"Hafted Weapons in Medieval and Renaissance Europe " Topic

Hafted Weapons in Medieval and Renaissance Europe: The Evolution of European Staff Weapons between 1200 and 1650
by John Waldman link

Contents:

Foreword / Walter J. Karcheski, Jr.
Ch. 1 General background and forerunners 7
Ch. 2 Halberds 17
Ch. 3 Extant examples of halberds 33
Ch. 4 Different styles in simultaneous use 81
Ch. 5 Fastenings, poles, and finishing procedures 87
Ch. 6 The use of halberds 99
Ch. 7 Halberds : details of rapid identification 105
Ch. 8 Glaives 107
Ch. 9 Bills 115
Ch. 10 Partizans 125
Ch. 11 The Morgenstern group 137
Ch. 12 Ahlspiesse 151
Ch. 13 Axes and axe derivatives 155
Ch. 14 The guisarme and the bardiche 165
Ch. 15 The brandistocco, corseke, and related weapons 177
Ch. 16 Vouge and Couteau de Breche 183
Ch. 17 The military scythe 191
Ch. 18 The Jedburgh staff and Lochaber axe 195
Ch. 19 The doloir 199
Ch. 20 Conservation and restoration of polearms 203
Ch. 21 The marketplace 209

At $139.00, it's not a mass-market publication. Hopefully, it'll eventually show up in the StrandBooks catalogue at around half the price.

De Re Militari review: link

Tallk about your obscure specialty books!

I'm having 1st edition D&D flashbacks…all those polearms…

It may hit PB form. A scholarly text in PB form sometimes drops the price to something more reasonable. FREX, Susan Reynold's _Fiefs and Vassals_ is now in PB for the more reasonable price of $45 USD on Amazon (compared to over $100 USD in HB).

Damon.

AFAIK, the History of Warfare series link has never been republished in paperback. I'm still waiting for Birkenmeier's The Development of the Komnenian Army: 1081-1180 link to appear in a softcover or even a remaindered copy at Hamilton Books.

I'm having 1st edition D&D flashbacks…all those polearms…

My flashbacks go back to the AD&D 2nd Edition Arms and Equipment Guide.

Here, this should help with that.

link

Or not.

Wyatt

Here's a review from De Re Militari site:

link

link

CC

Still in the triple digit range, and A1Books is a notorious drop-shipper on Half.com with negatives galore. I notice that seller has gotten a new or variant username. There's always the chance of a wholesaler on eBay…

What no chapter on pikes? The book is a ripoff.

Rich

There are four pages on the awl pike. Compared with the simple pike, the halberd is an interesting weapon with its various forms.

[Hopefully, it'll eventually show up in the StrandBooks catalogue at around half the price.]

Don't count on it. This is not a trade book. (i.e. the type of book you find at bookstores.)

Brill is an academic publisher with a huge backlist. All of their books are expensive.

You can expect that there will be a small print run and when the books are gone, they are gone for good. Books like this don't get remaindered because they are never produced in mass quantity.

[It may hit PB form.]

I don't even know if Brill does paperbacks. Generally, a book gets republished as a trade paperback if their are substantial sales.

Somehow, I don't see "Hafted Weapons in Medieval and Renaissance Europe" becoming a best seller.

[There's always the chance of a wholesaler on eBay]

Don't count on it. This is not a trade book. Booksellers get a very small discount on the book (typically 20% on an academic book). They are not going to sell it to you for less than they pay for it.

A few years back I picked up Juliann Vitullo's The Chivalric Epic in Medieval Italy, a hardcover, for ~$15(including shipping) off of eBay from a seller with a stock of ~50. The book's RRP is $59.95 USD and it's published by University Press of Florida. I realize that UPoF might not be in the same league as Brill, but even a small print run would have to be sold eventually to make room. I purchased, with a saving, several specialist Byzantine books from Amazon.com and directly from Dumbarton Oaks. In regards to Brill, finding a discounted copy, is probably a pipe dream, but who knows…

And that seller probably took it in the shorts. Either that, or he obtained the book on sale from the publisher (unlikely) or from a distributor specializing in hurts and remainders.

Sometimes even a university publisher will have a clearance sale to get rid of stock. Sometimes they will sell certain books for a song, just to get rid of them. Even Brill will have its sales.

This is something you are more likely to see with certain trade publishers who have decided to forego the retail chain and sell direct. It is akin to the Old Glory army, where Old Glory is bypassing retailers and selling direct to consumers.

Quite often, the sale prices are lower than the price paid by a bookseller from the publisher. Some publishers will give the bookseller the discount in addition to the sales price. And perhaps your seller purchased the Chivalric Epic from did just that: he bought the book in quantity when it went on sale.

But you can spend many hours going through a university publisher's backlist. The backlists of publishers like Brill and Oxford are truly huge. If you figure it out, you might find yourself working for pennies an hour just trying save a couple of dollars.

More likely, he bought the books as a hurt or remaindered book. Has the price on the dust jacket of your book been clipped or is there a black mark anywhere along the edges of the book? Generally, someone purchasing hurts and remainders is required to purchase them in bulk. In contrast, a traditional book store would typically order ONE copy from a regular distributor.

The risk your seller is taking is that those books could be sitting on his shelf for a long long time. "The Chivalric Epic in Medieval Italy" is not likely to be a bestseller, and it could take years or even decades to move 50 copies.

But you have to understand that Brill has a catalog of thousands of books. (Since they are based in the Netherlands, they do not limit their inventories the way an American publisher would for tax reasons.) When they have a sale, the odds are against them placing the book that you want on sale. And there is the very real probability that it will not go on sale.

Now some gamers are big enough tightwads that they will wait a decade, hoping a book comes on sale, to save a few bucks. Some people will drive all over town, comparing prices to save a dime on a loaf of bread. When it comes to books like this, I personally would not wait for a sale, knowing that it is more likely that the book will go out of print (then try to get it!) before it goes on sale.

More likely, he bought the books as a hurt or remaindered book.

That might be the case.

Has the price on the dust jacket of your book been clipped or is there a black mark anywhere along the edges of the book?

Neither a dustjacket, it has a cloth cover, ecampus.com/book/0813018153 nor any kind of marks.

When it comes to books like this, I personally would not wait for a sale, knowing that it is more likely that the book will go out of print (then try to get it!) before it goes on sale.

I agree with you, just my budget is set for some other OOP things…