Our mission is to discover to you the true Secrets of the Sword.

Revealed today: How did cavalry troopers make sure their blades had a perfect edge?

We don’t know when exactly this picture was taken, and what war our gallant hussars are preparing for. But since this British postcard was “Printed in Bavaria,” we feel safe to say it was before 1914, when Bavaria was a backward German state whose Catholic work ethic was deplored by Max Weber in his The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

Now, we promised to reveal a secret, not poke fun at our Bavarian countrymen (although there’s enough Saupreiß in us to justify it!) So what about the Secret of the Sharp Blade. How did these guys manage to keep their swords sharp?

Like most secrets—outside the magnificent mysteries laid out in, say, The Lazarus Smile—this one’s a bit on the skimpy side:

To make sure you had a sharp blade at hand when you went into action, you didn’t sharpen your blade until it needed to be sharp. Because nothing ruins a sword as quickly as grinding down an ever-new edge.

This was not just practiced in Britain, but in Germany as well. (Read up that in Swords of Germany 1900-1945 by John R. Angolia (1988).

Like every year since 1955, the Maryland Arms and Armor Collectors Association is putting on its sale and trading show on March 17-18, 2012 in Timonium, just north of the Baltimore Belway.

We hope to see you there!

An admission  price of $10 (Sunday: $5) buys you as much time as fits in your day gawking, handling (some), and bargaining for one or several of literally tens of thousands of antique swords and firearms. It’s like an all-you-can-eat buffet of blades from all countries and eras, dating from bronze-age swords to Nazi sabers.

We’d be the last to admit that prices for the most part have by now eclipsed the budgets of casual or novice collectors. But for the occasional bargain on a high-quality historical blades, nothing beats the “Original Baltimore Sword Show.” We’ve added hideously rare Schlägers (with “starred” blade and scabbard!) for aroudn $100, ancient foils and a rapier, an insanely underpriced dueling épée, several 1796′er sabers and other things that might put your eye out over the years…

Plus, you occasionally run into the secret celebrities of the sword world: We recall bumping into Jeff Forgeng one year and the late Hank Reinhardt  in a previous one.

Err… yes, who indeed. Possibly the same kind of person who has a sextett of Spelter and bronze fencing figurines staring at his desk?

This one we haven’t acquired—yet. But would accept it from our Leibbursch any time.

You can’t open a book dealing with the 19th-century Mensur without running across a version of the image. Variously placed at Heidelberg or Göttingen, the Prestel 1808 watercolor of a Mensur is one of the best-known illustrations depicting the use of the narrow-hilted Hieber.

(Baldick identifies a knock-off of the image as a “double duel”—as if that were indeed possible of commentgemäß.)

Offered by Zinnfiguren Wilken in Berlin, the “Göttingen Mensur 1808″ set (order # 63180.ZM.001) costs 60 Euros—and gets you 2 fencers, 2 seconds, a motley crew of spectators, a chair, and a sparsely loaded bookshelf.

How can you resist?