Sternfeld Baronial Baldric

Notes & Process

In early April of 2024, I was approached by Masters Adam Comyn and Peter von Grau to make a ceremonial baldric for the Barony of Sternfeld Rapier Champion, to accompany a new ceremonial rapier that was being introduced.

I absolutely love the concept of traveling awards/regalia, but since I live in a shire we don’t have champions or local awards, so it was a wonderful opportunity to get to contribute to something for Sternfeld. 

The baldric was constructed using the same design as with the Ceremonial Bronze Ring Baldric. The visuals were designed to emulate the heraldry of Sternfeld.

The shoulder strap and sword frog bear Sternfeld’s stars, and the support straps its stripes, all in Sternfeld’s blue and yellow.

All surfaces (except for the stars) were textured with dragon scales or hide patterning, both to add more visual depth to the surface, and to subtly represent the Dragon of Midrealm. The textured surfaces all got some black antique gel before they were sealed, in order to add more depth and also darken the colors just a bit.

This was one of the most time-consuming projects I’ve ever done, estimating around 16-20 hours in total. A large part of that was due to issues in dying the striped belts. There was significant trouble with colors bleeding into each other being so close together, getting the dividing grooves cut straight, and the finishing/antiquing materials. All in all it took 4 iterations of trial and error before I successfully got the look I wanted on those straps, but it was a valuable learning experience for the future and well worth the effort.

It was truly an honor to make this piece. As of writing, this baldric is up there with the dragonscale quiver as both one of my finest and most complicated pieces of leatherwork.