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Post by Deleted on Jul 20, 2011 16:11:18 GMT
Hello everyone, I want to start Iaido as I love katanas and idea od Iaido in general. For that purpouse, I'm looking for some quality katanas out there. At first, I wanted to buy Cold Steel katana, wich cost in my country about $850, but when I found this site, I also found that it is sold for $299 or so. It feels like Cold Steel is kind of cheap, since one of my friends told me that katana under $1000 is wall hanger. So I'm asking you, what would be the best sword to start with in dojo for Iaido? My budget is about $1000 and since I'm from Europe, it is important to me that the vendor will ship his sword here. Maybe I would be willing to give $2000, but that is absolutely maximum... Thank you for any advice  . |
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Post by TheCrunchyCrouton on Jul 20, 2011 16:35:05 GMT
While I am not a collector of katana, I can assure you what your friend said is very untrue and quite ignorant. You can get good katana much cheaper. For example, a SBG custom katana costs around $330. Ive heard nothing but good things about the raptor series and the bamboo mat. Again, I don't know much about katana, but this is what I've picked up over my time here. But If you're willing to spend $1000+ for a katana, go ahead. And I wasn't trying to sound malicious towards your friend, I'm sorry if I sounded like it.
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Post by chrisperoni on Jul 20, 2011 16:38:44 GMT
Answers will come soon for specific sword selling companies available in Europe, give it a day or so. Right now I wanted to say welcome! I also wanted to tell you your friend is wrong and seems to have an elitist attitude so ignore him. Click this link: kaiyo- he is very informed on Asian swords in Europe and often helps people order them. |
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ecovolo
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Post by ecovolo on Jul 20, 2011 17:11:26 GMT
Welcome to the forum! You can find good swords for under $1000; your friend is mistaken. Check out SBG's sword store; the owner of the site sells quality products: sbg-sword-store.sword-buyers-gui ... index.html --Edward |
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Post by Enkidu on Jul 20, 2011 17:25:43 GMT
Hi and welcome ! I will say the same as the two other said before me, you definitly can find a very good blade under 1000$ even in europe. And in some case you would be better buying off an american vendor than an european one because even with shipping you could save a couple of hundreds. Your friend might be thinking that anything under this amount is a wallhanger and there's probably someone somewhere else that thinks that its the case for anything under 2500$. You see, there's so many possible different perceptions particularely regarding japanese blades that you might want to explore all options before taking a decision. I'm more into euro blades, but it wont be long before one of our in-house katana fanatic jump on your question and give you sound advices as to what where and when you should buy. And you'll probably get two excellent blades out of this budget |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 20, 2011 20:07:45 GMT
I wanted to thank you all for warm welcome. I didn't expect that and I'm very glad for it. I hope I will be able to help others over time too. I wrote to kaiyo as chrisperoni recommended and we'll see if he has time or if he even wants to answer me :-) ).
So if anyone has some more advices I will greatly appreciate them.
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Post by TheCrunchyCrouton on Jul 20, 2011 20:18:18 GMT
Hope it works out for you! And I'm afraid I forgot to welcome you here, so hi and I hope you will find this forum as helpful and as entertaining as I have.
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Post by Adrian Jordan on Jul 20, 2011 21:30:47 GMT
Hello, nice to meet you. I'm sure Kaiyo will help, he is a pretty good guy. Very much to the contrary of what your friend said, you can get a fairly nice sword for under $1000. This may not have been so 10 or 15 years ago, but today swords can be had at very nice prices. I'm not sure about European dealers, but you can look at Kult of Athena, an American vendor. They have a large inventory, everything to functional $50 beaters to $1000+ collector pieces. A couple forges to look at on Kult of Athena would be Hanwei and Dynasty Forge. They have a great customer service team, and good shipping and return policies. Kris Cutlery also has very good swords for less than $300, and their international shipping isn't bad either. On Ebay, Hauwei makes custom katanas for about $300. These have nice blades but only adequate fittings. Sinoswords and ZhiSwords Forge also make custom katanas for under what you are looking to spend. A pretty broad field of affordable, functional katana is out there, which is nice.
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Post by ineffableone on Jul 21, 2011 5:41:45 GMT
Wow, no one has mentioned this yet? SBG has a page for international sword buying, here is the European page www.sword-buyers-guide.com/sword-sellers-in-europe.htmlWelcome to SBG, as others said you can get a functional sword for less than $2000, or $1000. That said, you can definitely find some higher quality swords at the $1000, and $2000 range too. If this is your first sword ever though. I would suggest you buy a few different $300-$500 range swords over the next few years. You can resell the ones you don't like, we have a classifieds section here  There are many different katana styles out there. Different geometries, etc. Take some time get decent functional $300-$500 swords, and find what you like. Do you like bo-hi or no-hi? What sort of yokote is your preference? To give you an example of what I mean visit here for shapes and geometry differences. www.ksky.ne.jp/~sumie99/styles.htmlI personally love the KISSAKI-MOROHA-ZUKURI style and that is the type of katana I have. It is not for everyone though. What you want your sword to do will also influence your sword geometry, some are lighter/faster, some are better for heavy cutting, some make better thrusting blades. You can find perfectly good $300-$500 blades, of most styles, and since this is your first ever, it makes some sense to try a few out, see what you like. Before you invest $1000-$2000 in a blade. Get to know the sword with maybe lower quality production swords in the $300-$500 range, so you will know what you are looking at and for when you do get a higher end one. That is my advice to you. And welcome to the wonderful world of swords. |
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Post by ineffableone on Jul 21, 2011 6:06:25 GMT
Listed on the European selles page of SBG I found these two to be the most likely for you to look at. www.oriental-weaponry.co.uk/index.htmlwww.samurai-sword-shop.com/For obvious the reason, they both specialize in Asian style blades. Also another question pops up, you say you like the idea of iaito. So would you prefer the iaito blades? Which are not functional except to practice forms, you would not be able to cut with them. Both sites have seperate sections for iaito swords. Both also seperate for different types of functional blades. One other things to remind you, check in here on SBG in the reviews for info about swords you might be considering. You can learn a lot about a sword from hearing what others have to say about it. |
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Post by adtharp on Jul 21, 2011 20:34:52 GMT
I don't know why anyone hasn't said it yet but:
ASK YOUR SENSEI!
Sorry, but you want to practice iaido, and depending on the style that you are doing, there might be some variant of blade that your instructor would like. In addition, an iaito is different than a shinken (sharp sword). No worries, for $1000 you could easily get both a great shinken and a great iaito. I just wanted to make sure that you don't get a shinken, then go into your dojo and get told that you can only use and iaito, and you are just sitting with a sword that won't work that you just blew your whole budget on.
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TomK
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Post by TomK on Jul 21, 2011 22:33:19 GMT
^this^
right and excellent on all accounts. plus a sensei has seen lots of different swords over the years and will have a pretty good idea what is good even if he/she doesn't have required brand or type.
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Post by ineffableone on Jul 21, 2011 22:42:25 GMT
Yes this is a good idea, adtharp, though it sounds like he hasn't actually started with a dojo yet.
So in some agreement with adtharp you might want to consider waiting to buy your sword endhalf, until you speak with your Sensei. One thing I know, not all swords will be allowed into the dojo. So there is a big question of what you will be doing with your sword for what blade is best for you. Being this is your first sword, and you will be a beginner at Iado I would suspect what ever dojo you start at will require a nonsharp iado blade. They tend not to want their beginner students getting cut.
It wont hurt to look at the shops I mentioned and get an idea of what is out there, but it might be wise if you plan to start training with a dojo to wait at least till you talk with them to buy a sword. If your not planning to start with a dojo anytime soon, and don't mind having to possibly buy a second sword later. You can look at those two shops and find something you like. I went threw their inventory last night and there are some decent blades there.
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Post by Lobster Hunter on Jul 22, 2011 6:58:08 GMT
The following companies make decent functional katanas for well under your budget: Hanwei/Paul Chen Dynasty Forge Ronin Katana Kris Cutlery Cheness Munetoshi Huawei If you take up iaido, your sensei will advise you on what to get. For now, you could just get whatever catches your fancy. Here's a site that touches on appropriate katana specs for iaido: www.samuraiswordschool.com/iaido-sword.html |
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