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Post by Stef on Sept 18, 2020 10:23:14 GMT
We have had some DH/TH monosteel katana fromRyan Sword some years ago and found nothing bad on them. Fit & finish was alright, blades very nice. Absolutely and no doubt better than our entry/mid level Sinoswords. I love Sinosword, but fair must stay fair. Ryan are nothing special amongst chinese ebay sellers either; we had have similar quality from Hanbon, Kawashima etc. What they are special in is that they have some nice euro and movie themed swords which are very well made and constructed. If their mid/higher end katana hold that level i see no problem at all. Ryan sword is a a target (almost) everybody JUST loves to shoot on because of some strange stuff that happened in earlier years. DSA anybody? I personally own 2 Ryan Sword both custom order one came wrong but I managed over the years to make it into something good as the dh blade was ok however the fittings and tsukamaki were all wrong. and the blade geometry was also wrong . the second is a custom tanto that came as ordered, a copy of HISSHOU. this tanto was ordered just before the "strange stuff that happened in earlier years" and I had to fight to get my tanto and not loose my money since I had ordered through a representative of them that cut ties as soon as he found out they were scamming their customers ,Ryan Sword insisted I had to get the money back from the rep and then pay them. although they had already received payment from the rep.( I had this in writing) There are however a plethora of bad review of ryansword and all its endless affiliates. it is very much possible to get a good sword from them but far more likely to get a piece of junk the reason is that swords are not made by them, parts are gathered and put together from various sources and just pushed out the door Ryan Sword is not a forge, just a reseller on a massive scale, quality control is non existent not to a level that makes a difference. To quote you"everybody JUST loves to shoot on because of some strange stuff that happened in earlier years. DSA anybody?" no people do not love it, it would be great if they sold quality products with consistent outcome but the truth is they do not and a few happy customers most of whom are buying their first sword and have no previous experience to base their reviews on do not make them a good place to buy from . The "strange stuff that happened in earlier years" you refer to is the fact that they sold cheap run of the mill folded blades as sanmai and other complex japanese laminations, samples were taken and examined and they were called out on the scam, if this type of behavior does not put you off buying from them then I do not know what to say. scamming customers, false advertising, sub quality products.
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Post by RufusScorpius on Sept 18, 2020 11:16:50 GMT
I’m looking to get my first ever Katana. I’ll be using it for Kenjutsu and Iaido practice and some “light” cutting. Any opinions? Swords Of Northshire are a ryan sword reseller avoid them at all cost ( you can see they use the same pictures and the product line is the same ) I also do not advise SBG store or Sinoswords, however this is a tight budget for a functional sword less that 150 will leave you with a most likely bad product no matter where you go I would got with this I understand your concern with SoN and Ryan, but I've bought swords from the SBG store and always got a good product and service. Paul also give a LIFETIME warranty on the items sold through the SBG store. Did you have a bad experience with them?
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Post by Stef on Sept 18, 2020 11:21:11 GMT
Swords Of Northshire are a ryan sword reseller avoid them at all cost ( you can see they use the same pictures and the product line is the same ) I also do not advise SBG store or Sinoswords, however this is a tight budget for a functional sword less that 150 will leave you with a most likely bad product no matter where you go I would got with this I understand your concern with SoN and Ryan, but I've bought swords from the SBG store and always got a good product and service. Paul also give a LIFETIME warranty on the items sold through the SBG store. Did you have a bad experience with them? not per se I just do not find the product to be good, this is my opinion. and the reviews outside this forum are more negative than positive. however I have no issues with them or Paul as it stands. at their price range there are better products in my humble opinion tha is all
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pgandy
Moderator
Senior Forumite
Posts: 10,296
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Post by pgandy on Sept 18, 2020 13:14:17 GMT
I’m looking to get my first ever Katana. I’ll be using it for Kenjutsu and Iaido practice and some “light” cutting. Any opinions? :P I am also from Greece and have been trying to find a solution to this for about a year. I was thinking getting the package to Belgium or something first and then using another courier company to get it for me. In that way i guess the possibility of skipping Customs which is the issue, rises cause we both members of E.U. Anyway did you manage to get something yet? Greece only has cheap replicas Sorry if this spoils your day, but which ever freight forwarder, or carrier, you choose does not by-pass customs. It’s been my experience they work closely under customs’ guide lines least they lose their license to work in said country and/or pay a fine. The EU may work differently. Just throwing that out there FWIW.
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Post by dimitori on Sept 19, 2020 13:46:44 GMT
Thank you, they got nice products so ive mailed them. Hope to get a reply soon but as the guy above me said, I dont thing any good news will come from this.
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Post by shepherd214 on Sept 25, 2020 5:27:40 GMT
Quick disclaimer, I dont care about Ryanswords, dont own their stuff and never will but I myself actually havent seen *alot* of people that have been unhappy with them. As in people that have actually received swords, the sword was junk/fell apart for the money, and posted the review and testing. I have seen the same arguments reposted over and over again though, which I find interesting. To me they are no different than any other reseller, with similar amounts of people that happy or get burned, and I've actually seen more people with firsthand disappointment towards Hanwei than I have actually Ryansword. Just what I have personally seen. And if you order off ebay with paypal and they steal from you then PayPal usually protects you anyways. Which you should always use paypal on ebay anyway.
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Post by Cottontail Customs on Sept 25, 2020 16:17:13 GMT
Quick disclaimer, I dont care about Ryanswords, dont own their stuff and never will but I myself actually havent seen *alot* of people that have been unhappy with them. As in people that have actually received swords, the sword was junk/fell apart for the money, and posted the review and testing. I have seen the same arguments reposted over and over again though, which I find interesting. To me they are no different than any other reseller, with similar amounts of people that happy or get burned, and I've actually seen more people with firsthand disappointment towards Hanwei than I have actually Ryansword. Just what I have personally seen. And if you order off ebay with paypal and they steal from you then PayPal usually protects you anyways. Which you should always use paypal on ebay anyway. The reason this argument keeps coming up is because people don't understand or see the point being made. it's NOT that Ryansword sells crappy swords, they basically sell the same level of direct from China swords as most other ebay sellers so while they aren't the best quality out there, many are pretty decent for the money. the main point is how they have and still continue to go out of their way to lie, deceive and try to cheat their customers. They practically created the bad rep that buying DFC swords carries with it. They lied about the steel, lied about their craftsmanship, lied about lamination, lied to their reps, used fake accounts to "review" their swords, had to open up many other seller identities to continue selling to those trying to avoid them. and this is not just something in ancient history, this still happens. The question is, why give your money to lying, cheating, shady scoundrels like that when there are so many other choices providing the same quality? I'm not saying no other sellers have lied about their products but none have gone to the lengths that RS have to do it. they ARE the snakes of the ebay/DFC industry and represent all the things we don't like about this niche market, imho. I could look through their offerings and find a good sword for the money, no problem there. but I won't. so again, it's not that RS can't sell you a good sword. this market is already flooded with potential pieces of garbage, why increase your chances of getting burned by buying from such a known scammer on top of that? in about five minutes, someone will read this and claim they don't think RS is so bad because they got three good swords from them... smdh
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Post by Dandelion on Sept 25, 2020 16:47:27 GMT
Quick disclaimer, I dont care about Ryanswords, dont own their stuff and never will but I myself actually havent seen *alot* of people that have been unhappy with them. As in people that have actually received swords, the sword was junk/fell apart for the money, and posted the review and testing. I have seen the same arguments reposted over and over again though, which I find interesting. To me they are no different than any other reseller, with similar amounts of people that happy or get burned, and I've actually seen more people with firsthand disappointment towards Hanwei than I have actually Ryansword. Just what I have personally seen. And if you order off ebay with paypal and they steal from you then PayPal usually protects you anyways. Which you should always use paypal on ebay anyway. The reason this argument keeps coming up is because people don't understand or see the point being made. it's NOT that Ryansword sells crappy swords, they basically sell the same level of direct from China swords as most other ebay sellers so while they aren't the best quality out there, many are pretty decent for the money. the main point is how they have and still continue to go out of their way to lie, deceive and try to cheat their customers. They practically created the bad rep that buying DFC swords carries with it. They lied about the steel, lied about their craftsmanship, lied about lamination, lied to their reps, used fake accounts to "review" their swords, had to open up many other seller identities to continue selling to those trying to avoid them. and this is not just something in ancient history, this still happens. The question is, why give your money to lying, cheating, shady scoundrels like that when there are so many other choices providing the same quality? I'm not saying no other sellers have lied about their products but none have gone to the lengths that RS have to do it. they ARE the snakes of the ebay/DFC industry and represent all the things we don't like about this niche market, imho. I could look through their offerings and find a good sword for the money, no problem there. but I won't. so again, it's not that RS can't sell you a good sword. this market is already flooded with potential pieces of garbage, why increase your chances of getting burned by buying from such a known scammer on top of that? in about five minutes, someone will read this and claim they don't think RS is so bad because they got three good swords from them... smdh All of this is most likely true, but there is one thing that seperates them from the others for sure: their Euro designs. These are pretty unique, i cant find them anywhere besides Ryansword/Swords Of Nortshire. So they do have some kind of unique source at least for that special stuff, and it is well put together. We owned some Katana from them but those were all sold because we are not the katana girl and boy in the first place. We have some decent pieces now which were customized by good craftsmen and bought by reliable forumites, so we stay with that pieces. But the Ryan swords indeed were absolutely OK and in no way worse than Hanbon, ST Nihonto or whoever. EDIT: it took me 30 minutes; what patience, neh?
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Post by Cottontail Customs on Sept 25, 2020 17:11:48 GMT
The reason this argument keeps coming up is because people don't understand or see the point being made. it's NOT that Ryansword sells crappy swords, they basically sell the same level of direct from China swords as most other ebay sellers so while they aren't the best quality out there, many are pretty decent for the money. the main point is how they have and still continue to go out of their way to lie, deceive and try to cheat their customers. They practically created the bad rep that buying DFC swords carries with it. They lied about the steel, lied about their craftsmanship, lied about lamination, lied to their reps, used fake accounts to "review" their swords, had to open up many other seller identities to continue selling to those trying to avoid them. and this is not just something in ancient history, this still happens. The question is, why give your money to lying, cheating, shady scoundrels like that when there are so many other choices providing the same quality? I'm not saying no other sellers have lied about their products but none have gone to the lengths that RS have to do it. they ARE the snakes of the ebay/DFC industry and represent all the things we don't like about this niche market, imho. I could look through their offerings and find a good sword for the money, no problem there. but I won't. so again, it's not that RS can't sell you a good sword. this market is already flooded with potential pieces of garbage, why increase your chances of getting burned by buying from such a known scammer on top of that? in about five minutes, someone will read this and claim they don't think RS is so bad because they got three good swords from them... smdh All of this is most likely true, but there is one thing that seperates them from the others for sure: their Euro designs. These are pretty unique, i cant find them anywhere besides Ryansword/Swords Of Nortshire. So they do have some kind of unique source at least for that special stuff, and it is well put together. We owned some Katana from them but those were all sold because we are not the katana girl and boy in the first place. We have some decent pieces now which were customized by good craftsmen and bought by reliable forumites, so we stay with that pieces. But the Ryan swords indeed were absolutely OK and in no way worse than Hanbon, ST Nihonto or whoever. EDIT: it took me 30 minutes; what patience, neh? haha, ok I was a bit off on the timing, I'll give you that. but seriously, again it's not that they can't deliver a decent item or whether they offer things others don't. they are who they are and either you decide to give your money to them or you don't, this is a choice you've made but it doesn't change who they have been and who they still are. the point still hasn't changed. it was never that they can't deliver what you wanted, yet this is the only thing people seem to remember and is why this topic will always be brought up. hey, people know of many big brand name companies that constantly lie and deceive yet they still opt to give them money, it's everyone's own choice. just don't confuse why some speak out against them
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Post by shepherd214 on Sept 26, 2020 6:15:47 GMT
Quick disclaimer, I dont care about Ryanswords, dont own their stuff and never will but I myself actually havent seen *alot* of people that have been unhappy with them. As in people that have actually received swords, the sword was junk/fell apart for the money, and posted the review and testing. I have seen the same arguments reposted over and over again though, which I find interesting. To me they are no different than any other reseller, with similar amounts of people that happy or get burned, and I've actually seen more people with firsthand disappointment towards Hanwei than I have actually Ryansword. Just what I have personally seen. And if you order off ebay with paypal and they steal from you then PayPal usually protects you anyways. Which you should always use paypal on ebay anyway. The reason this argument keeps coming up is because people don't understand or see the point being made. it's NOT that Ryansword sells crappy swords, they basically sell the same level of direct from China swords as most other ebay sellers so while they aren't the best quality out there, many are pretty decent for the money. the main point is how they have and still continue to go out of their way to lie, deceive and try to cheat their customers. They practically created the bad rep that buying DFC swords carries with it. They lied about the steel, lied about their craftsmanship, lied about lamination, lied to their reps, used fake accounts to "review" their swords, had to open up many other seller identities to continue selling to those trying to avoid them. and this is not just something in ancient history, this still happens. The question is, why give your money to lying, cheating, shady scoundrels like that when there are so many other choices providing the same quality? I'm not saying no other sellers have lied about their products but none have gone to the lengths that RS have to do it. they ARE the snakes of the ebay/DFC industry and represent all the things we don't like about this niche market, imho. I could look through their offerings and find a good sword for the money, no problem there. but I won't. so again, it's not that RS can't sell you a good sword. this market is already flooded with potential pieces of garbage, why increase your chances of getting burned by buying from such a known scammer on top of that? in about five minutes, someone will read this and claim they don't think RS is so bad because they got three good swords from them... smdh Well to specify a little more I haven't seen someone get scammed in a long time. Ive actually never seen anyone get legit scammed in 3 or 4 years. When I first got into the sword hobby 4 years ago I definitely heard about their rep, but since then have seen no first hand accounts of a scam. There were some issues with st Nihonto, but theres conflicting info whether they are a ryansword account or not. Not saying Ryansword arent scammers, thay wasnt my intention, but I've been patiently waiting for someone to pop up, make an angry post and say they were scammed and I still havent seen it since I joined the community. Its just an observation.
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Post by Stef on Sept 26, 2020 11:02:02 GMT
"There were some issues with st Nihonto, but there's conflicting info whether they are a ryansword account or not"
Sheng from st nihonto is related to Ryan Sword in some way and there is some overlap. but sheng does a lot of custom work that ryan does not unfortunately it isn't consistent and has been caught scamming
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Post by soulfromheart on Sept 26, 2020 12:24:37 GMT
I think someone already mentioned it but the brands might have the same name but the person behind the screen changed.
For example, Tsunami-Dragon contact now answers by "Evan" instead of "Even" (little difference but quite noticeable), doesn't have the same manner of speech, its products seem to differ somewhat from what was offered before, shipping taking forever if at all, lack of quality control with wrong order sent when it has been good before etc...
All these little things add up to make me think that the (lack of) consistence may be due to "switching teams".
So, hmm, someone got an up to date map of the Lands of Longquan Resellers ? xD
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Post by Cottontail Customs on Sept 26, 2020 17:41:55 GMT
Well to specify a little more I haven't seen someone get scammed in a long time. Ive actually never seen anyone get legit scammed in 3 or 4 years. When I first got into the sword hobby 4 years ago I definitely heard about their rep, but since then have seen no first hand accounts of a scam. There were some issues with st Nihonto, but theres conflicting info whether they are a ryansword account or not. Not saying Ryansword arent scammers, thay wasnt my intention, but I've been patiently waiting for someone to pop up, make an angry post and say they were scammed and I still havent seen it since I joined the community. Its just an observation. I'm not the anti-raynsword spokesperson or anything and I won't try to stop people from buying from them, I just put the information out there so some might be more informed when trying to decide who to spend their money with. I have seen plenty of people getting scammed and just because they sometimes don't know they were and don't complain, doesn't mean they weren't. last year, or maybe this year, it's all kind of blended and blurred now in these times, but someone bought another "san mai" blade which turned out to be nothing more than a folded blade with etching and polishing techniques to make it seem like san mai. again. did they pay a fortune, no but RS still sold them something that was not what the customer thought it was. maybe RS themselves didn't know but since this has happened before, I would guess they probably did or at least knew there could be a chance. and they might be quick to offer replacements or discounts but if it was even 1 in every 4-5 people that notice and complain and get compensated, they're still making money but I have a feeling it's many many more that don't notice and don't complain. maybe even like 1 out of 30-50. one of the past reps told us that they were deceiving customers and even the rep himself and that we'd be surprised by how many other sellers were actually RS accounts. I know many other katana sellers also lie and do what they feel they have to to make money and that RS isn't the only one using shady practices and to be honest, I might in fact be giving my money to them unbeknownst to me. I could pay 5-10 times more and buy local but I don't most of the time and I do take chances as well with every purchase but I guess that's the price to pay for trying to get more for less. just to give an idea of how many multiple accounts some sellers use, here's one for Sheng. I had a list for RS but can't find it right now but I think Lyue Sword, tckruan88, Kwan Sword, Evansword, among others were on that list. idk, we all take chances ordering direct from China like this and for all I know, we're all being scammed to some extent, no matter who we buy from but I guess the fact that we can still get some really good quality swords for what seems like a great price sometimes makes it worth the risk. I just like to think I'm cutting my chances of getting burned at least a little bit by avoiding the shadiest of them. who knows
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Post by graves on Jul 1, 2021 0:44:46 GMT
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Post by graves on Jul 1, 2021 0:49:35 GMT
I have a custom 9260 spring steel Katana from (SON) and I’ve used it quite alot for light and medium cutting,It’s a decent katana.
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Post by swordenthusiast on Jul 1, 2021 1:02:23 GMT
I’m only spending 100-150$, yeah. Or if possible under 150$. Sadly. the SGB store doesn’t ship to where I live, which is Greece. :< While I can't address your shipping problems to Greece, I'll note that $150 is too low a price point to have much opportunity to get a good katana, and $100 won't get you anything I'd consider worth having in a katana. I was going to say, what about Musashi, but then I saw that even their swords are over the $100 price point now.
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Post by graves on Jul 1, 2021 1:15:35 GMT
I have a custom 9260 spring steel Katana from (SON) and I’ve used it quite alot for light and medium cutting,It’s a decent katana. ,I did ask them not to have it made by ryan sword because I’ve had bad experiences with them as well as a few friends.That may be why it came out to be decent.
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Post by graves on Jul 1, 2021 1:15:53 GMT
I did ask them not to have it made by ryan sword because I’ve had bad experiences with them as well as a few friends.That may be why it came out to be decent.
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Post by graves on Jul 1, 2021 1:22:03 GMT
I have a custom 9260 spring steel Katana from (SON) and I’ve used it quite alot for light and medium cutting,It’s a decent katana. I did ask them not to have it made by ryan sword because I’ve had bad experiences with them as well as a few friends.That may be why it came out to be decent.
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Post by graves on Jul 1, 2021 3:57:01 GMT
I have a custom 9260 spring steel Katana from (SON) and I’ve used it quite alot for light and medium cutting,It’s a decent katana. Honestly it’s hard to say,I’ve had good luck with them ,however I only owned one sword by them.I have several swords from different companies,you’re probably better off on the safe side and going with a well known company,I’ve been burned before.With the money I’ve lost over the years buying from places like ryan I could have got a real high quality sword,I have decent blades somewhere in the mid range at this point.
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