At least with SIGI they're known for their quality more than their looks, and their quality is easy to measure by the people who do our sport. You can hold a feder and understand that it's worth the extra cost. You can't really say that for a pair of gloves, or worse, a jacket. I worry with this game of hobbyist telephone that we all sort of trust that SPES knew how to make a safe jacket, and everyone who's copied them over the decades has copied over the safe parts, and no one's ever cut the important corners that were definitely there in the first place. Like with gloves, we won't know that the jackets are bad until they fail, and that could be a lot worse than a broken finger.
I don’t think all “cheap knock off” gear is made equally bad, some is even better than the original eg supfen gloves vs thokk. The customer service, turnaround time and willingness to adapt designs and often improve it makes them far more attractive in many instances. If knock off gear is worse than original designs the original maker isn’t going to lose out in the long run, and there’s been plenty of original makers with unscrupulous practices.
I agree with you on many of your points, with some of the makers improving their quality, and with folks like SPES dropping the ball on bad runs of the Heavies. However, I don't agree with the "if the gear is worse" part. All too often I see folks swayed by the price tag even when confronted with reports of a certain piece of kit, like hard gloves, is not recommended from a lesser known knockoff company like Shoukat. Price tag does a lot of heavy lifting for beginner fencers.
By the time Regenyei, Kvetun (let's pretend they still deliver), or SIGI get to you in the US, what are their price? Do their standar feders get over $500? How about if we add 20% on the price? :)
Regenyei can be through PHA so <$380, and for all other makers I go off of only list price as shipping and VAT-relevance is too highly variable for audience location to add in. A Sigi King is definitely gonna end up over $500 bucks after shipping, for example, but a Sigi Standard will not for a US person as we don't pay VAT to European makers.
I had to make some concessions on the gear list to make it function, and I picked list price. (And I also wouldn't really recommend an A&A feder, castille, aureus, elgur, or other >$500 list price feders anyway as I don't think they're worth it).
I'm curious why you removed AnA for being expensive? And why isn't Castille on the feder list?
I agree about listing who the manufacturer is on gear, even if it's store branded. There's a quality difference between brands and it shows with some pieces of gear.
I don't recommend any feders over $500 as kind of a rule for the list as the audience is aimed at the beginner/intermediate fencer and in-the-know folks can look up the pricey stuff themselves. Castille feders aren't on the list because I don't like their longswords and don't recommend them, have never used one that I like (other stuff of theirs I do like and is on there), AND they are over $500 for the most basic built it yourself feder. Strict!
At least with SIGI they're known for their quality more than their looks, and their quality is easy to measure by the people who do our sport. You can hold a feder and understand that it's worth the extra cost. You can't really say that for a pair of gloves, or worse, a jacket. I worry with this game of hobbyist telephone that we all sort of trust that SPES knew how to make a safe jacket, and everyone who's copied them over the decades has copied over the safe parts, and no one's ever cut the important corners that were definitely there in the first place. Like with gloves, we won't know that the jackets are bad until they fail, and that could be a lot worse than a broken finger.
I don’t think all “cheap knock off” gear is made equally bad, some is even better than the original eg supfen gloves vs thokk. The customer service, turnaround time and willingness to adapt designs and often improve it makes them far more attractive in many instances. If knock off gear is worse than original designs the original maker isn’t going to lose out in the long run, and there’s been plenty of original makers with unscrupulous practices.
I agree with you on many of your points, with some of the makers improving their quality, and with folks like SPES dropping the ball on bad runs of the Heavies. However, I don't agree with the "if the gear is worse" part. All too often I see folks swayed by the price tag even when confronted with reports of a certain piece of kit, like hard gloves, is not recommended from a lesser known knockoff company like Shoukat. Price tag does a lot of heavy lifting for beginner fencers.
By the time Regenyei, Kvetun (let's pretend they still deliver), or SIGI get to you in the US, what are their price? Do their standar feders get over $500? How about if we add 20% on the price? :)
Regenyei can be through PHA so <$380, and for all other makers I go off of only list price as shipping and VAT-relevance is too highly variable for audience location to add in. A Sigi King is definitely gonna end up over $500 bucks after shipping, for example, but a Sigi Standard will not for a US person as we don't pay VAT to European makers.
I had to make some concessions on the gear list to make it function, and I picked list price. (And I also wouldn't really recommend an A&A feder, castille, aureus, elgur, or other >$500 list price feders anyway as I don't think they're worth it).
I'm curious why you removed AnA for being expensive? And why isn't Castille on the feder list?
I agree about listing who the manufacturer is on gear, even if it's store branded. There's a quality difference between brands and it shows with some pieces of gear.
I don't recommend any feders over $500 as kind of a rule for the list as the audience is aimed at the beginner/intermediate fencer and in-the-know folks can look up the pricey stuff themselves. Castille feders aren't on the list because I don't like their longswords and don't recommend them, have never used one that I like (other stuff of theirs I do like and is on there), AND they are over $500 for the most basic built it yourself feder. Strict!