My Collection of Early Museum Replicas Catalogues is now Complete!!!

I got my first MRL catalogue back in 1987. This was cat. no. 4. From that point on I obtained most of them, except a period around 1995 when I moved and stuff did not get forwarded, alas. Several years ago I was able to trade a Bowie knife I had made to get most of the missing catalogues added to my collection. The only early one I was missing was No. 36.

A sidenote: by "early" I mean prior to the takeover of MRL by Windlass, which marked a major shift in their product line by eliminating all Del Tins and any other manufacturer outside of Windlass (and, on occasion, other manufacturers from China or India). This occurred in 1996, with catalogue no. 45 (though no. 44 only had a very few DT offerings), thus ending the Golden Age of MRL. This is not to say that Windlass offerings are necessarily bad, but they are not up to the same quality as Del Tin or Arms & Armor, though they are fine for the price point niche they occupy.

Back to the subject at hand. While I had not sought earnestly for this particular missing catalogue, I had looked a bit but to no avail. Recently I posted a wanted ad on Armour Archive. While I got a few nibbles, it wasn't until one poster pointed me to a contact he had at MRL that allowed me to finally obtain the one I was missing. A special thanks, therefore, goes to Robin Chaudhuri of Museum Replicas, Ltd., for finding and sending me this, which arrived yesterday:

At long last, my quest is complete!