Question regarding ore used

[Hotspur]

I am forgetting where I was reading on Euro steel and there is a bit about Swedish trade with England (14th century?) and that some of it was slag from Swedish smelting. Then de-carbing in making shear/blister. Buying the cast iron/slag dross for cheap. .Paraphrasing there, it has been decades.

It was probably in reading and searching here or a random Swedish steel article attached to Euro steel. There is a lot of port entry data and stuff like trade 'tariff' on Flemish steel items and a push for steel qualities (<15th century?)
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/

The Smiths like this book;
"The Knight and the Blast Furnace: A History of the Metallurgy of Armour in the Middle Ages & the Early Modern Period" by Alan Williams

A very good history of German steel can be read in;
"The Arms of Krupp 1587-1968: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Dynasty That Armed Germany at War" by William Manchester


Great stuff I have not revisited in a long time.

[urbanspaceman]

Quote
A very good history of German steel can be read in;
"The Arms of Krupp 1587-1968: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Dynasty That Armed Germany at War" by William Manchester

Thanks 'Harry'. I will acquire a copy.

[urbanspaceman]

Hey Jim, I do know that they have ascertained that the iron and blade industry in the Wupper Valley dates back 2,000 years.
The relevant area for metal working was Remscheid, which latterly tended towards Protestantism, in particular Lennep.
I also understood that Koln was the trading center in the North West as opposed to Passau in the South West and Augsburg in the South East. I may be wrong.
It is also said that it was the traders in Koln who were adding the spurious names such as Toledo and Andrea Ferrara, which has always seemed far more credible compared to the Solingen smiths doing it.
That casts an altogether different light on the issue, does it not?

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by urbanspaceman

Hey Jim, I do know that they have ascertained that the iron and blade industry in the Wupper Valley dates back 2,000 years.
The relevant area for metal working was Remscheid, which latterly tended towards Protestantism, in particular Lennep.
I also understood that Koln was the trading center in the North West as opposed to Passau in the South West and Augsburg in the South East. I may be wrong.
It is also said that it was the traders in Koln who were adding the spurious names such as Toledo and Andrea Ferrara, which has always seemed far more credible compared to the Solingen smiths doing it.
That casts an altogether different light on the issue, does it not?

It sure does! But seems like the Solingen boys carried forth the convention.
The trade centers seem geographically right.

[urbanspaceman]

I'm not sure Jim, maybe I'm rose tinting, but my instinct tells me that it was Koln traders alone.
I've read - somewhere in the past - that those markets employed smiths to stamp the blades according to the customer's needs.
Considering the variations in the styles of all those spurious punzones, that, to me, seems highly likely.
I just feel that the Solingen guild workers were above that sort of knavery. Just a feeling. Dealers! You know, they are a different breed!
Also, as far as I am aware, no-one could deal directly with Solingen other than authorised agents.

[Jim McDougall]

Good perspectives Keith, and viably suggested. I dont think we (arms writers and collectors) have ever really fully understood the dynamics of sword production (case in point Hounslow and Shotley).

Most of what has been written seems to have been assumed, and the swords themselves identified as such and such, and often by the blade, which bears marks or stamps of so and so. Then we rush to the compendiums of known markings and compare them finding that so and so worked 'here' in given years so now we 'know' (?) how old the blade is.
Hmmm.

This might work.....by the 'book'.....but now we realize there are far more nuances, facts, and practices that existed in the times we are presuming to understand.

Yes....dealers.......we think that spurious markings, knockoffs etc are modern conventions.......clearly not the case.
I recall asking a guy (dealer) once about a sword.....he wryly asked 'what do you WANT it to be?' In a rare interaction of truth.
While perhaps opening a 'pandoras box', for us who are intent on finding the truth in historical matters, sometimes the unsavory aspects that have been covered in hyperbole, lore and contrived accounts must be endured while being fact checked.

The workers who produced blades were just that, shops producing piece work...not the passionately produced blacksmith work implied and illustrated in movies in lore, where they held up and admired each blade while being forged.

Indeed, the blades were sent from there to the artisans who would mark the blades, often artificers who knew which examples to use to entice the specialized clientele. It would make sense that these individuals (also shops) would be in the trade centers (such as Koln) and that the blades as marked then would be off to cutlers, and mounted in scabbards either by them or other craftsmen.

While perhaps sounding cynical, it is simply working toward an awareness of the dynamics of the actual production of the swords we study in our pursuit of better understanding the history of the weapons themselves. In this case, where, and how they were produced BEFORE they became elements of the historic events in which they were involved.