The best Jian (Tai Chi Sword) Ever ?

If you really have $5000 to spend, look no further than Zheng-Wu Knife and Swords Co:
www.zheng-wu.com

Get one custom made from him

If there is some other company that can produce better Chinese swords than Zheng-wu, well let me know

Edit: Before spending a whallop of money on a custom made sword, might want to check out this website:
Brief history of Chinese sword: thomaschen.freewebspace.com/index.html

Forum for Chinese swords and swordsmanship:
forum.grtc.org/viewforum.php?f=18&sid=d0be51adc83089abc46644691e666dce

They make battle-ready Jian? I thought they were mostly display swords. LOL

I'm kidding...at that price point, you've got quite an array to choose from.

Yeah starstuff is right, cold steel gim is a great entry jian (gim), maybe a little heavy but it is one tough cutting sword you could bring it to battle (if there is one ). Many people who have one are very happy with it (including Paul Southren from his reviews).

Don't waste your money with either of those sites you posted.

If you're willing to spend $5000 you can afford a really rare/fancy antique or 2 less fancy antique jian from sevenstarstrading.com

or alternately you can get a swordsmith to make you one. Unfortunately the only swordsmith who was making historically accurate jian blades on commission died recently (Paul Champagne). He only was able to forge one commissioned blade...a horsetooth pattern jian blade prior to his death.

Antiques come and go but in the current US recession they seem to be popping up again...even large Chang Jian (39-40") I was able to buy 2 myself the last few months...after waiting years and no long jian coming to the market.

If you decide to go production then you have to decide what kind of sword do you want.

First let's go through your criteria.

Light: anything 2lbs or lighter is historical.. Some jian were heavier however. most 'lively playing' jian are about 1.75-2lb in weight.

Unbreakable: no such thing. your options are monosteel or sanmai. Monosteel is cheaper and most companies through harden them, but I do have one monosteel differentially hardened blade from Daryl Guertin when he was still offering Chinese swords. Sanmai blades do have the differing HRC from edge and spine. Either is tough enough for most modern cutting. Any blade can chip/crack if edge/edge contact occurs or if cutting hard targets or armor.

Flexible: also what are your expectations? A properly heat treated blade is resilient but is NOT floppy or all that flexible, it's stiff. All my good combat worth antique blades are stiff. I have one late Qing antique jian with a really thin, flexible blade but this blade represents the decline of the jian when guns came, soft steel, thin flexible blade..more a training tool than a real weapon.

Combat Ready: what do you mean by this? To me a combat ready sword has a hardened edge and proper blade geometry to reduce likelihood of damaging the hardened edge if things like armor is struck or if some less than perfect deflections occur and edge damage occurs. Unfortunately most modern replicas have flattened diamond geometry...except for ARms and Armor's jian. The flattened diamond blade cut through bamboo, bottles, mats better than historically accurate clamshell blade, but are less resilient in actual combat, deflections and such in terms of protecting the edge.
When the Hanwei cutting jian with clamshell geometry comes out it may be a combat ready blade, depending on thickness, heat treatment etc....

Of course there are still other options. Let's say you obtain a good blade...Arms and Armor for example but you hate the fittings. You then send the sword to Philip Tom and check with Scott Rodell or other dealers (Peter Dekker perhaps) and get some better fittings. Philip can then redo handle, fit the fittings AND construct you a scabbard too, you then get a blade mounted the way YOU like it.

Also if you are willing to spend $5K, Peter Dekker at MAndarin Mansion has a VERY RARE antique 2 handed jian on sale right now.

Anytime, I would choose high end Huanuo stuff, by S. Rodell or it's European representative, Peter Dekker, never directly. The Zhengwu stuff I saw was not to my liking and not so convincing, but mostly for reasons of personal preferences.

Of course, there are some custom swordmakers here in Taiwan, who have prices up to 10.000 US$, with mostly modern designs and really cool steels, but most of them don't want to copy historical stuff, but create new art of their own.

That A&A sword is seriously fugly though, I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. I'd rather go for a Jin Shi custom and if I had 5 grand to spend I would buy more than one sword with it.

Jeez, I must have been half asleep when I posted these. The A&A jian is mentioned twice in this thread and the $5000 figure came straight from the first post in the thread. Maybe my brain is still addled from five days off and too much turkey....

Definitely Zheng-Wu
If I'm not mistaken, they also do customs

Heeeey, they have some of my old favourites.

Good to know they're still being sold, in case I find myself with a ton of money I want to get rid of.