Hello friends,

I was wondering if anyone had experience with www.handmadesword.com. They seem to have a huge range of forged and sharpened Katanas at decent prices. Can anyone make any comment on these swords? Thanks everyone! -Rusty

Weird, some Swords very cheap, a damascene Sword for 150$ and a non damascene for 18000$.

I'm going to have to treat this in greater depth, and with greater care, when I have some free time. For now, let me just point out that these are clearly not nihonto (i.e. authentic Japanese-origin blades), nor are most of them traditional in certain ways. I would also advise against assuming they are functional, for reasons I'll go into later.

They all say they have a real hamon when they clearly are etched as well. I don't know about you, but I don't like being lied to...and silly me, I tend to get skeptical when somebody lies to me. So yeah I sure as heck wouldn't buy anything from them...especially since you can get musashi swords for about the same-ish price for the TH 1045 and 1060 ones.

That's kind of a strange place. I'm not sure I'd trust them. Something seems... wrong. Just a vibe; can't put my finger on anything specific at a cursory glance. If you plan on doing any cutting, I'd recommend you go with Bugei. They have a very good reputation.

If you were someone who checked out the "Japanese Sword over $10000" section on that less-than-totally-forthcoming site, you might want to try this place...

http://www.e-sword.jp/

The prices are in yen, not dollars... Haha! I bought a really nice antique authentic Dotanuki from there a while back. If you can't speak Japanese, give me a PM and I'll help you out.

while we are at other recommendations, I thought I might throw in my 0.02 cents worth.

I have been participating in Iaido for a few years now and I can recommend you to a place in B.C. , Canada that mainly works on Iaido and other Japanese martial arts equipment for actually very reasonable prices. They also sell Shinken if you go under Katanas and they also sell them in Yen, all their stuff is made in Japan and distributed In North America. They also have very friendly service.

http://www.budo-aoi.com/

As for the Handmade store, I'm not sure about it either. I also kinda find it fishy that they sell pattern welded swords for 150.00 dollars and also clay-temper for $1000+. I so pose further checking into is in order, as mentioned before......

Regards

Nicholas

It's hard to draw conclusions about the site but the fact that the Japanese language link just opens a non-functional image with Japanese translations seems a little suspicious. It's almost like it was included to give the impression that the company also sells to Japanese customers which seems unlikely considering the link is just an image and has no actual use.

Nicholas i took a look on this site of yours and for the price it is well worth katanas.
the best thing about these katanas is that they are made in japan and traditionally forged.
and for this expensive site i don't know either seems fishy too for me and its not made in japan :mad:
no definitely i don't know.

Oh, here's another site I totally forgot about, even though they send me emails every couple of days with specials...

www.japaneseswords4samurai.com

Join their "Warrior's Club" mailing list and get substantial discounts. I have yet to purchase something there, but they certainly have a huge range and acceptable prices. It's definitely worth a look, I'd say.

i would like to know if paul chen's katana are good because i would like to cut things with it so for the durability are they ok?

The hanwei/paul chen katana on the lower end have some quality control issues. They are however scary sharp...in some cases TOO sharp. They have a very thin blade geometry as well...especially their extra light models which doesn't help with durability. I have seen several of the practical and practical pros snap in half cutting single mats...and if they do, prepare to deal with some hell. While they do come with a 1 year gurantee when used for cutting single mats, collecting on that gurantee will be a pain since the first reply they send everyone is that it was abused no matter what. Their higher end stuff however has better quaility control and is generally less likely to break. However due to their rather poor customer service, I suggest you never buy directly from them. Due to the QC issues, I also don't suggest going with the lowest price you see, but with a company with a very good return policy (and then they can deal with hanwei's horrible customer service). However, if durability is your main concern, I would steer you away from them in anycase.

Cheness makes some wonderful uber durable swords in the 9260 line. However, they do have issues a well since their tips aren't properly HT for some reason so no tip cuts. This is what I use and what our dojo has as loner cutter swords. However do to the blade geometry, it doesn't have nearly as much cutting power as the hanwei katanas. It is something a lot of the newer students complain about, but I find that it is because sharper blades let them get away with sloppier techniques.

but is the katanas ur talking about are for newbies?

maybe liveblade training cutting mats (so it mean that i need a heavy duty katana.

If all your doing is single mats, then even the 60 dollar musashi 1045 swords will work fine. Like I said, a lot of the poor students use it quite effectively.

Cheness is considered one of the toughest entry level katana and that is why our loner swords are cheness.

So if you can spend the money, I'd recommend one of the 9260 katanas from them. If your poor, musashi will work fine as well (and looks wise, I think musashi looks better anyways hehe).