Faked Sanmai Katana from RyanSword (Pic heavy)
Jul 13, 2015 15:56:37 GMT
Post by DigsFossils-n-Knives on Jul 13, 2015 15:56:37 GMT
This review starts with a long conversation with Gong from RyanSwords. He has been offering various sanmai and honsanmai katanas on ebay for years. One in particular is offered for $738 and claimed to be honsanmai. As part of my "due diligence" I emailed Gong (owner of Ryan Swords?) and asked for close-up pics of the blade. RyanSwords claims the blade has a folded steel (damascus) jacket and a 1095 core therefore a true honsanmai blade would show unfolded steel at the edge.
Here is a pic from the Ryan-Swords ebay post.
The emailing started in DEC 2014. I commented that the photos in the ebay post for the $738 honsanmai katana did not show unfolded 1095 core. And I polity asked for close-up pics. Gong sent me this pic.
I thanked him for the pic but stated that if he wanted me to spend $738 for a sword I want to see better pictures. He sent me close-up pics of two blades, I wont post them all, but these are the pics I received. I enhanced the contrast and the sharpness to bring out the details:
The pics above look as if they used a polishing trick to hide the damascus pattern in the edge area. Same trick was done with blades I received from Katana1980. Unsatisfied with these pics I sent Gong this photo to show him what I was expecting:
Gong's response was this: "I got your mean now. The finally looking of a honsanmai blade not only depends on the folded process(the way that the outside layer comes, the position), the abrasive method also works. I know what you exactly want. I will show you a blade soon."
Unfortunately I received more of the same photos.
I then ask him about this blade sold by swordmaker688 on ebay.
I'm going to skip over a lot of the following email discussions, I just wanted to provide a sample of the communication and show that I attempted to set expectations. The blade I ending purchasing in March 2015 had a buy it now price of $305 (but I won the bid at $230). I received the following confirmation from Ryan-sword:
"Yes, it's a real sanmai structure. 1095 isn't folded, the outer layer is folded steel which is folded. HRC is 56-58, it can cut small trees, bamboos and iron wire. The silk isn't 100% silk, it's 50% silk, because pure silk is easy to be worn-out and its friction force isn't good. The tsuba is real iron, 100% iron from inside to outside.
We can send you the saya you want.
The Buy it Now price for this sword is $305."
I received the sword on March 29, 2015. The katana was shipped to me accidentally without a protective coating of oil, the plastic wrap around the steel blade was completely dry. It's an unfortunate event that can occur with any seller but still annoying in any case:
I apologize for the foul language in the YouTube vid. I did my homework and set expectations and got screwed over again.
But more importantly, the blade is not sanmai or hon-sanmai; 100% damascus top to bottom.
.
Here is a pic from the Ryan-Swords ebay post.
The emailing started in DEC 2014. I commented that the photos in the ebay post for the $738 honsanmai katana did not show unfolded 1095 core. And I polity asked for close-up pics. Gong sent me this pic.
I thanked him for the pic but stated that if he wanted me to spend $738 for a sword I want to see better pictures. He sent me close-up pics of two blades, I wont post them all, but these are the pics I received. I enhanced the contrast and the sharpness to bring out the details:
The pics above look as if they used a polishing trick to hide the damascus pattern in the edge area. Same trick was done with blades I received from Katana1980. Unsatisfied with these pics I sent Gong this photo to show him what I was expecting:
Gong's response was this: "I got your mean now. The finally looking of a honsanmai blade not only depends on the folded process(the way that the outside layer comes, the position), the abrasive method also works. I know what you exactly want. I will show you a blade soon."
Unfortunately I received more of the same photos.
I then ask him about this blade sold by swordmaker688 on ebay.
I'm going to skip over a lot of the following email discussions, I just wanted to provide a sample of the communication and show that I attempted to set expectations. The blade I ending purchasing in March 2015 had a buy it now price of $305 (but I won the bid at $230). I received the following confirmation from Ryan-sword:
"Yes, it's a real sanmai structure. 1095 isn't folded, the outer layer is folded steel which is folded. HRC is 56-58, it can cut small trees, bamboos and iron wire. The silk isn't 100% silk, it's 50% silk, because pure silk is easy to be worn-out and its friction force isn't good. The tsuba is real iron, 100% iron from inside to outside.
We can send you the saya you want.
The Buy it Now price for this sword is $305."
I received the sword on March 29, 2015. The katana was shipped to me accidentally without a protective coating of oil, the plastic wrap around the steel blade was completely dry. It's an unfortunate event that can occur with any seller but still annoying in any case:
I apologize for the foul language in the YouTube vid. I did my homework and set expectations and got screwed over again.
But more importantly, the blade is not sanmai or hon-sanmai; 100% damascus top to bottom.
.
