This beautiful stained glass window in a Klingenthal hotel dining room is a reminder of how precious the forge’s history is to the town.

This original tilt hammer is actually one of the small ones. Klingental had two other large hammers, about four times as large, called the Mittelhammer and Unterhammer. Only fragments of those hammers remain, but this one is remarkably intact.

There’s a wonderful organization in Klingenthal that’s doing great work preserving the city’s history, though it’s a monumental task. This building is the old Captain’s quarters, and it slowly crumbling away.

Klingenthal had five seperate grinding houses, two large hammer houses, assembly houses, captains quarters, a public laundry and much more. This photo features the workers of grinding house no. 5 in 1892, and bears remarkable similarities to some modern sword makers we know of.

A replica of the sword engraver’s station. There were three very notable engravers in Klingenthal, all with different styles. Mostly only officer’s swords or presentation swords would be engraved.

The museum features a few Coulaux & Cie. dueling and fencing weapons that were made there, most likely shipped away, and now returned for museum display.

The French manufacturing in Klingenthal relied heavily on hand work, and much moreso than the Germans in Solingen. Their reliance and expertise on hand work, though, let the Coulaux family manufacturers make some of the most complex and beautiful fencing blades of the 19th and 20th centuries while their competitors had given up handwork in favor of automation and mass production.

This workshop display features many parts and tools also at Benjamin Arms.

There’s a beautiful museum detailing the history of Klingenthal from it’s royal charter in 1730, to it’s private sale to the Coulaux family in 1838, to the cesasion of operations in 1962. Many beautiful weapons are on display including many dueling swords.

Klingenthal didn’t exist until royally comissioned by Louis XV in 1730 to manufacture armaments for the French military, who until then relied on foreign imports.