Hank Reinhardt

I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t interested in arms and armor, although I do recall reading King Arthur and Prince Valiant well before I started school. Like other kids, I liked cowboys and soldiers and pirates, but I was always particularly drawn to warriors and knights.

I got my first taste of the reality of sword fighting when my brother-in-law brought back two Japanese bayonets from the South Pacific in 1946. A friend and I started fencing with them and quickly turned them into hacksaws. Thus, at the age of 12, I began to suspect that using a real sword was different from what I’d seen in the movies. I read everything on the subject that I could get my hands on and managed to pick up a great deal of history in the process.

About a year later, a group of us started a "Viking Society" and set about making wooden swords and shields and fighting each other with them. This lasted about two or three weeks before the parents put a screeching halt to our warfare. Of course, we thought they were being unreasonable. After all, if I went for the fake and got bopped in the head, that was my fault. When I was quicker and whacked someone on the leg, well, he should have dodged. But the parents, having superior firepower, managed to curtail my early experiments in swordplay... at least for a few years.

As a teenager I purchased a couple of spears, a sword, and a few kukris, but the serious collecting and studying began when I was in the army, stationed in Germany. My wife and I took every opportunity to visit the historic places and museums of Europe, and it was a nice surprise to find that if you had a real interest in the arms and armor, people would happily let you examine the artifacts and talk with you about them.

It was in Switzerland that I bought my first real sword, a short sword dating from about 1820. I bought other items while I was in Europe, but only a few (after all, army privates didn’t make a lot of money in 1957).

When I returned to the States, my passion—not only for the history of the sword but also for how it was actually used in combat—increased. I had taken fencing and played with the newly arrived Oriental martial arts, but I had also been in a fair number of street fights (I call this my wild period) and knew the difference between what’s supposed to happen and what really happens. My book and weapon collection grew slowly; it was an expensive hobby even back then, and there were few books available. In 1960, Ewart Oakeshott published The Archeology of Weapons, which is the best book ever written on the subject. When I read it, I knew Oakeshott was as passionate about swords as I was. My curiosity about arms and armor led me down many paths I never would have dreamed about in the past, from metallurgy to leather and woodworking to geometry and physics. All of these interests meshed with my deep and abiding love of history to provide me with some keen insights as I continued to study.

In 1966 I became a safety engineer and left my hometown of Atlanta to head a regional office for my company in Birmingham. For the next 10 years, I continued to collect weapons and books and also began dabbling with making chain mail. When I completed my first shirt in 1968, I started testing the ability of mail to stand up to the sword. Most of my cutting took place in front of the apartment we lived in at the time, and my neighbors were wonderful. They treated me with the utmost respect (probably due to my natural dignity) and were always very helpful, frequently suggesting that I get help. (Which was silly; I was in good shape, could run two miles easily while wearing my mail shirt, and certainly didn’t need any help in cutting with my swords. But I did think it considerate of them.)

Soon my wife and I had two daughters, whom we found absolutely delightful. As soon as they started talking, they referred to their father as a "ferocious warrior." (I will admit that I coached them a bit, but I’m also sure that, with childlike simplicity, they saw my true inclination!) They were always a little shocked when we would visit a house where there were not swords, spears, and axes on the walls. I could see the look of sympathy in their eyes when they quite politely asked where the swords were kept and learned that other people did not have such weapons. I started a Birmingham chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) in 1967. It was a great deal of fun and put me in contact with many others who shared similar interests.