disclosed minimum starting bid.

I personally want that book, but don't have the patience for auctions. Good luck with it though, if you decide you want to sell it, E-Mail me, I might take it off your hands if the price is right and within my means. I would be jumping at this, except that I just spent a small fortune in the last three weeks expanding my library collection.

To jump into this argument, as an Ebayer since 1998 or so (Yes, I'm only 17, but I've liked to buy things for a long time!) I've seen it working both ways plenty of times, with one not being better than the other.

If someone wants a set amount of money for an auction, they can start it at that price, or start it lower with the reserve. If their item sells for that price, it's sold for what they wanted at the minimum. This can be achieved by a single bid from someone for the no-reserve auction, or multiple bids (or one rightly placed bid) on the reserved auction. As it is the seller's auction, they reserve the right to choose the mode, and if a buyer does not want to bid like that, well... There are millions of other people on Ebay who may.

And, to get to the reason I actually posted... Sir Gaston, does the "1380" Russian book have lots of illustrations like the one shown on the cover and example page? It reminds me of the Peter Connolly books of the late 70's, which I collect, and I'd love to get something similar by another author (more particularly the illustrator, in the case).

Thanks!

-Gregory-

Gerhard von Liebau wrote:Sir Gaston, does the "1380" Russian book have lots of illustrations like the one shown on the cover and example page? It reminds me of the Peter Connolly books of the late 70's, which I collect, and I'd love to get something similar by another author (more particularly the illustrator, in the case).

Thanks!

-Gregory-

Yes it has a number of illustrations in the book, like the cover.

Sir, if the winner of one of these auctions is local, could they pick up the item at Global Effects?

Lorccan wrote:Sir, if the winner of one of these auctions is local, could they pick up the item at Global Effects?

Yes, we could work that out.

As for another run os globose kits, We are selling off a couple we have and will try to run some more in a month or so if the response is good.

Well, I bid for L'Arte Dell'Armatura in Italia until I got to $400.00 and the reserve was still not met. Oh well. I would have spent more for it a few months ago before I bought other stuff.

That is the most I can currently afford to spend now though. Gaston, if you end up not selling this via auction, let me know how much you would sell it for. I may be able to save my pennies and spend more in the future if you still have it.

Richard Blackmoore
East Kingdom, KSCA

Sir Gaston wrote:And the best for last. The mother of all Italian armour books.
L'Arte Dell'Armatura in Italia
http://cgi.ebay.com/Rare-Italian-Armor- ... dZViewItem

Most definitely my fourth (maybe fifth, but definitely up there) favorite book on armour. An absolute must have for the armour book collector. If this goes anywhere near the 400.00 mark.... I would kick myself for not buying a shop copy.

In all honesty, get this book if you can. Get all the Bramante Editrice books. They don't publish books of that quality anymore. In my opinion, in the 25 or so years that they were publishing armour books... they quality gradually degraded, IMHO. The first (Armi e Armatura Italiane - Aroldi, 1961) is, in itself, a work of art. These books should grace the shelves of any serious collector. And... they are not cheap. I think I sold a L'Arte for about 600.00 a couple of years ago.

Bramante books I would recommend getting your hands on are, in no particular order:

L'Armeria Reale di Torino
Le Armature di S. Maria delle Grazie di Curatone di Mantova e L'Armatura Lombarda del '400
Armi e Armature Lombarde
Armi e Armature Italiane
L'Arte Dell'Armatura in Italia

Definitely worth every penny you spend on them. While some of the text is outdated (Aroldi, for one, was fairly fre with his dating.) the books are superb examples of how books should be published today. Unfortunately... it would be crazy expensive to do so, I think.

Mmm.... yum. Having a thing for Italian armour books is painfully expensive. I am running out of excuses to give my wife for buying them. Better quit while I am ahead.

Richard Blackmoore wrote:Well, I bid for L'Arte Dell'Armatura in Italia until I got to $400.00 and the reserve was still not met. Oh well. I would have spent more for it a few months ago before I bought other stuff.

That is the most I can currently afford to spend now though. Gaston, if you end up not selling this via auction, let me know how much you would sell it for. I may be able to save my pennies and spend more in the future if you still have it.

Richard Blackmoore
East Kingdom, KSCA

Yeah, I noticed. You know if you bid the maximum you want to spend, ebay will only place a bid on the item high enough to meet the next highest bid or the reserve. You don't have to bid in 20$ increments until you get to the reserve. As for selling the book, I am confident it will sell. The reserve is the minimum I will take for the book, so if it doesn't sell on ebay, I'll keep it.
Thanks,

Sir Gaston wrote:

Richard Blackmoore wrote:Well, I bid for L'Arte Dell'Armatura in Italia until I got to $400.00 and the reserve was still not met. Oh well. I would have spent more for it a few months ago before I bought other stuff.

That is the most I can currently afford to spend now though. Gaston, if you end up not selling this via auction, let me know how much you would sell it for. I may be able to save my pennies and spend more in the future if you still have it.

Richard Blackmoore
East Kingdom, KSCA

Yeah, I noticed. You know if you bid the maximum you want to spend, ebay will only place a bid on the item high enough to meet the next highest bid or the reserve. You don't have to bid in 20$ increments until you get to the reserve. As for selling the book, I am confident it will sell. The reserve is the minimum I will take for the book, so if it doesn't sell on ebay, I'll keep it.
Thanks,

Ah, interesting. I did not know I could just put in a maximum. So what happens, if I had put in 400, it would have kept putting in higher bids for me until it hit $400?

Brian W. Rainey wrote:

Sir Gaston wrote:And the best for last. The mother of all Italian armour books.
L'Arte Dell'Armatura in Italia
http://cgi.ebay.com/Rare-Italian-Armor- ... dZViewItem

Most definitely my fourth (maybe fifth, but definitely up there) favorite book on armour. An absolute must have for the armour book collector. If this goes anywhere near the 400.00 mark.... I would kick myself for not buying a shop copy.

In all honesty, get this book if you can. Get all the Bramante Editrice books. They don't publish books of that quality anymore. In my opinion, in the 25 or so years that they were publishing armour books... they quality gradually degraded, IMHO. The first (Armi e Armatura Italiane - Aroldi, 1961) is, in itself, a work of art. These books should grace the shelves of any serious collector. And... they are not cheap. I think I sold a L'Arte for about 600.00 a couple of years ago.

Bramante books I would recommend getting your hands on are, in no particular order:

L'Armeria Reale di Torino
Le Armature di S. Maria delle Grazie di Curatone di Mantova e L'Armatura Lombarda del '400
Armi e Armature Lombarde
Armi e Armature Italiane
L'Arte Dell'Armatura in Italia

Definitely worth every penny you spend on them. While some of the text is outdated (Aroldi, for one, was fairly fre with his dating.) the books are superb examples of how books should be published today. Unfortunately... it would be crazy expensive to do so, I think.

Mmm.... yum. Having a thing for Italian armour books is painfully expensive. I am running out of excuses to give my wife for buying them. Better quit while I am ahead.

I have the first two on the list already. The one Gaston is selling, I would have spent $600.00 on a week or two ago, but I just busted my budget on other books, an armour stand for my daughter's harness and I need new armour for myself. Darn it.

Never mind. I finally had more time to read up on the E-Bay site. I understand how it works now. Duh.

On the plus side, I made a little more room for money on this and have met the reserve. Yippeee!

Richard

"Never mind. I finally had more time to read up on the E-Bay site. I understand how it works now. Duh.

On the plus side, I made a little more room for money on this and have met the reserve. Yippeee!

Richard"

Gaston,

This guy has a zero EBay rating, are you sure you can trust him.

Ron

wilmot wrote:"Never mind. I finally had more time to read up on the E-Bay site. I understand how it works now. Duh.

On the plus side, I made a little more room for money on this and have met the reserve. Yippeee!

Richard"

Gaston,

This guy has a zero EBay rating, are you sure you can trust him.

Ron

I'm not feeling the love your Grace...

Richard

pm sent

Drat. It is up over $600.00. I'm out of money. Oh well.

Richard Blackmoore wrote:Drat. It is up over $600.00. I'm out of money. Oh well.

Hmm.... gonna watch this close. Maybe I should put my signed, unnumbered copy up for sale... then buy a regular one.

I could turn a pretty penny, I would bet.

Well, 2 minutes left to bid. I came up with a little more. Maybe I'll get lucky.

Okay, 1051.00 for L'arte?! WOW!

I have had two different copies and I don't think I paid over 450.00 for either. And I don't think I bought them but more than two or three years ago. The price on these books is getting CRAZY!

At this rate, my library could fund my retirement!

Bet that is a bit more than you expected, Chris!

Congratulations to Gaston. I was not completely surprised by the price, I was guessing maybe $800 though, so it went for more. I've seen these typically in the $250 to $700 range in the past depending on condition, though I haven't seen a really cheap one in some time. But over a grand? Maybe there is more interest in these now than I thought.

What did surprise me was that I put in the highest bid with only a few minutes left, and from that point on it almost doubled in price. I don't know if people just posted frantically or if they put in dueling maximums. I'm not used to EBay, maybe this is normal.

In the future, I guess I won't bother to bid on EBay for a book unless there are only minutes left.

Brian, I mainly want a copy for research purposes. While it is fun to have a numbered first edition, I am perfectly happy to save bucks and get a later edition or reprint. If you know of a good source for such a book, please let me know.

Richard

Thank you all,

Thank you all,

WARNING!!!!!

Some bastard just tried to scam me. I received the E-Mail below, basically telling me that the winning bidder on L'Arte was rejected and I was the winner by default. This made no sense, since a different seller and state was listed. I contacted E-Bay online chat help and was told this was not a valid second chance offer and I should not respond to the E-Mail. The son of a bitch had the right item number, name of the book and my real name as well. So at first it looked legit.

So if anyone else is getting these, Ebay recommended you DO NOT respond the them.

Gaston, I realize this has nothing to do with you. I just hope the son of a bitch that got my hopes up and tried to steal my money gets caught by Ebay and punished. I'd like to beat him to death myself right now. I really wanted that book!

Richard
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Question from lakebrink2006

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lakebrink2006( 1)
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Location: MO, United States
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Please contact me at this email address: edu1ard@aol.com

I am the seller of Rare Italian Armor Book L'Arte Dell'Armatura in Italia Item number: 7043942087,and I've just been contacted by the eBay staff who informed me that the winner of the item I sold, withdrew his bidding and was rejected due to security reasons (either failed to follow through on the purchase commitment or outright refused to do so).The eBay policy automatically proclaims you to be the winner by default.Nevertheless, I need your agreement on this so I may contact eBay to confirm you the winning position, otherwise I'll relist the item. I am sorry for the inconvenience, but I need an answer asap.Your last auctioned bid prior to being outbid is taken into consideration. If interested, please email me at: edu1ard@aol.com by including your eBay user ID and Item Number you bid.

Please contact me at this email address: edu1ard@aol.com
Respond to this question in My Messages.







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Prick....