The best museum I visited in Germany was the German National Museum in Nuremberg. It has a fantastic arms and armor collection. One of the first things one sees is a rare great helmet. I also liked the malchus with the carved wooden hilt.

The collection is predominantly from the late middle ages to the 17th century.

There is another calendar blade and an amazing blade with scenes and verses from the Bible.

As one can expect, there are quite a few high-quality items from the Thirty Year War period.

As usual, there is a section of beautiful hinting weapons and accessories.

The German National Museum also holds arms and armor from antiquity. For me at least, so many nice bronze swords, daggers and helmets all at the same place was quite a sight.

The Roman period is represented by some daggers, spathas and helmets, including a unique parade helmet.

The tour continues into late antiquity and the migration period, with a lot of Lobard grave items.

Then of course come the Franks and the Carolingian dynasty. I really liked the two Ulfbehrt swords with nice, inlaid pommels.

Finally, there are a few additional medieval items as part of the medieval art galleries, and this ends my tour of the German National Museum. It is a place where anyone with interest in arms and armor will feel like a kid in a candy store.

The Frankfurt History Museum can hardly compare to the German National Museum, but it has an interesting section called the "Collectors" Museum", which displays collections of local collectors. Luckily, this includes some nice arms and armor.

Among the late medieval and Rennaissance arms and armor there are also some blue and gilt swords by a local Frankfurt bladesmith family.

Apart from swords, there is also armor, crossbows and polearms.

Instead of labels next to the items, the museum has chosen to put a couple of books with descriptions and a brief history of how the collection came together.

The firearms collection interestingly enough belonged to Frida Kahlo's great uncle.

Thank you ever so much Teodor, for sharing these magnificent pictures with us in the forum.

Thank you Teodore , for the tremendous amount of work and effort you have put into this that lets us enjoy Museums in other countries !
I would be nice to see more museum pictures from other members from all over the world.
Kind regards
Ulfberth

With some delay, here are a lot of pictures from the Stadtsmuseum in Rothenburg, which houses the Baumann collection.

The museum is housed in an old building, which from what I recall used to be a monastery. There are other items on display, but I was there for the arms and armor and there was plenty of it.

The collection starts with a large hall, dedicated to European arms and armor from the late Middle Ages to the 1700s.

Considering that this is really a private collection, all assembled in recent times, the scope is quite impressive.

It is a testament to what is possible through a combination of passion and sufficient financial resources.

I am not aware if anyone has gone through the effort of cataloguing and publishing the collection. If not, hopefully someone eventually does.

There are, as has been noted in the past, some items in the collection that are of dubious origins. A careful study by the right experts should be able to separate the genuine ones from the fakes.

To be fair, most of us have probably acquired some fakes inadvertently as part of the learning process in collecting. If we could collect on the scale Baumann did, we would probably end up with a good number of questionable items as well.

My favorite questionable item in the whole collection is the sword with the fantasy silver hilt, pattern welded blade and Omani scabbard.

Someone went as far as to add an inscription in gold on one side, and an Alexandria arsenal dedication on the other side. Then the whole thing was assigned to Eastern Europe, and one actually has to admire the imagination of whoever produced this sword.

Recent examination revealed some fakes in the Wallace collection, so nobody is immune and a fantasy sword by itself is not the end of the world. The problem is that it puts into question all the medieval swords and one cannot help but wonder what parts of them are genuine and what may have been recently added to enhance value, such as symbols and inscriptions on the blades.

We are now almost through with the first hall.

After some early and important firearms, there is a little hallway dedicated to the 30-year war.

The hallway takes us to a small room, full of archaeological finds of weapons dating from the Dark Ages...

...all the way through antiquity to the stone age.

And just when I thought this was it, it turned out there is another large hall full of nice hunting weapons, which seems to be the norm for every German museum.

The quality was just as impressive as the quantity.

The highlight is a mameluke sword that belonged to Jerome Bonaparte, and a hunting sword that was Marie Antoinette's.

This is where the tour and the journey ends. Hope you enjoyed the pictures, even if some of the items in the Baumann collection are dubious.

:eek:

Crazy that this is a private collection. I can barely imagine ever owning even one of these medieval swords or renaissance rapiers in my life. Barely... but I can try! :p

I know this museum's collection rather well and I think that a good part of it belongs to a well known dealer of southern Germany!