Best starter set, electric?

[wflaschka]

Hi -- I'm asking for a friend. She would love to have some recommendations on what is the best electric starter set. Which vendor offers the best value electric foil, body cord, lame? I guess by "best" I mean most durable, related to price.

She's navigating the fencing equipment world for the first time, and all she knows is that high price doesn't necessarily mean best value.

Please, can any armourer/fencer help with pointers or anecdotes?

[jeff]

I'm highly prejudiced, since I've been buying from them for years and am friends with the outfit, but I like the Santelli equipment, which has electrical starter sets for women in all weapons. The stuff lasts very well: just yesterday in competition I was talking with some guys complaining about body cords that failed all the time, and I held up my 10+ year old body cord and said "never broke, never needed repair". Ditto with the other stuff.

I would say, to not get the lower-cost version with the back-zip lame. If you call them instead of going to the website, they'll give be glad to give her good advice.

Again, I am NOT an impartial source, but my loyalty has been earned and amply rewarded.

BTW: We must have known one another at the FC...

[wflaschka]

Originally posted by jeff

BTW: We must have known one another at the FC...

At the FC, I did fence one Jeff Bukantz a few times. I did well in my first bout against him, nervous as I was, but never ever beat him again. That Jeff is in Santelli's product photos. Would that be you?

I grew up on Santelli equipment, and have had nothing but good experiences with them. In fact, I've often wondered why Santelli doesn't come up more often in discussions of suppliers.

Glancing at Santelli's electric sets, women's starter is $173; Blade's is $118. Can there really be a $55 qualitative difference? Male/female fitted lames and durable body cords are nice, though.

[jeff]

I am one of three New Jersey Jeff's I know of in fencing, alas, the least famous of them (Jeff Tishman, USFA historian being the third.) FWIW, the first time I met Jeff Bukantz, I was directing him, and now of course he's one of the US's most noted directors and head of FOC. I also remember winning my first bout against him, but rarely if ever beat him afterwards - he's a tough fencer! I may have done the first of my retirements when you arrived, but I was NYFC treasurer in the 1982-1987 period, so it's possible I sent you bills...

Like you, I've been very happy with the equipment at Santelli, as you say "nothing but good experiences with them". That's worth a lot to me. I've very rarely bought elsewhere (and I won't say where for politeness sake) and was not happy.

I think the $ difference can be seen from the part selection. Blade has a $30 difference in prices between the electrical foils they offer separately (oddly, the most expensive one is shown with a pistol grip), and only offer the French one - presumably the least expensive - in their starter set , while Santelli's set doesn't use a low cost off-brand weapon and lets you choose French vs. pistol. In lamés, Blade sells a range starting with low-cost (their description says "OK..Cheep -O`s This one is for you to get by for a little while."), but it's out of stock. Since the lowest cost lamé that's in stock on their site is $110, I wonder if the $118 starter set actually is available. Santelli's starter set lamé is its regular lamé, not intended to "just get by for a little while". So, it's easy to see where $55 might go.

Again, anybody reading this should be aware that I've voted with my wallet for Santelli equipment since 1969, and am close to them now, so all my opinions are partial. I have nothing against the Blade guys; I'm just very happy with Santelli, and think the extra cash is well spent - to your original query regarding price vs. value.

[jeff]

Forgot to mention: since you fenced for Steve Mormando, go to the Uniforms page on the Santelli website. With some but not all web browsers you'll get a little message if you position the mouse over Steve's picture there :-)

[neevel]

Santelli's lames are among the better choices for a good stainless lame (they use the same type of lame fabric as Uhlmann and Allstar), and would be worth the extra money if your friend is so inclined to spend it. Santelli's lames tend to be cut rather wide in the body-- thin people would probably find an Allstar lame to be a better fit.

If she's really on a budget, then in my experience Blue Gauntlet lames will have the best durability for the money at the low end, subject to a couple of caveats:

- you don't have highly acidic sweat (even though the metal strands are more robust and woven with a greater density than eastern european lames, they're still copper).

- you wash them regularly (helps with all lames, but especially copper ones).

While they may get some green staining on the backing fabric, I've got two year old BG lames in my club stock that will still pass 5 ohms. Eastern European lames tend to have sparse, fairly thin copper strands and can't be counted on to pass for tournaments for much more than 6 months of frequent use in my experience.

In many cases, it may be smarter to buy the items separately than to buy a starter set-- that way you can decide for yourself if you want to spend more on a particular item, while going inexpensive on another.

-Dave

[wflaschka]

"Smilin' Steve Mormando" -- that's funny!

Jeff, we've possibly crossed paths at the FC. I was there from 90 to 98, roughly, with a few years missing in between.

Thanks for reminding me about Santelli (and Neevel too!). I think I remember that Mormando used Santelli as supplier for our NYU team. I've started dropping their name (even tonight in fact) when equipment discussions come up.

[jeff]

I sure thought it was funny - next time I see Steve I'll ask him if he does too! :-) And, I'm pretty sure he's a Santelli customer at NYU.

We pretty much missed each other at the FC: I was in my first retirement, or doing a 2 1/2 hour each way commute to NYC (don't ask!), which put a big crimp in my fencing, or just fencing locally in NJ. You should see the new facility on 25th street! Very nice!