FWF – The best German fencing gear that you’ve never heard of.
At the US Summer Nationals in Miami, FL, I had the opportunity to talk with a few fencers about their Uhlmann masks and inform them of something that was quite surprising to most.
Not too long ago, Uhlmann started to outsource production of their point parts and other "german" fencing gear to factories in China. As a response to this, the German factory that was producing all of Uhlmann’s gear, Rolser Fechtsport, started a new retail product line, FenceWithFun (FWF).
Many armorers in the US have already switched over to using FWF products instead of Uhlmann or Allstar parts for points, but many fencers don’t know about the switchover and are buying Uhlmann products simply based on the old Uhlmann brand name.
Case in point – the FWF FIE Fencing Mask. Since the FWF line of equipment is manufactured by the same factory that used to produce Uhlmann’s point parts and mask shells, buying FWF now will get the product that most people are expecting when they purchase Uhlmann today.
Here is a photo that I took of a 2005 vintage Uhlmann FIE mask. Note that it has the Rolser factory mark on it.
Now, here is the FWF FIE mask with the Rolser manufacturing label:
I was happy to be able to educate this fencer on the fact that FWF is producing now what many think to be an Uhlmann product and that the Uhlmann product of today is not the same as the Uhlmann product of 2005.
If you want to read some more on the subject, and more on the actual source of Uhlmann fencing masks now, you should check out the Uhlmann FIE Mask discussion.
For real German Fencing Gear, check out the FWF Product Line at the Fencing.Net equipment store: http://shop.fencing.net/.
