by Tony Huang (published with permission)
I was fortunate to borrow this pair of gloves from Sword Gear for testing and use at Fright Fight 2024 (Phoenix, AZ). For the remainder of this review, I may use the acronyms of the Historical Armory Black Prince (HFBP) to save space on this write-up. I do not have the attention span to watch a review but, at least in the written format, you are free to jump to sections you want to read about.
TLDR: Looks amazing but with that gap between the webbing of your thumb and index finger, You will need complex hilts or thick tips swords to compensate for the risk. This is not designed for longswords (or heavy Messers) but is acceptable for some light sparring. It is ideal for saber and sidesword.
Fitting: At the time of this writing, I was told the HFBP uses the same sizing as the HF Black Knight clamshells. My hands measure: 22.5-23 cm (M/L) And the gloves are supposed to be sized as M/L. The fit was a touch on the small side for me. If I went a size up, my hands might swim in it or have amazing mobility. They have not released the XL version at this time.
Mobility: The design of the gloves locks your hands into a handshake grip. This sounds great in theory but my hands are locked in that position. I have to force my hand to open or switch grips. Trying to wiggle my fingers is more work than I would like. This could be related to sizing or by design.
My hands are relaxed in the gloves and this is the natural position of how my hands are set in the gloves.
Durability: After using this for a sparring session and a tournament, I found some nicks on the plastic, and the stitching seems to have no issues. There are some small gouges on the right hand from the saber tournament and the paint is coming off the rivets. Nothing a Sharpie cannot fix.
Protection: Aside from the alarming gap in the hands. This is a solid pair of gloves. If you look at the photo above, the plates are not grounded to the handle like a Pro-Gaunlet was (RIP). So if you get hit on an individual finger, let’s hope you only get a bone bruise. Across the fingers is alright. Here is a video of me getting light cuts with a longsword. I would not want to try to hand parry with these gloves. Please note that it took me a while to put them on before I started sweating in them. I was putting significantly more force into shoving my hand in these gloves after I started sweating. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYoGF3OymGM
Sizing VS Gabriels: The HF Black Prince is probably best described as a lightweight Gabriels. This is a shallow comparison but there are not many gloves on the market that fit under the filters of; decent, hard shells, and 5-fingers. Infinity could also be compared to this grouping. I never bought the Infinity as I found other issues from trying a pair. Therefore I will not write further about the Infinity. I measure across the knuckle of the HFBP to compare to my XXL Gabriels. To my surprise, the medium HFBP is a bit wider. I do not think this should be a big deal since, in theory, they are both sized for the same hand. I measured the gloves by hooking the measuring tape to the end of the plastic and pulled across. I know it’s hard to see with the thumb in the way.
I found it hard to determine if the HFBP is more low profile than the Gaberials. It does look more sleek and sexy with fewer parts exposed and rounded corners. That’s about it. I appreciate that both gloves incorporated some form of pull tabs that Kvetun seemed to have started with their clamshell gloves. (Totally did not help with that feature for Kevetun =P)
The following are some tests I have done for each weapon type:
Longsword: My hands are locked in a handshake grip which is great if that is all you want to do in Longsword. It felt like more work trying to do a bunch of grip switches. If you like to fight in the thumb grip position alot, these gloves need some serious breaking in but you run the risk of breaking them faster from going against its naturally designed shape. In this video, I have left my hands out and exposed them to more danger from bad parries. I found the hits not painful in a controlled sparring environment.
That being said, I would not use this in a tournament. Most of the people who inspected the HFBP at the tournament would not recommend these for Longsword tournaments. Some say “no” to the gap between the plates and some said they would consider using them at their clubs for training. Please note the HFPB was not designed for longsword use in mind. If this is what you are buying them for, you have much better options.
Sabre: Steel single-handed swords are what the HFPB was designed for. I used this for the Fright Fight Saber tournament and very much enjoyed it. I would recommend this if you are an experienced sabre fencer and also fencing with thick-tipped swords. I default to the handshake grip and do not purposefully deviate to other grips in sabre. I have used the Castille lil’hansome, dueling, Nova Hungrian, and VB Gymnasyim sabres with this glove. Here are some photos I have taken from different angles and grips. You might notice the bell guard would cover the gap issues with this glove.
Sidesword: Locked-in handshake grip is perfect for sidesword. I would have no issues with the gap if all side swords were tipped. Since my hands are locked in, I am not worried about my hands getting tired from gripping my sword and doing tip manipulation. I can just release my grip and my hand is locked in like a baskethilt. Have a look at the photos in a Kvetun #1. It has the smallest finger ring I have seen on a sidesword and it fits great.
Rapier: Some days I dream of having some extra protection from all the smashy, smashy HEMA cuts in rapier without losing any mobility. This glove is interesting. I can do a 2 finger grip on the ricasso in a Castille cup hilt, Kvetun #1 (cup hilt), Hanwai swept hilt, and Castille Clamshell and Pappenheimer. Unfortunately, There was not much extra space in there for doing any fine tip control with my fingers. Great, now we have these HEMA gloves for the ultimate rapier protection for wild HEMA cutting. I still wouldn’t recommend it for your offhand. I left my hand out for people to cut at it in the rapier tournament. I had a lot of calls against me for shallow and I did not feel any hits to my hand. These gloves seem to be able to tank rapier cuts too well. I did however not have the dexterity to do any good deflection and blade “grab”. Swords were sliding around my glove when I deflected a thrust off-line. A normal rapier glove would stick better in keeping control of the blade. Since it’s hard to open my hand, there’s no way I could grab their blade. The best I can do is press the palm of my hand on the strong of their blade when they get too close.
On a rapier with a smaller ricasso like a Castille dueling rapier, I can only stick one finger in. I could not stick 2 fingers in a padded rapier glove anyway. So this is not much of a change.
Arming Sword and other simple hilts: This is not much different than my notes on Longsword. I did not use this for the sword and buckler tournament since some of the arming swords that could be allowed are similar to messers. I would not be too concerned if they were just Castile economy or Sigi lights. See the photos below for references.
Conclusion: If you plan to use this within your club where everyone can get on the same page on thicker tips or go to an event that regulates tips, this is an amazing pair of gloves. Or if you are using this with a guard that covers the gap like a bell guard sabre.
Anything else, these gloves seriously need a redesign on the gap between the webbing of the thumb and index finger. You could argue that the chances are too low to be a concern but why would you want to take more risk on an expensive pair of gloves? I can assume this kind of risk from the Red Dragon gloves because it’s cheaper. For comparison, the Gabriels have a plastic plate between the webbing. You can still get a thrust under the plates if you are unlucky, but you won’t get a thrust directly into the large gap found in the HFBP. See below for a photo of my hand after a rolled-tip sidesword got under the plates of my Gabriels. I’d rather not recreate the accident; once was enough. Bare tip sucks, bare rolled-tips are the worst. So be warned if you try using the HFBP in other kinds of sparring.
