# Where are all the old swords? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 14, 2017, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-old-swords/784476 "2017-04-14T22:50:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2017, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-old-swords/784476/21 "2017-04-15T17:37:42Z")
Even today I daresay that the majority of folks in this country would toss g-g-g-g-granddad’s rusty old Colt if they found it in the garage. For me it would be a treasure. For some soccer-mom in Des Moines it’s a dangerous hunk of rusty iron. ---
**Author:** ![obbn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/d6d6ee/32.png) [@obbn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obbn)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2017, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-old-swords/784476/22 "2017-04-15T18:42:04Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Even today I daresay that the majority of folks in this country would toss g-g-g-g-granddad’s rusty old Colt if they found it in the garage. For me it would be a treasure. For some soccer-mom in Des Moines it’s a dangerous hunk of rusty iron. Six months ago or so I read that some big city was having a gun buyback program. An elderly lady brought an “old gun” that her late husband brought back from Europe during WWII. Turns out she had a very rare and very expensive Germann MP44, the very first Assault Rifle! The guns that were brought in were scheduled for destruction. Luckily one of the police officers running the buyback knew what she had and informed the lady of its value. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2017, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-old-swords/784476/23 "2017-04-15T19:03:16Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Steel will rust just like iron. However bronze is completely different. Bronze is mostly copper, and just like you can sometimes find native copper nuggets sitting on a streambed, bronze and copper pieces can last for thousands of years. So steel swords will be piles of rust in a few hundred years unless carefully preserved, but you can throw a bronze sword into a bog and pull it out two thousand years later and it will be perfectly fine. Yup. As iron/steel rusts it becomes powdery, brittle and flakes off - exposing another layer of iron/steel for the elements to corrode. Copper & brass, on the other hand, do corrode in aerobic environments but the corrosion forms a layer of green copper oxide & sulfate which, much like the one now adorning the Statue of Liberty, forms a semi-solid patina around the object thus preventing further corrosion. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2017, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-old-swords/784476/24 "2017-04-15T22:37:14Z")
Which, BTW, is why the most common finds in late Antiquity/Early MA/Carolingian era graves are torcs and plate buckles ([large ornamented belt buckles](http://www.carnavalet.paris.fr/sites/default/files/styles/oeuvre_zoom/public/plaque_bouclebd.jpg?itok=dltZwRap) that were the fashion back then). We have a ton of those, because while military equipment improved they still made jewelry and everyday items out of bronze, which keeps for fricking ever. The plate buckle is such an ubiquitous find, it can in itself tell many many things about the person buried there and what happened to it after it was buried - the style alone can sex the skeleton, and the position of the buckle relative to the skeleton says more. If it’s not at the waist, it means the grave has been disturbed somehow, usually by earth shift but it can also mean the body has been re-buried. The absence of a buckle may mean it was a pauper’s grave, or it could be the grave has been plundered - at which point analysis of the skeleton can dispel doubts, since paupers’ skeletons typically bear signs of malnutrition. Archaelogy is fascinating, y’alls :). If you could really make a living out of it, I’d sink myself into it and wouldn’t look back. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2017, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-old-swords/784476/25 "2017-04-15T23:34:45Z")
**IF.** That’s why my major in Anthropology just sits there. It’s the European History minor that got me the teaching gig. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2017, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-old-swords/784476/26 "2017-04-15T23:38:09Z")
Another issue is there weren’t “millions of soldiers” in most sword-based armies. A ten thousand man army would have been considered large. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2017, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-old-swords/784476/27 "2017-04-15T23:44:37Z")
Just a thought: I wonder if there are more old swords extant in Japan? There was more continuity of sword use and culture here thanks to the samurai tradition surviving intact until the late 19th century, by which time the concept of preserving objects of historic value was in place. ---
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2017, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-old-swords/784476/28 "2017-04-15T23:46:54Z")
I don’t KNOW, of course, but I have a couple more hints to add. - there were never as many swords as people have been led to think there were, based on movies. Just as there was never as much metal body armor as pictured. - if you think of all the other things people might have preserved, most of them are gone as well. Hand tools were far more plentiful of old, but most of them are gone as well, no matter how useful they were, or how valued for their time. People really don’t bother to save things proudly, nearly as much as you might think they do. - speaking of movies, when did people begin valuing swords for symbolic reasons? I mean in a large way. Aside from Excalibur, the vast majority of swords were NOT seen as being inherently symbolic. Excalibur goes way back, but it’s rather a one-of. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-old-swords/784476/29 "2017-04-16T00:32:27Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > As other have said that metal is expensive and useful. Melt it down and make something else, maybe a new sword. 🙂 Plowshares- of course. ---
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-old-swords/784476/30 "2017-04-16T03:27:06Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > Just a thought: I wonder if there are more old swords extant in Japan? There was more continuity of sword use and culture here thanks to the samurai tradition surviving intact until the late 19th century, by which time the concept of preserving objects of historic value was in place. Didn’t the US troops confiscate and destroy lots of weapons, including swords, after Japan surrendered in WWII? ---
**Author:** ![HeXen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@HeXen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeXen)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-old-swords/784476/31 "2017-04-16T04:05:41Z")
Have you ever heard the term ‘Rust in Peace’? Because rust happens. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-old-swords/784476/32 "2017-04-16T04:13:47Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Another issue is there weren’t “millions of soldiers” in most sword-based armies. A ten thousand man army would have been considered large. Yes and most entities did not have large standing armies in the first place. They were raised for campaigns and the disbanded. You are not going to spend huge amounts of money making high quality weapons for troops who will go home in 6 months. You are going to make lots of stuff that is cheap and can cut, hack, stab for a little while. And most of that’s going to be melted down at the end of the campaign. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-old-swords/784476/33 "2017-04-16T07:18:32Z")
> [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](#): > > Didn’t the US troops confiscate and destroy lots of weapons, including swords, after Japan surrendered in WWII? Most of the swords which ended up in Tokyo Harbour were what’s known as [Shin Gunto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunt%C5%8D), or _New Military Swords_ - basically mass-produced Katana-like swords for officers and NCOs. Effective weapons, but not crafted with anything like the same skill or devotion as an actual [Nihonto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_sword) (traditional Japanese sword). Of course, quite a lot of officers and NCOs were carrying heirloom swords so a number did indeed end up destroyed - but a surprising number of swords, both traditional and “new”, were souvenired by Allied soldiers in WWII and aren’t particularly hard to find nowadays. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-old-swords/784476/34 "2017-04-16T07:18:37Z")
> [@TSBG](#): > > How old are the swords, though? Good point. They date mainly from the medieval period onwards. I’m sure that as you imply it’s a question of how various metals stand up to entropy. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-old-swords/784476/35 "2017-04-16T07:43:38Z")
> [@igor\_frankensteen](#): > > - speaking of movies, when did people begin valuing swords for symbolic reasons? I mean in a large way. Aside from Excalibur, the vast majority of swords were NOT seen as being inherently symbolic. Excalibur goes way back, but it’s rather a one-of. I’d say sometime between 800 and 1150, thereabouts, as far as Western Europe is concerned. The Romans and Greeks had a ton of swords but didn’t see them as anything special. They did notice that Dacians and Thracians used a different type, the rhompaia, which is sort of a reverse saber curving inwards on the bladed side, to hack off limbs more easily. The rhompaia is mentioned in several accounts as especially scary shit to go against - but not particularly symbolic. The Carolingians on the other hand were major weapon makers and exporters, including to the very Vikings that plagued them, thereby starting the French tradition of selling arms to whoever pays, no questions asked (:p) ; and many of those swords were named which is a big cultural indicator of value - Roland’s sword Durandal, Charlemagne’s Joyeuse, El Cid’s Tizona… Joyeuse still exists btw, it’s become the French coronation sword (although it’s really a Xth century replica). Then the Crusades happened, the Cross became a real important cultural symbol across Christendom, and swords being cross-shaped weapons acquired a slew of additional symbolic value. That’s when kissing a sword’s pommel/crossguard gained significance. Then in the XIth-XIIth century the concept of chivalry became a big hit, along with all the ritual that goes with it : when you became a knight, your liege would ritually give you your spurs, shield and sword (although in reality you’d bought them first and gave them to him for him to give back to you). It’s also around that time that King Arthur was invented, that tournaments became all the rage… I’d opine it’s around then that nobility=sword really entered the collective cultural landscape. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-old-swords/784476/36 "2017-04-16T17:11:00Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Good point. They date mainly from the medieval period onwards. I’m sure that as you imply it’s a question of how various metals stand up to entropy. Most of those weapons you see date from the 18th century or so when there was a resurgence of interest in Knighthood, etc. They even made new sets of armor etc to decorate castles. ---
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-old-swords/784476/37 "2017-04-16T23:16:53Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Most of those weapons you see date from the 18th century or so when there was a resurgence of interest in Knighthood, etc. They even made new sets of armor etc to decorate castles. None of which are probably accurate replicas, and instead purely decorational. ---
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-old-swords/784476/38 "2017-04-16T23:44:20Z")
> [@Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](#): > > Speaking of viking swords, I recently saw [this article](http://www.livescience.com/58654-viking-sword-scans-reveal-norse-culture.html) about how they weren’t all that great for actual combat. Interesting stuff. I’m not sure that this means they weren’t useful for combat. In fact wasn’t pattern welding specifically used to mix steels of differing carbon content so as to have a blade that was able to hold an edge and retain flexibility? The Japenese were doing the differential steels for edge and spine, but that meant the blade was stiff, unable to flex, and could easily take a set, unlike like European ones. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-old-swords/784476/39 "2017-04-17T11:41:59Z")
I’ve mentioned [these](https://thedailybeagle.net/2014/03/23/the-honjo-masamune-a-lost-japanese-treasure/) [swords](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masamune#Honjo_Masamune) before (in the context of I wish that I found them.) One of the most famous swords in Japanese history, taken care of for around 600 years, and lost at the end of WWII (along with a dozen others.) I’d _like_ to think that they are still sitting in someone’s house intact, but they are probably lost forever. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-old-swords/784476/40 "2017-04-17T11:54:16Z")
BTW, there is a 400 year old Japanese sword in Brookings, Oregon. Given to the city by a [Japanese pilot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobuo_Fujita) [who tried to firebomb them](http://offbeatoregon.com/1305c-japanese-pilot-fujita-friendship-with-brookings.html) [in WWII](http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/22450). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-old-swords/784476.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-old-swords/784476.md?page=3)