Old things still kicking

Making a thread to showcase some of my favorite collection pieces + weaponsets.

Thanks to anyone who traded with me over time and helped make any of this possible.

Been a while since posting here...

I really appreciate reading the backstory some items come with on this forum, so I'd like to add the details to my posts from here on (I'll be adding the backstory to sets posted previously on this thread by editing my first post here, in due time).

The shield:

I'm sure many of you were aware of a certain group of Chinese players who were selling prenerf items in Kamadan over a timespan that goes back many years. Sometimes this person (or his acquaintances) would bring wares to Kamadan multiple times a day. Lots of traders and collectors caught onto this pattern over time, and it became a very competitive activity to try to nail down a good item, at a decent price, when they'd come up. Most of the time the asking price was absolutely bananas, to say the least; but, they were usually willing to negotiate - especially once you learned their negotiation tactics & tricks (even though their English was poor). I'll elaborate more on the topic of these Chinese prenerf dealers as I continue posting within this thread, so stay tuned!

Anyways, one of these players popped into Kama with a full trade screen of shields, and this one caught my interest. I offered them 30a for the "dwarves skeleton shield"; however, after they modified the trade window, what was up in front of me was not what I was asking for... instead, they offered up a Req 8 -2 -2 Skele shield... and they accepted! Okay... not the shield I was after, but I'll take it! This was around 2023, so a Req 8 DR Skele was worth around 500a. At that point, I realized I was dealing with one of the less financially literate from their team, and I snagged every item they had that day for 30a each (including the one you see below).

The axe:

A bit less exciting than the story above; however, I cherish this axe dearly. I bought it from Glazen ( tire town tuff) for 300a, also in 2023. In fact, I can thank Glazen for most of my favorite items that I still hold to this day. I’m unsure of where he got this axe from, because it was never posted before. It very well may have come from the same group of Chinese players that I mentioned above, because I know he was a frequent buyer of things from them during this period of time. Glazen wanted to buy this axe back very soon after selling it to me, but it was already customized (not that I would've ever sold it back anyways ). I do my best to not customize items, but on martials that'll actually be used it's hard to say no to an extra 20% damage. When collecting rare items, I always choose those that I can make a usable set with, because I think it's a shame for old and beautiful items like this to simply collect dust in the storage bin. I always wanted a nice, prenerf Sephis, and my warrior's collection is mainly Req 7. It's one of my favorite axe skins; and, as far as I'm aware, Sephis axes never dropped in max dmg for Req 7. So, this is just as rare and badass as it gets. I know there's at least a couple other Req 7 6-27 dmg Sephis axes out there, but I think they're all in long-since inactive collectors' hands.