Hi there I have an arms question for you that I'm hoping you might be able to help me with. So it is commonly accepted that swords should not be kept in their scabbards long term, especially wood and leather ones as they absorb moisture and can end up trapping moisture on the blade and cause it to corrode. Which makes sense and is why most museums seem to try and store their swords out of the scabbard. My issue is I haven't been able to find any hard sources about if this is true or not. Whenever I try to find any sources I just find forum posts and nothing with research to back it up. Are you aware of any sources on the proper care and storage of historic swords?
Storing any carbon-steel blade - kitchen knife or antique sword - for a long time in a possibly damp container - drawer or scabbard - is not a good idea, and the kitchen knife is far more likely to be taken out for use and any incipient corrosion dealt with.
The sword is likely to just hang there, being admired from a distance, until one fine day it's brought down, drawn and OMG Look At The State Of It...!
But, am I aware of any (reliable) sources for care and storage of historic swords?
Unfortunately, no. :-<
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What I know is the care and maintenance of modern reproductions, so rather than give incorrect information which might potentially cause irreparable damage to some genuine artefact, I recommend that you send this same question to:
The Royal Armouries, Leeds, England ([email protected]).
The Wallace Collection, London, England ([email protected]).
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA ([email protected]).
Conservation advice from any of those sources will be reliable and, based on past experience, they'll all respond.
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NB - I've seen "how to restore..." info on-line which is destructive to both historic and monetary value, and I can't shake the feeling that some - though not all, though THEY often require fully equipped workshops - YouTube channels deliberately create "aged items" which they then "restore".
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Japanese shirasaya ("white", i.e. undecorated) scabbards are used for storage and transport, though blades stored that way would certainly be inspected on a regular basis.
Blades in museums are frequently displayed "bare", with neither scabbard nor hilt furnishings, though that's as much to exhibit tang / blade inscriptions and hamon (edge pattern) detail as to avoid corrosion, like so:
AFAIK most "complete" swords alongside bare blades exhibited like this...
...are the blade's hilt and scabbard mounted on an insert to hold them together and show what the weapon looks like when fully assembled.
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A scabbard's function is threefold:
To carry the sword in a convenient manner.
To protect the blade from adverse conditions.
To prevent the blade from doing accidental harm.
Re-enactment back-carry scabbards which work by having big slots in one side or being hardly there at all ignore (2) and (3) in exclusive favour of (1). They never existed IRL.
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I've read a few articles by museum staff about conservation of old swords and when to stop - how much cleaning is enough, how much would be too much, preservation rather than removal of patina etc. - but nothing about the whys and wherefores of scabbard storage.
This may be because as history goes further back, original scabbards become much rarer than original swords, and often when a sword and scabbard ARE found together, they've corroded into one another to such an extent as to be inseparable.
This Etruscan bronze sword and its bronze scabbard are very unusual, not just two separate items but almost completely intact, with only the organic (horn or wooden) parts of the grip missing:
It helps that the Etruscan example is bronze, which doesn't degrade in the same way as iron or steel.
This iron or steel Iberian falcata shows the more usual fate - organic material like its hilt scales are gone, as is the wood and leather of its scabbard, leaving only metalwork behind. Despite that, the blade is in remarkably good condition.
Here's a repro showing how it would have looked when complete. A small utility knife mounted on the main scabbard wasn't unusual, and was also done in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance.
The same happened to this Roman gladius: its blade and scabbard frame remain, but the leather, wood and horn of the rest have vanished, taking most of the tang and deep bites of blade with them.
Again, a repro showing how it would have looked when new.
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However, sometimes scabbards survive.
This sword was found a few years ago (2020) in the Oder / Odra River in Poland, and though the grip - wood, probably bound with cord then covered in leather - has rotted away, its scabbard is in a remarkable state of preservation.
What the blade's like, and whether it will ever see the light of day without destroying the scabbard, is another matter entirely up to the museum staff dealing with it.
I suspect non-invasive methods such as X-rays or ultrasound will be used: intact period blades are (reasonably) common, intact period scabbards are not.
Scabbards for Important Swords owned by Important People, including - supposedly - saints are another thing, often far fancier than what originally went with the sword, and tend to be looked after appropriately...
...although a couple of these (centre and right below) have survived remarkably well despite just being entombed with their owners.
The non-metal parts of any working sword were, of necessity, replaceable.
If used in battle they would get stained, sticky and smelly. Over the passage of time they might get chipped, torn or broken. Or they might just be "great-grandad's old clunker", not thrown out yet but not maintained any more, because the style of swords has changed since his day so why bother?
Take a look at this drawing by Albrecht Dürer. That's a one-handed arming sword at least a century out of date and maybe two, while the state of the scabbard speaks for itself.
However though definitely not an elegant hand-and-a-half longsword as seen in other Dürer illustrations...
...that old clunker will still work as intended if sharp enough, and the tatty scabbard means bumping into its uncovered point will not be fun.
Been there, done that, Ouch!
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Storing / displaying swords out of their scabbards is sound, for the reasons you mention in your Ask.
However this recalls scabbard purpose (1) as listed near the top, since it exposes the bared metal to other risks such as humidity or inquisitive fingers, so some sort of coating is a good idea.
Oil or grease is messy and wipes off too easily, frequently on things better left without it such as clothing, cats etc., so try "Renaissance Wax" which I believe is used on original pieces by actual museums.
I've even read that it was developed by the British Museum though have no solid proof of that so YMMV, but I've been using it on my own repro swords for years, and can confirm that when properly applied (rub on, let dry, buff lightly with soft cloth) it adds a near-invisible layer of protection and does no harm.
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Hope This Helps!
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ETA (1) - Thanks to @librarianmouse and @pagecommando for reposting this with links to, respectively, the American Institute for Conservation and Forde Military Antiques Sword Cleaning Guide, links I've added here for completeness and my own convenience.
NB that the Forde Guide is very rightly peppered with warnings about what restoration can do to an antique, and that the swords it deals with are (mostly) mass-produced army-issue sidearms rather than one-of-a-kind weapons.
ETA (2) - @dduane asked "Why didn't you mention Blood Rust Guy?" I mentioned him very thoroughly Right Here. If you want an example of sword "care" not to follow, that's a good one.
