What do you give the millionaire rock-star fencer who has everything?

My boss David came to me today with a challenge. His brother-in-law, John, is a long-time fan of Iron Maiden. The lead singer of Iron Maiden is a guy named Bruce Dickinson. Aside from being a rock-star, Bruce is a competitive fencer. He also owns his own line of fencing equipment (Duellist), and has a pilot's licence.

John is going to an Iron Maiden concert somewhere in Europe this summer, and has somehow scored a seat on a flight to be piloted by Bruce. If I understand correctly, Bruce's birthday is around the same time, so John wants to get his hero a gift.

Through David, I have been asked to come up with a cool fencing-related gift for Bruce. But what do you give the millionaire rock-star fencer who has everything?

David, who has a knack for tracking down impossible to find books, was thinking some extra-special fencing book would be good, and asked for my recommendations. The problem is, there aren't really any nice gifty fencing books out there. So I've been wracking my brains trying to come up with suitable ideas. Here is what I have so far:

Running with Swords:The Adventures and Misadventures of an Irrepressible Canadian Fencing Champion by Sherain MacKay
The title is self apparent, and the book is lots of fun. I don't know if Bruce would have it, as I don't know how much hype there was on the international circuit about the book, and it was released by a Canadian publisher.

Fencing - Competitive Training and Practice: The Foil, The Epee, The Sabre by Bac Tau
This is an enormous technical book about fencing. Not a light read, but very impressive. The author runs a club in Vancouver, and self published this. Not only does the book contain tons of information, it is physically huge, and looks like a big dictionary.

A signed, first edition copy of On Fencing by Aldo Nadi
Love him or hate him, he was arguably the most famous fencer of the last century, and about the closest thing to super-star there has been in our sport. He was hugely influential to foil technique as well, and as that is Bruce's chosen weapon, he might have a special appreciation for this book. That said, if he's interested in such things, he might already have a signed copy, and personally, I can think of other things I'd rather spend $300 on.

Of course, books aren't the only option...

A set of Canadian Fencing Federation patches, plus an Alberta Fencing Association patch. The CFF patches are worn by Canadian fencers competing internationally. Some of us wannabees have them too, although thus far I've been a little too self-conscious to sew mine onto my fencing gear. I have, however, given them to fencers from other countries as a gift. I don't have a picture of the AFA patch, but it is nice too.

Chevalier D'Auvergne has this very nice gift set of a half-sized bottle of champagne, boxed with a miniature sabre like those traditionally used to open bottles of champagne. They sell a full sized set as well, in case you are extra thirsty. I don't know how easy this would be to mail-order, but you can pick these sets up at the Prieur store in Paris if you have nothing better to do.

If anyone else has any brilliant suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

See you on the piste!