[Jim McDougall]

Jens, this has been a wonderful thread, and what a brilliant and thought provoking idea to start it! Not only has it given me, but clearly many others out there, pause to think about what we do here, and why.

It is amazing to see very deeply stated views and perspective as being shared by all of us, helping us understand each other better, our views, and perhaps even ourselves. This reminds us that we are all actually quite different in our approaches to the study of arms, but that clearly the one common denominator is the passion for them.

I must note that Stu's mention that many of us are indeed getting up there in years is poignant and quite true. Like many of you included, I have spent most of my life studying arms in many ways. While I am certainly far from an academic or scholar, my study has been passionately undertaken with the sincere desire to learn, and to share what I have learned in any way I can. Every so often, I try to sort through the decades of notes and files from it seems every imaginable form of mostly swords and edged weapons, but the task of making tangible sense of it all seems hopeless.

The most important thing I have had in the years since I joined this forum, is that I loved to write. As most of you know, my posts and their detail are typically pretty heavy. Actually, these became my 'journal', and virtually the result of my 'research' on each weapon or topic (as well pointed out by Ian, this is probably better described as 'compilation' as it is simply gathering data from various sources). Thus, in effect, and in my own perspective, this huge corpus of my ramblings are I believe my own legacy, and which I have faithfully placed on these pages so as to share the results of my study here.

My purpose was always not to claim authority nor recognition as much as to generate discussion and further study by others, so that we might find any flaws in the data and advance our knowledge as a team. As Alan has well pointed out, it is almost welcoming to have disagreements or alternate views placed toward what has been entered, as it reveals that the material has been properly read and any weaknesses can be remedied.

To me, our long standing efforts here are together are as has been noted, a monumental repository of knowledge shared by all of us as a group, and for the benefit of us all, as well as those who will come. We know there are always new collectors and students joining us, and we welcome them, and invite them to ask their questions, and most emphatically to become one of us. Seek information wherever you can, and enter it here to be shared, discussed, evaluated and above all, preserved, along with the ever mounting corpus of data we have spent so many years building.

As we agree, these historical weapons, and often even the more modern ethnographic examples, are a reflection of history and traditions and culture themselves. They all have stories to tell, and this is what we do.....we look to them to tell us what we want and need to know. It is incumbent upon us to listen and seek and find answers to the many questions that come as these arms become our charge. Then to preserve that very material as the legacy others will follow, much in the way we have followed the brilliant students, writers, collectors, curators et al long before us......Demmin, Burton, Egerton, Stone, Oldman, Oakeshott, Blair, North and so many others.

So the message is....follow your own path in the study of these arms, but whatever that way is......engage, participate, share, research, compile, admire, learn......but do so with the excitement and passion we all share together. We are all part of the legacy.
'Quid pro Quo'