real 'magic swords' & knife, was: Fun item

> today on http://www.spacedaily.com/news/meteor-01a.html entitled, "Purdue
> Calumet Professor To Forge Sword from Meteorite". As it is the case

Somewhere I heard that the earliest use of extra-terrestrial
materials was probably the forging of 'Magic Swords'.
Many people believe them to be legendary, but they may have
been real.

Perhaps early metal smiths had learned to recognize various
metal nuggets; discovered they melted in a campfire; and learned
to make copper, silver, gold, and other soft metal objects.
But, no one had learned to smelt iron from iron ore, because
iron ore looks more like rust than like metal, and iron ore
must be smelted in a reducing (oxygen poor) environment,
much hotter than atypical campfire.

One day ... the Gods in the sky deliver a gift, a fiery object.
It appears to be a metal, but a new type of metal known only
to the Gods. (We would call it a nickel-irom meteorite,
some of which are the same composition as stainless steel to
within 1%). A local leader has his metal smith make a sword
from it. The leader uses his new (stainless steel) sword to
defeat his enemies, easily slicing through their (copper) swords.
A legend grows that the God-given sword is magic, anyone who
possesses it cannot be defeated in battle.

I have actually seen a similar weapon, made from extra-terrestrial
material.

The president of the Worcester Pressed Steel Company,
John Woodman Higgins, had one of his workers forge a knife
blade from one end of a small iron meteorite. Most of the
meteorite is left in it original condition, to show that it
is a meteorite, and it could be used as the handle of the knife.

Mr. Higgins also collected armor in Europe in the 1920 & 30's.
His armor is now on display at the Higgins Armory Museum, in
Worcester Massachusetts. http://www.higgins.org/
The museum has the largest collection of armor in the Western
Hemisphere. I happened on the extra-terrestrial knife on a
lower shelf of a display case, just after running out of film,
and as my party was calling me out the door of the museum.
So, I did not get a chance to document it yet.

-Bruce Mackenzie
BMackenzie@...