11-17-2011, 04:46 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Caxias do Sul, Brazil
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Why swords are so expensive?
If you see the prices of knives and swords, there is a huge increase from large to long knife, and from long knife to shortsword.
Dagger - 0,25lbs - $20 Small Knife - 0,5lbs - $30 - Increase of 50% Large Knife - 1lb - $40 - Increase of 33% Long Knife - 1,5lbs - $120 - Increase of 200% Shortsword - 2lbs - $400 - Increase of 233% Thrusting Broadsword - 3 lbs - $600 - Increase of 50% Thrusting Bastardsword - 5lbs - $750 - Increase of 25% Thrusting Greatsword - 7lbs - $900 - Increase of 20% As you can see, there is a huge increase in price from large knife to long knife, and from long knife to shortsword. What's the reason for the huge increase? do storical prices follow this logic? Wouldn't be better to either increase the prices of knives, and the LT/B prices be considered for cheap knives, or instead, decrease the price of swords, and the LT/B prices be considered for fine swords? |
11-17-2011, 04:47 PM | #2 | |
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Seoul, Korea
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Re: Why swords are so expensive?
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11-17-2011, 06:26 PM | #3 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Why swords are so expensive?
It's a lot easier to make a short blade that doesn't break than a long blade, particularly since the weight per unit length is actually less. A 1 lb 'large knife' might be a 6" blade (2 lb/foot), a 1.5 lb 'long knife' might be a 12" blade (1.5 lb/foot), a 2 lb 'shortsword' might be a 20" blade (1.2 lb/foot), a 3 lb 'broadsword' might be a 30' blade (also 1.2 lb/foot).
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11-17-2011, 06:27 PM | #4 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Why swords are so expensive?
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11-17-2011, 06:46 PM | #5 |
Join Date: Sep 2011
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Re: Why swords are so expensive?
The prices are realistic.
Usually... Knives are made "negatively", by material reduction, where you take a single piece of metal, and remove bits until you have a knife. The whole piece can be thermally treated with relative ease. Whereas, a sword has to be made "positively", by shaping the whole piece of stock, and cycled through tempering to relax internal stresses that accumulated during shaping. Anyway if the knife is all the same allotrope of steel that's fine, but a sword has to be more complicated, or it breaks. A sword is three times as expensive because it's three times as much steel, but you're also paying quadruple for a blade that's four times as complicated, too. For smithing, the difficulty of manufacturing a blade is proportional to it's size. |
11-17-2011, 07:07 PM | #6 | |
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Seoul, Korea
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Re: Why swords are so expensive?
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11-17-2011, 08:26 PM | #7 |
Join Date: Dec 2010
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Re: Why swords are so expensive?
Swords are expensive yo. Not just in RPG books. Same is true nowadays.
Go out and try to buy a sword, not a show piece, but a sword that can stand up to actual combat. A decent knife is in fact much cheaper. |
11-17-2011, 09:51 PM | #8 |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: Why swords are so expensive?
Greater proportion of metal needed and very good metal too.
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11-18-2011, 02:50 AM | #9 |
Join Date: Oct 2005
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Re: Why swords are so expensive?
I would also suspect that the fact that knives are necessary tools plays a role. A knife performs many functions around a house, farm, workshop, or campsite while swords are mostly just used to attack people. Ergo, more people will need knives, which means more people will make more knives, which makes knives cheaper.
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11-18-2011, 04:20 AM | #10 |
Banned
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Bristol
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Re: Why swords are so expensive?
They take a lot of hours to produce.
Ore to be smelted, fuel to be burnt and a lot of bashing. IIRC there were cheap ones like a flattened bar with an edge put on it. It just took a lot of time because there was not machinery to speed up the process. |
Tags |
knife, long knife, low tech, prices, sword |
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