another positive effect of these films: it did give fencing clubs a membership boost!

When my daughter was 13 or 14....she fell in love with a very handsome pirate from the Caribbean....Jack Sparrow!
Persistant as she was, my daughter that is, traded swimming and ballet for fencing !
I guess quite some fencing clubs did grow because of Jack Sparrow....

When I was a young lad, my hero was Zorro (Guy Williams) but it was not easy and quite expensive to get fencing or sword lessons.

Glad my daughter and many girls with her had that opportunity; membership was only 30 Euro's per month and a foil or epee for 100 ( less than football/soccer boots...)

and talking vintage: vintage epees or foils can be bought for very reasonable prices in Germany, Austria, France, Belgium and the Netherlands

Cool. I wonder if it is Turkish proof marked & might fire a blank charge at least...

Thank you so much for this entry Ken! How exciting to see this outcome, which is a perfect illustration of the existence of actual weaponry which became clouded by presence among weaponry used by studios for films. As Ian has noted earlier, often standard military weapons were altered to simulate the types of weapons of the period and setting.

It is interesting that as films relied heavily on action scenes, especially with the silent films, dramatically exaggerated and intense action often resulted in a degree of accidental injury to the actors. Often actual fencing sabers of the time were used as they were lighter and 'faster' to accommodate such movement.

GP, Hooray for your daughter!!!!! I am totally with you, when I was a 'young lad' too.....in '56 when the first Zorro series with Walt Disney's productions began, and this was what set me on a lifelong odyssey with swords.
When I finally took fencing my dad scoffed, 'great Jim, something you can always use! :(

PAINTED WEAPONS
 

In current research and concerning early films, in particular the black & white of course, the actors were typically heavily made up so their expressions were visible to accentuate the drama in sequences.

I discovered it was not just the actors who were 'painted' but also furniture, props etc............and for our purposes here.....WEAPONS!

Over the years, on occasion many old weapons coming up for sale had been painted many years before. I was of course always horrified by this, wondering what sort of fiend would do this to a wonderful old sword!?

Apparently, different colors would photograph differently in the old film and lighting, and it was necessary to use varied colors to achieve harmony in the setting, otherwise it would be a virtual kaleidoscope of imagery.
They actually had coded paint colors to be used in certain situations or in alignment with other colors in object groupings.

So it would seem very likely that these garishly painted old weapons may well have been used in early films as props.

Not exactly an "early" film, but... Interesting wizard staff design you got there, Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power...

Just found out that the walls of the Addams family house in the TV series were PINK!!! theres a Halloween tidbit.

Again, not an early film, but was watching Dune: Prophecy, and, well...

Attachment 242380

I think there's at least one ethnographic arms expert on staff in Hollywood doing the rounds in the SF and Fantasy circuit. Which one of you is it? :D

EDIT: Argh. I don't know why this forum keeps flipping my pictures. But you know what it is.