Medieval swords sometimes had hollow pommels

[ouroboros]

I can already smell all the pommel throw jokes coming...

[ibpn]

did the hollow pommels have a survival kit in them? fishing line, hooks, and sinkers, a compass, flint and steel. suture kit for sewing up those nasty wounds.

[galloglass]

Irish swords of the era had a distinctive hollow ring pommel.

[StopwatchRobert]

At this point I'm just clicking on pommel videos to read the comments :P

[Stealthwilde]

But if it was hollow, surely they couldn't end the enemy quite as rightly...

[galjo]

so it seems that you need a hollow pummel to end your foes rightly... better keep this in mind for the next sword purchase

[teakew]

A couple of other thoughts on hollow pommels:

1. They were easier to make historically. Nowadays pommels are normally made by drilling through a solid piece of steel, so a solid pommel is easy to construct and a hollow one is much more work. Without modern drills, many original pommels are forge-welded together from several pieces of iron, which means it is no less work to leave gaps for weight reduction (or anything else you want a hollow pommel for).

2. Hollow pommels are larger. If you favour a grip down near the pommel (see Roland's demonstrations on gripping XIVs for one option here), then a hollow one might fill the hand more appropriately without being overly heavy.

[KorKhan]

The massive pommel on the backsword found on the Mary Rose comes to mind. It would have weighed a ton had it been solid.

[HBOrrgg]

There were also a lot of wood pommels in earlier periods.

[Pyrela]

It's obviously where they kept their ninja stars.

[andrewhannam.]

Very interesting Matt, I always assumed hollow pommels were fairly rare.

[subbss]

Hopefully this will also stop people from saying the pommel is a counterbalance.

[Szabla]

The point about medieval blades being lighter stuck out at me on this one. I wonder if this is because modern replicas tend not to have as much distal taper? The question of whether the blades might be lighter because of repeated cleaning and sharpening through the ages also crossed my mind.

[Robert]

+Bla Bla With the katana, they took this to the next level. The pommel's 100% hollow and 0% metal.

[MrBranboom]

Interesting, I bet a hollow pommel would make "tuning" the balance of the blade quite a bit easier. Start very light, and keep adding material to the inside until it's "balanced"

[teufeldritch]

You know what they say about large pommels. ;)

[adamsroka]

So that you can fill it with gunpowder before you throw it. Mystery solved :-D

[mbalazs]

~ interesting, this was something I'm happy to learned :)

[charkvaror]

That's where they stashed condoms.

[kevinjameswhite]

Would the craftsman use the hollow pommel to fine tune balance at for example a "second" fitting? Or is the balance down to the manufacture point and then unchangeable. Also those removeable pommels, would there be a selection of differently weighted ones at POS to change the balance at purchase?