10-25-2007, 02:53 PM
If you can consider Patrick Barta's Roman Riding Sword, No. 102, a spatha, then I can compare a hand-smithed spatha against some of the factory made reproduction spathae. The Barta sword, while definitely blade heavy as you would expect of a slashing sword, is not anywhere near as blade heavy as the very early Depeeka Koln Spatha that I played with. In comparison, the Koln Spatha felt like a crowbar. it was terribly unbalanced and I have wondered if Depeeka has improved it any. There is one other copy of the Koln Spatha that I have played with, I cannot remember whose it was, and it exhibited much the same balance problems as the Depeeka. They both made the Barta sword seem a lightweight dream to handle.