Replica 14th Century Netherlands Style wrapped and swaged heads no solder) for Historical reenactors, movie and theatrical costumers, and Living History Presenters
So, my wife was right. To make a long story short, my wife has been doing 14th Century since she got into the SCA. She decided to get some nice garb from one of the very well known clothing merchants, which included getting a veil, and some veil pins. She’s getting ready and I hear the sounds of frustration from her side of the tent. “YOU NEED TO MAKE VEIL PINS” she said. “Why?” (I had no interest in making pins) “Because I can’t find ANY that don’t do this!” she said, showing me a pin with the point hooked almost backward from hitting a thread while going through the linen coif she was trying to put on. Then she explained to me how important pins were in the 14th Century, and how in her research she had found that there were economies based on pins, pinners guilds, sumptuary laws regarding the quality of pins produced in England, and that the pins sought after all over Europe were the pins from The Netherlands. I made her up some temporary pins from silver then went and bought a pair of 14th Century artifacts, a veil pin from The Netherlands, and a dress pin, also from The Netherlands. Then the frustration of figuring out how the heck they managed to get the head to stay put with no solder (the inferior English pins had to be soldered by law because they never figured out how they did it in The Netherlands, and without solder the heads fell off) after way too much effort I finally managed to get the right hammer technique to make a solid swaged head with 2 1/2 turns of wire just like the artifacts.
My wife told me that I needed to make up a whole lot of them to sell. “People are going to be buying a ton of these, they look right, and they don’t fish hook” I replied that they are a time consuming nuisance to make, she said “I guarantee you will sell out of them” For 7 years I sold out of them every time I took some to an event. She told me to put them up on my website. Here they are, and since my website is broken, and this site is really easy for people to use I have moved them to my online store here
Pins, based on 14th Century artifacts in my collection. The heads are swaged 2 1/2 turns of wire just like the artifacts. The pin shanks and points are individually work hardened to make them bend resistant, also the points have the same convex shape as the veil pin artifact, which adds to the strength of the point.
Sold in cards of 6