Samurai Swords Buying Guide

Ninja Festival In Japan, get prepared !

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 the rest of this entry »

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Could this be a fake Japanese Katana ?

We do get lot a lot of weird mails in our mailbox and from time to time, there are people who are offering us ‘real antique Japanese swords’. Whenever I see that line in the subject, I already know enough. Normally , I just hit the delete button but this time I decided to see what kind of antique baby they had to offer us …

“Dear Sir,

I live in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan province, Indonesia.
I have original Samurai sword from my fore father who got from Japanese soldier with specification as follows:

1. It is made in 1718, can be seen at the writing on the samurai sword.
2. If we want to take the samurai from its cover, the samurai will sound “srriing” or will sound look like bee.
3. After coming out from the cover, the samurai is still elastic and soon becomes tense.
4. There is a picture of sun shinning and two Japanese flags which cross two each other on the samurai body near samurai holder.
5. The sword can be bent like belt.
6. If we bring “magnet” near and touch the samurai, it doesn’t stick with the samurai.
7. The samurai will not wet even though we pour water on it.
8. There are 3 small swords to complete the samurai.
9. The samurai has certificate written in Japanese language.
10. There is “giok” stone on the samurai holder
11. We have tried to cut nail and the result is the nail is cut on one hit

Read the rest of this entry »

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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 the rest of this entry »

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9260 Katana Sword review with Video.

Introduction
Hello, welcome to this review about the Konron 9260 Katana. I am Daan. I own a Hanwei Practical Katana and use it for so called “Backyard Tamishigiri”. I have had no official sword training, so I learned everything I do and know on the internet, online forums and just lots of practicing.

A few days ago Dave asked me if I was interested in testing and writing a review about the 9260 Konron Katana. I gladly accepted to enjoy the “feel” of an other katana and to review it, have fun reading this review!

The Review
Looks
While removing the packaging, I got a smile on my face, at First sight the sword looks and feels nice and sturdy.
Fuchi en de Kashira - The fuchi and the kashira are decorated with a decorating that looks nice, and is not too much over-the-top. The kashira also has the usual golden accent that fits nice with the rest of the fittings.
Menuki – The menuki looks nice as well, although it’s a bit harder to recognize the flower motive. They are made out of copper.

Read the rest of this entry »

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The Konron katana tested to the bone

Introduction
Dave, of the Samurai-Sword-Shop has offered me the possibility to test the Konron 9260 Katana. I have tested the version without bo-hi.
I will start with this review with the looks and finish of this katana. After that I’ll tell you about the real deal. The testing, something these katana’s are build for.

The Looks
My first impression of the Konron is a good one. It has a serious and sturdy feel.The saya is painted in shining black. The paint work is tight and doesn’t chip easily when you accidentally hit something. The sageo is tightly wrapped and is made of firmly woven cotton. This gives the katana a bit more authenticity then the synthetic version that you can find on many other brands these days.

Konron katana Nicely tight sageo

The katana fits tightly in his saya. Nothing will rattle when you shake it. Yet he is easily drawn from his saya. As well on the traditional way (first pushing it open with your thumb) as on the normal way. Read the rest of this entry »

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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 the rest of this entry »

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Tying a sageo on the saya of your Katana isn’t that hard, a tutorial

Upon general request, we decided to make a tutorial on how to tie a sageo around the saya of your samurai sword. Now note that this is an ‘presentation’ knot and you won’t see it very often when martial artists are actually using their katana.

The sageo is that ‘piece of rope’ you can generally find on your saya (scabbard) and throughout it’s history , it served many different purposes :

• The original and most known way of using the sageo was to tangle it around the belt (obi) and saya so that the saya stayed where it was put in the belt without moving around when ‘drawing’ the sword
• Tying up the sleeves of the kimono before starting to ‘draw’ with the sword
• Tying up prisoners
• Actually I believe it was used to do all kind of ‘tying-up-things’ Read the rest of this entry »
  

  Posted in How To | 10 Comments »

Tamahagane, the original steel used by the Japanese swordsmiths

Steel is iron that contains carbon, so the more carbon a steel has , the harder it is. Most of the Japanese sword smiths are working with the traditional steel that is better known as tamahagane. In Japan there’s only 1 official smelter left. This Japanese style smelter is called a tatara. The tatara relies on the propensity of very hot iron to combine with carbon in its vicinity to produce steel.

In the tatara, it is the burning charcoal that supplies the carbon. These typical Japanese smelter is made of clay, about 5 feet wide, 48 inches tall and 15 feet long, where it’s walls are 10 inches thick.

One operating cycle of the tatara takes 5 days. One day to build the walls (clay and sand), 3 day’s to smelt and 1 day to remove the iron out of the tatara. In this 5 days process , they need about 13 tons of charcoal and 8 tons of satetsu (black sand) to produce 2 tons of iron and steel, which is called Kera. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Japanese Sword Forging | 2 Comments »

The Japanese sword (Nihonto) - part 2

Since fighting and wars continued throughout Japan, there was a big demand for swords. The intensity of warfare also led to the development of the Uchigatana. These kind of swords could be worn with the edge up so to combine drawing and slashing actions in a single stroke. Uchigatana were about 61cm (24 inches) long and could easily be used with 1 hand and were practical for indoor fighting where tachi were not.

Later on, in the beginning of the Momoyama period (1568-1603), there was the evolution of the Uchigatana into a pair of blades that could be worn at the waist. The large sword was called a katana and the shorter one a wakizashi. The blades of these swords had a wider hamon and appeared in a more flashy way than was known on the tachi swords. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Japanese sword (Nihonto) - Introduction

Lately I read a couple of good books on the histroy & making of the Japanese Sword and tought it would be a good idea to shear that with our readers so I decided to write a few posts about it. If you found something incorrect or you like to add something, don’t hesitate to leave a comment !

The technology that led to the development of the Japanese sword originated in China and was brought to Japan in the 4e-5e century A.D. At that time these swords were known as chokuto and did have a straight blade. There are scholars that do believe that a lot of these swords were made in China. By the Heian period (794-1185), the Japanese smiths made great process in improving their forging techniques and the straight swords changed to curved blades.

The main reason for this (changing from straight to curved) was the fact that the warriors that fought from horseback were in need of a ‘slashing’, and not a ‘trusting’ sword. The sword also had to be slightly longer and light enough in order to use it with one hand. So the Tachi was born. A nicely curved blade (with more sori than the katana we all know now) tapered strongly from the base of the blade to a very small point. These swords are also worn with the edge down, where the katana are worn with the edge up. Read the rest of this entry »

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