Let’s do something with all the katana pictures we have here !
When looking for some pictures today in our archive, I realized that over de years we collected a few 1000 high resolution pictures of katanas and other samurai related stuff such as armors, kabuto&mempo, different sword parts, etc. While strolling through them, I did found some very nice ones that ..hell I even didn’t know they were still here 
So I came up with the idea to make some of them available to the public ..
So if you need a nice desktop paper (wallpaper) perhaps you can find it here. Now, I can’t put all of them here in just 1 day so I will add new one’s on a regular base. To save to your desktop, click on the format you need. That will take you to the actual size of the picture. Go with your mouse over the picture and right click. You will see ’set as wallpaper’ or ’set as background’…click and you’re done…
If you have any requests, just let me know !
Here are the first ones :
1024×768 Download
1440×900 Download
1024×768 Download
1440×900 Download
1024×768 Download
1440×900 Download
1024×768 Download
1440×900 Download
1024×768 Download
1440×900 Download
The Long expected 9260 steel katana swords are almost here…damn Olympics
The summer is slowly passing by and after a relative calm (depends what that is to your definition ) period we’re ready to go full speed again.
The most important thing to mention here is the fact that the new 9260 Konron swords are ready. If all goes well, which is dangerous to say, they will leave the forge this week or next week. The problem we face at the moment are the damn Olympics. The security in China is on red alert now and no transportation company is allowed to transport swords within the whole country. So that’s a major problem that can still take a while after the Olympics.
Now…we are having a very close relationship with Konron and the owner will take the whole order and drive them to the airport himself. Not a big deal you think….it’s a 8-10hour drive to the airport and 8-10 back so…
We don’t have very good pics yet of the new swords but here are some of them..’straight out of the box, not edited’
So what will be different with the previous generations ? First of all, as mentioned before, they are mounted with imported Japanese Fittings , better ito and signed on the tang. But that’s not all, we do have a little extra for you : There will be different tsuba designs available. I’m not quit sure about how many we speak here but expect 3-5 different designs to choose. And if they’re done their job at the forge (which is sometimes hard to predict) both the hi and non hi version will be available in 2 lengths…but don’t take my word on it for now.
Since there are a lot of updates on the 9260, we won’t be able to maintain the original price of 175 euro. So the new price will be 220 euro, which is (taking all of the updates in consideration) still a bargain.
We expect 50 pcs in this shipment (that’s all he can transport in his car) and looking at the backorders we still have for these, half of them are already sold. Now, I don’t want to make a sales pitch here but if you have any interest or planning to buy one, please make an backorder for it now. Last time, we had some angry people because they sold out just too fast and I do prefer happy customers
Second reason…the oil and especially the price of the steel is still going up and there’s very little chance we will be able to offer the next shipment at the price of 220 euro…
Once again, this is no “hurry-to-buy-it” talk, just for your information.
We do have lot of other plans with the Forge (since we’re partnering up with them) which does include offering traditional polish (just check this sample here) , using different steels (experimenting with the famous L6 steel now), offering real traditional katana kits (mainly for the collectors) which will include a tamahagane katana with traditional stone polish, Japanese fittings ,ect. The sword will be presented in a big box in shirasaya and with the koshirae.
We have some other cool things in mind but can’t say too much about that at this point….
Enough talk for today..ow yes before I forget ..just finished our discussion board so if you have any questions, or just like to share something, that’s the place to be. Perhaps you’re interested in becoming a moderator ? All help we can get is welcome ! Eather way, it would be nice if you could introduce yourself there so we have an idea of who our customers/visitors are
A few new Samurai Swords For Sale in our Shop at the moment
Just some updates in our samurai swords shop
The response on the survey we held a few weeks ago was just amazing and I need to thank you if you did participate ! Really, these kind of things are so important to us in order to make the perfect sword for you. Everyone has a different taste, that’s true but it can point us out in the right direction.
Anyway, more than 70% of the voters were choosing for the Japanese fittings on the new Konron swords so….you get what you asked for and currently the swords are being mounted and they should arrive here within 3-4 weeks. Not only will they come with improved fittings and ito , there’s another bonus.
The swords will be signed on the tang…”Voila !” What about that my friend ? They will be signed and possible numbered so we can issue a certificate with them. You can find the sample signature here.
Now, what more do we have for you..ow yes, a few swords from the other new forge arrived in our store. So now we have available the new cheap battle ready katana swords with black and brown ito. As I told you in our previous posts, I did some cutting tests with it and the video is about ready to be released so you may expect them within 1-2 days .
We already finished another video of another 1060 steel sword with Japanese fittings, ito and sageo. We didn’t had the time yet to do cutting tests with this katana but I can assure you they’re excellent cutters.
2 Custom katana are ready too , a 1095 Huanuo katana and a customized Practical Plus XL Light katana. This katana isn’t on the site yet so no need to search for it. The price is 425 euro..Just send me a mail if interested in this one.. Video’s are on the way as well. Yeah, planning to make a lot of video’s in order to give you an exact idea of the stuff we’re having here
Anyone who like to work on our samurai Tv channel by doing video sword reviews ? We send you the swords of course
By the way, we also have an affiliate program now if you like to earn some $$ ! You can subscribe here and if you don’t know what that is or how it works, just give me a little time to make a how to guide for you !
Need Your Input On The New Sword Design i
It’s Saturday morning here and looks like we don’t need to expect a lot of sun today…Ideal weather to finish some things here
It seems like most of you guys (and girls ) liked the cheap battle ready katana from the Konron Forge ? The forge had some problems lately..one of the problems was the fact that they did need to re-locate their forge..but that was not the only problem, there were 2 more things going on there. First, the smith (yeah, they only one they have) was in the hospital for 1 ½ month for an operation and one of the polishers was sick. So that sucked big time and caused a big delay !
But good news, they’re fully operational since this week and it seems like all of the troubles are gone and we can continue with our work. Actually the new batch of 9260 steel blades are almost forged so they only need to finish the blades and mount the swords now… and this is the point were I would like to ask you for some advice. Read more
Ninja Festival In Japan, get prepared !
April 9, 2008 by admin
Filed under General, Uncategorized
When I was young, Ninja’s were IN…dozens of Hollywood movies were made and we all wanted to be (at least me) a real ninja some day. Very soon , I discovered that I would never had the skills to become a real ninja and decided to start a Japanese sword shop one day to supply the ninjas with good quality ninja swords.
Soon after I started the sword shop, I did found out that they did no longer exist…shit !
Anyway, it seems like they’re still very hot these day’s , even in Japan. In a little place about 450 kilometres from Tokyo there’s a small city named Iga which is known as a traditional home town of the Ninja.
From April 1th until May 6th there’s a Ninja festival over there which attracts almost 30.000 visitors each year ! At this yearly event you can watch Ninja-inspired dance performances, competitions, and opportunities to practice ninja skills. Sounds like the place to be ! Read more
Tamahagane Tachi for sale & new katanas on the way !
It has been a few weeks since you heard something from us but we were extremely busy with some things and there wasn’t much time left to write something down.
But we’re still alive and kicking
Now we have a great deal to announce and you’re the first to hear about it. Two weeks ago I was on the phone with one of our forges and after lot of talking and negotiating they gave us a little extra because we’re a good client.
You remember the tamahagane tachi we got in a few weeks ago..that on is already sold BUT they did send us 2 new one’s we can offer for 1200 euro/piece. Keep in mind that this is the first time we got an offer like t his and it won’t be repeated within the next few years. As you can see in our shop it’s priced at almost 1900 euro ! Read more
Curious about the new Japanese Swords we talked about ?
It’s been some time since (well actually since last week Thursday I believe ) my last post about tying a sageo, but too many thing going on at the moment and no time left anymore to keep up with the writing here.
We have some reviews of the 9260 steel Konron swords coming up. At this time, we only have them available in Dutch and you can find this very nice review (Goedkope en functionele katana) with pictures and cutting video’s (don’t we all like that…) on our Dutch blog.
They’re working on the English translation so just have a little more patience. There are more reviews coming soon so keep an eye on this blog if you’re interested in this kind of material. Read more
Samurai Sword Ban in The UK
This thing is ‘hitting the samurai sword collectors and practitioners for a long time now and it looks like the UK government is really going to execute that plan. Starting april 2008 there will be a ban on the import, sale and hire of samurai swords and once the law is in place, those who violate it could face six months in prison and a £5,000 fine.
We all know politicians are kind of weird with a strange look on things so they came up with a ban that will only affect single-edged, curved blades. So whenever you buy a straight bladed sword (a ninjato for example) or double-edged katana, there’s no problem at all ! It also looks like the ban is only for the cheap look-a-like samurai swords you can buy on ebay for €30. I’m wondering where the line will be drawn and what will be considered as a piece of junk and what not… Read more
We received the new sword samples !
Sunday evening, a perfect time to “exit” the week with some good and exciting news. A couple op posts ago, we mentioned that we found a young smith in
New Custom made Samurai Swords on the way
Friday and almost weekend for most of us. A couple of minutes ago we received some pictures of a new forge we’re working with for the last 8 months (behind the screen 
) and we thought it was a good idea to shear that with you. We stumbled upon this small forge about a year ago when visiting some of our suppliers in China. It’s a very small forge with only a few people working there and the smith is a 30 year old fellow that does some great work. Read more
