Koto Katana Spring Theme Katana
Oct 11, 2013 10:43:33 GMT
Post by Jussi Ekholm on Oct 11, 2013 10:43:33 GMT
Introduction
Well this sword was totally an impulse buy. I very rarely do those, as I usually consider very thoughtfully what I will buy. But since I was going to order some stuff from Blades-UK anyway, and they had an amazing offer of this sword if you spend 40£+. Then you could buy this sword for 54£'s. The conversion makes it 63€'s or 86$'s.
Now I know many you in the US have good availability of decent sub-100$ swords but that is not the case here in Europe as we have the VAT, which here in Finland is 24% added to the price of each production sword. After I remove the VAT this is c.70$ sword. So bear in mind the price range when you read this review.
Historical Overview
It's a katana
Full Disclosure
I am just a collector and not affiliated with Blades-UK or Koto Katana (UK brand) in any way. The only reason for me to buy this was the very low price. Decent sub-100$ katana are very rare in Europe as I explained earlier, and as I was ordering another sword from the Blades-UK this came with free shipping. And my initial thought when buying this was value. Something I can hold on to a while, but have no trouble selling it onwards, as it should be easy to find a buyer for sword in this price range.
Initial Impressions
Well I've have had bit trouble with Blades-UK in the past. And this didn't go very smoothly either. For some reason I never get their emails to me even though I'm allowed their address. So I didn't get the tracking number and info from them, and I had to make another support request. Well it's not a big deal, but annoying minor stuff.
The biggest problem was this time with DPD, the company that did the shipping. So after I got the tracking number, I found out that DPD had already tried to deliver the package to me, but couldn't do it because the door code. No call or note to me... When I called to their customer service, there was not my phone number in the package, so that was Blades-UK fault I guess. Well I arranged a shipping with DPD customer service for the next day, the outcome? No package delivered... I called their customer service again, and asked where my package was as it should be in my hands couple hours ago, it never left their terminal... Well finally I was able to get the package today, but I do not think very highly of DPD after these mixups.
Well beforehand I kinda knew Koto Katana sources from Zhejiang Zhengs, so I had a clue what was coming to me, the usual gaudy box. This had a certificate, DVD and cleaning kit also coming along. I was quite surprised they fitted all this in for this price. But as you can see the cleaning kit was quite low quality, but still an ok addon as the price of the sword was so low.
Statistics
Nagasa: 69,8cm
Nakago: Can't remove the tsuka due to epoxy
Motohaba: 3,0cm
Sakihaba: 2,2cm
Moto-gasane: 6,7mm
Moto-shinogi-gasane: 8mm
Saki-gasane: 4,3mm
Saki-shinogi-gasane: 5mm
Sori: 1,7cm
Kissaki: 4,3cm
Bare blade weight: Can't remove the tsuka due to epoxy
Weight in koshirae: 1096g
Steel: ?
Tsuka: 29cm
Tsuba: 8,0x8,0cm, thickness 5mm weight ?
Fuchi: 40x24x16,5mm
Kashira: 35x22x12mm
Kurikata - koiguchi: 13cm (I'm including this as the distance is quite ridiculous)
Components
Lets start with the DVD, as I was very eager to see that. Well it's a huge disappointment for me... The video quality is horrible, and most of the times you almost have to guess what is happening in the video. But yeah, it shows how production katana is done, but it's a 7 minute video... As there was a mention about a DVD, my mind was kinda set on maybe 45 min to 1 hour high quality video. Guess I just expected too much.
The blade is through hardened and comes with an ugly wire brushed hamon. Shinogi is not very well made. Polish is very rough shows ugly scratches in some parts. Sword is sharp, on some parts it feels very sharp, on some parts it feels less sharp. So the sharpening job is bit uneven. Even though all these negative things I think it's decen't blade for sub-100$'s, it's not "that" bad for the price.
To my disappointment tsuka was epoxied. I tried to hammer it out for about 10 minutes before I gave up. Black synthetic ito without hishigami, over low quality panels of real rayskin. To be honest in this price range the rayskin panels might have been made from scrap pieces. Zinc-alloy tsuba & other fittings, fuchi might be my favorite thing about this sword. It's big and remainds me of Satsuma style. Everything in this sword is made cheaply, but I don't think anything stands out negatively from the whole package. It's a cheap sword, so you should expect this.
Conclusion
I must say I'm mildly impressed. To the price you are getting quite good value. Sure there are lots of faults in this sword, but I try to keep the price in mind when drawing the final conclusion. I haven't had many swords in this price range in recent years, so I didn't know exactly what to expect.
I'll be cutting with this over the weekend, and I'm very eager to try how well I can cut with this.
In conclusion this is not a good sword in overall, but this is a good sword for c.65€. In Europe that is an awesome price for an usable sword. I feel that this sword will be totally usable, however I can tell more certain after I've cut with this.
Well this sword was totally an impulse buy. I very rarely do those, as I usually consider very thoughtfully what I will buy. But since I was going to order some stuff from Blades-UK anyway, and they had an amazing offer of this sword if you spend 40£+. Then you could buy this sword for 54£'s. The conversion makes it 63€'s or 86$'s.
Now I know many you in the US have good availability of decent sub-100$ swords but that is not the case here in Europe as we have the VAT, which here in Finland is 24% added to the price of each production sword. After I remove the VAT this is c.70$ sword. So bear in mind the price range when you read this review.
Historical Overview
It's a katana
Full Disclosure
I am just a collector and not affiliated with Blades-UK or Koto Katana (UK brand) in any way. The only reason for me to buy this was the very low price. Decent sub-100$ katana are very rare in Europe as I explained earlier, and as I was ordering another sword from the Blades-UK this came with free shipping. And my initial thought when buying this was value. Something I can hold on to a while, but have no trouble selling it onwards, as it should be easy to find a buyer for sword in this price range.
Initial Impressions
Well I've have had bit trouble with Blades-UK in the past. And this didn't go very smoothly either. For some reason I never get their emails to me even though I'm allowed their address. So I didn't get the tracking number and info from them, and I had to make another support request. Well it's not a big deal, but annoying minor stuff.
The biggest problem was this time with DPD, the company that did the shipping. So after I got the tracking number, I found out that DPD had already tried to deliver the package to me, but couldn't do it because the door code. No call or note to me... When I called to their customer service, there was not my phone number in the package, so that was Blades-UK fault I guess. Well I arranged a shipping with DPD customer service for the next day, the outcome? No package delivered... I called their customer service again, and asked where my package was as it should be in my hands couple hours ago, it never left their terminal... Well finally I was able to get the package today, but I do not think very highly of DPD after these mixups.
Well beforehand I kinda knew Koto Katana sources from Zhejiang Zhengs, so I had a clue what was coming to me, the usual gaudy box. This had a certificate, DVD and cleaning kit also coming along. I was quite surprised they fitted all this in for this price. But as you can see the cleaning kit was quite low quality, but still an ok addon as the price of the sword was so low.
Statistics
Nagasa: 69,8cm
Nakago: Can't remove the tsuka due to epoxy
Motohaba: 3,0cm
Sakihaba: 2,2cm
Moto-gasane: 6,7mm
Moto-shinogi-gasane: 8mm
Saki-gasane: 4,3mm
Saki-shinogi-gasane: 5mm
Sori: 1,7cm
Kissaki: 4,3cm
Bare blade weight: Can't remove the tsuka due to epoxy
Weight in koshirae: 1096g
Steel: ?
Tsuka: 29cm
Tsuba: 8,0x8,0cm, thickness 5mm weight ?
Fuchi: 40x24x16,5mm
Kashira: 35x22x12mm
Kurikata - koiguchi: 13cm (I'm including this as the distance is quite ridiculous)
Components
Lets start with the DVD, as I was very eager to see that. Well it's a huge disappointment for me... The video quality is horrible, and most of the times you almost have to guess what is happening in the video. But yeah, it shows how production katana is done, but it's a 7 minute video... As there was a mention about a DVD, my mind was kinda set on maybe 45 min to 1 hour high quality video. Guess I just expected too much.
The blade is through hardened and comes with an ugly wire brushed hamon. Shinogi is not very well made. Polish is very rough shows ugly scratches in some parts. Sword is sharp, on some parts it feels very sharp, on some parts it feels less sharp. So the sharpening job is bit uneven. Even though all these negative things I think it's decen't blade for sub-100$'s, it's not "that" bad for the price.
To my disappointment tsuka was epoxied. I tried to hammer it out for about 10 minutes before I gave up. Black synthetic ito without hishigami, over low quality panels of real rayskin. To be honest in this price range the rayskin panels might have been made from scrap pieces. Zinc-alloy tsuba & other fittings, fuchi might be my favorite thing about this sword. It's big and remainds me of Satsuma style. Everything in this sword is made cheaply, but I don't think anything stands out negatively from the whole package. It's a cheap sword, so you should expect this.
Conclusion
I must say I'm mildly impressed. To the price you are getting quite good value. Sure there are lots of faults in this sword, but I try to keep the price in mind when drawing the final conclusion. I haven't had many swords in this price range in recent years, so I didn't know exactly what to expect.
I'll be cutting with this over the weekend, and I'm very eager to try how well I can cut with this.
In conclusion this is not a good sword in overall, but this is a good sword for c.65€. In Europe that is an awesome price for an usable sword. I feel that this sword will be totally usable, however I can tell more certain after I've cut with this.