Chinese swords???

okay i hope this works. pix of ikazuchi... even battle nicks in blade. yes we spar with sharp ones. by the way the leather itois still extremely tight.

"BANG FOR THE BUCK"
Alright Jin-Shi fans, here it is. My Jin-Shi production model jian has arrived.
I bought this sword because of the comments here on the SBG forum. They were so positie. I read swordsage review on his HAN, and saw him on youtube with it. There were more comments from others who stated that Garret has “bang for the buck”!!!
Garrett Chan has to be one of the most honest salesmen I have ever met. He informed me ahead of time of climate issues w/ the glue holding the scabbard fittings on. He could have kept quiet and blamed shipping and handling like some other companies, but I will not mention any four letter companies starting with B and ending in k.
The package was most impressive. A wooden box w/ hinges and latches covered in a nice red dragon print cloth. Inside was a yellow cloth covering a Styrofoam liner. With shaking hands and baited fainted breath (soulda been a writer), I retrieved my prize. Then the danged scabbard fitting on the end dropped off. Oh well, I had already been “heads-upped” by Garrett. The brass fittings and the brass guard and pommel is gonna need a shine. Production model... probably on the shelf too long. So I quickly drew the sword , hoping the blade wasn’t rusted. Whew, immaculate blade, well preserved w/ light coat of oil. Near razor sharp. More than my best tomato knife. I always like to slash the shipping box, so I tried this one while holding it horizontal away from me. Flawless cut!!!
This sword has a 70 cm blade that is .6cm thick at the guard, and .2 cm at the tip. (Darned Canadians use metric. If my math is correct, the blade is aprox 1/4" at guard and aprox 27" long. Add about 8" for the guard, handle, and pommel. The weight I got in pounds, though, is 1.45 lbs. The center of gravity is about 4" past the guard.
The guard and pommel are made of smooth finished brass... no frills, nor thrills, just hand protection. The handle is a nice hardwood, with 2 pins, one is bamboo, the other a copper tube, surrounded by a brass flower. The tube is handy to add a tassel, though, I don’t want one. The only thing I found wrong w/ handle at this point is that it is made similar to the Cold Steel gim, in that it is full tang right down to the end where a bolt is welded to hold the pommel on. If he welds as good as his production of the rest of the blade, I am not concerned.
The blade is very sharp. Wear gloves to polish. It is rigid enough to satisfy my cutting desires, yet flexible enough to satisfy my style of use. I am so glad that it is not way too flexible, like what everyone calls wushu steel. It is more rigid than the Paul Chen pratical tai chi by a far cry.
The guard and pommel are nice sturdy brass, though being a production model sitting in storage, required a shine.
The scabbard is cosmetically alright, yet need to have the fittings pinned by rolling the edges like my master’s old lion head sword. The glue used isn’t the best. I will have to tighten them up.
This thing being so light and well balanced handles superb. You can change direction on a dime and get nine cents change. Buy one, try one. For the price, you’ll be happy.
So far I have cut the carton 4 times, a sheet of paper, and some soda bottles. Clean and swift cuts.
Concluding this review of my first, and certainly not my last, purchase from Garrett Chan of Jin-Shi, I would like to send out a warning to Paul Chen, that if this dude ever gets a following, and increases his portfolio, Paul, you just might lose some business. Garrett has informed me that he is closing out his production line, however, and I believe that is not good. If he continues to grow he might want to get back on it. He has also stated that he is working on the fitting issues w/ the scabbards. I am looking at the tangjian for my next purchase.
The pros of this sword is the sword itself, the weight, sturdy blade and the guard and pommel. The cons are the scabbard fittings. And the brass polish.
I would recommend this sword to anyone. I have already set my brother up to get one. ‘BANG FOR THE BUCK” should be the title. Oh and Jin-Shi gives customary SBG discount. PICS TO SHOW NEXT POST.

EDIT
Okay... yesterday my tatmai made it here. I have (actually belongs to Lady Elizabeth, my wife.) a musashi bamboo. It only cut 3" mat 1.5" across, this could be rusty form; however this www.jin-shi.com production jian cut 2.75" across. I have always been better at a single handed form, which could attribute to this. I prefer to believ, though, that this jian is simply better at cutting, since the sharpness appears to be equal on the two swords. Also I feel that the cut would have been completely through had I used a stand... we had the mat propped with bricks, a stand would have brought the mat higher to where the cut would have been cleaner. I did not attempt a cut w/ PC tai chi since they warn against it... however my brother wants to try on our next mat shipment.

No offense Sitre, but you should post your review on to the sword review section:

/index.cgi?board=swordreviews

That way you could get a large number of readers for your review.
Anyway an honest review IMO. +1

Only $200 USD? I thought it was $270 before any shipping. I do not think I could get such a large discount but that was really a good deal.

Well thanks for the info.

Actually Sitre, the review site was on hold because Paul would like to read the reviews and give review points base on the contents of their review. I am not exactly sure how review points works (I am new here) but there are some benefits to it. I could be wrong but I am quite sure they will not stop you from posting review right now as I have seen new reviews posted 2 days ago (that was after the pause announcement).

I have place an order from Jin Shi more than a month ago and I am pretty much broke from "that investment". Just need to wait for the sword to arrive. I had the impression it was $270 but given the closeout price, and 5 percent discount it is a real bargain. (If I knew it was that cheap, should have pick this one up instead of my custom order lol).

Thanks for the info though.

Han dynasty jian. It's going to take awhile.

I think Paul Chen caters his jians to wushu students. Like the practical taichi and Adam Hsu jian there are light and great for practice but not for cutting. The higher end models are designed for display and not for cutting, which is rather unfortunate because some of us wants a functional jian too. To be honest if I had one of their higher end jians, I would not be cutting with it even though they are genuinely functional because they really are expensive (at least to me).

I heard rumors that Paul Chen is working with Scott Rondell on making some cutting jians. It would be nice to see some changes but I do not know of the release date.

Great reviews sirtre! Definitely post them up when you have the time, if there is one thing this site is lacking, it's Jin shi sword reviews in the reviews section!

I'm really looking forward to my Tang Jian, although with the customizations I asked for... it may as well be a completely different sword

P.S. >> I am the only one worried about the fact that he's been sparring with his family members with sharp swords? And keeping tally marks over who wins more often? Did I miss something about armor or something that is safe to use with sharp swords? It's clear his ankle wasn't protected, right?

Maybe he's just really really skilled and has better safety precautions than I've inferred.

My thoughts exactly. Hence what I had hoped would come across as sarcasm when I said "Maybe he's just really really skilled..." Guess I need more "really"s in there...

But seriously, that sounds like worse than "Choson Ninja" levels of danger and potential harm.