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Post by toddstratton1 on Nov 19, 2023 3:04:46 GMT
back in the day that was probably the high end Hanwei and Bugei pre fire. DynastyForge/Fred Chen had a good reputation way back. So did Nine Circles if you were in the UK. I want to say DynastyForge had a good reputation but still had some QC issues. Better tsuka shape though I think. I think for awhile Huawei was starting to get there but still wasn't as expensive as Albion and ofc, some quality control issues with the tsuka cores. DragonKing might be the new contender for off the shelf. They are basically a Hanwei spinoff though. Tho I hear Cloudhammer has made a bunch of swords for sale in Spain and Germany, I'm not sure they classify as off the shelf and still had some issues to fix before they can claim the title of Japaneesy Albion. I would say Motohara is the Albion of Japanese swords, but it's a bit more customized to what you want in specs for the blade, fittings and etc. Rather than off the shelf models that are all pre designed. When I compare fit, finish, and the quality of the sword of my Motohara it compares to my Albions for sure, but a bit more involved because of the more involved nature of the parts that all make up a katana and choosing all the details you want. Jason's swords are bad ass. Since I train at the same school with him I got to handle many of their swords beside my own, between mat cutters, hard target cutters, different blade geometries and many different swords he's brought to class at different times. All had the same extremely high quality of work. Also pretty much all the advanced students and instructors use his swords as well .
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Post by drjoe on Nov 20, 2023 16:05:08 GMT
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Post by wildv on Nov 26, 2023 12:46:17 GMT
For that price, it's actually pretty limiting. It's too much to pay for, say a Hanwei, but not enough to pay for a decent sword (Motoara, Howard Clark etc). You've got Citadel. They're alright. Bugei. Also alright. All a bit meh to be honest.
For real, I'm really happy with my Zsey, so I'd probably get a $2k Zsey. At least it's going to be put together, polished etc really well (Citadel and Bugei can be hit or miss).
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Post by Lord Newport on Nov 26, 2023 17:18:20 GMT
For that price, it's actually pretty limiting. It's too much to pay for, say a Hanwei, but not enough to pay for a decent sword (Motoara, Howard Clark etc). You've got Citadel. They're alright. Bugei. Also alright. All a bit meh to be honest. For real, I'm really happy with my Zsey, so I'd probably get a $2k Zsey. At least it's going to be put together, polished etc really well (Citadel and Bugei can be hit or miss). Bugei was once excellent when Keith Larman was in charge of quality control. I remember him telling me about entire half container shipments being sent back for QC issues. Sadly Keith has passed and Bugei QC is now over in china I suspect. If you can find any of the older blades of the Keith Larman era...and it meets your search requirements... pick it up.
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Post by wildv on Nov 27, 2023 5:46:03 GMT
For that price, it's actually pretty limiting. It's too much to pay for, say a Hanwei, but not enough to pay for a decent sword (Motoara, Howard Clark etc). You've got Citadel. They're alright. Bugei. Also alright. All a bit meh to be honest. For real, I'm really happy with my Zsey, so I'd probably get a $2k Zsey. At least it's going to be put together, polished etc really well (Citadel and Bugei can be hit or miss). Bugei was once excellent when Keith Larman was in charge of quality control. I remember him telling me about entire half container shipments being sent back for QC issues. Sadly Keith has passed and Bugei QC is now over in china I suspect. If you can find any of the older blades of the Keith Larman era...and it meets your search requirements... pick it up. Good point. I own both an old and a new Bugei the old is definitely much nicer, but I always just figured it was the way all things go. Never knew about that quality control stuff!
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Post by Lord Newport on Nov 27, 2023 5:51:33 GMT
Bugei was once excellent when Keith Larman was in charge of quality control. I remember him telling me about entire half container shipments being sent back for QC issues. Sadly Keith has passed and Bugei QC is now over in china I suspect. If you can find any of the older blades of the Keith Larman era...and it meets your search requirements... pick it up. Good point. I own both an old and a new Bugei the old is definitely much nicer, but I always just figured it was the way all things go. Never knew about that quality control stuff! Yea, Bugei and keith Larman really helped Paul Chen / Hanwei up its game quite a bit which helped with its success...but without Keith there to maintain standards, Bugei's CQ is now whomever they have making their swords in china now.
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Post by crazyjons on Nov 27, 2023 14:58:34 GMT
I feel like there's a conundrum here, if you get a sword with really nice hamon and good polish you won't want to cut with it or it will degrade and scratch. But if you get an ugly functional blade that you're not worried about scratching, then you won't want to look at it!
Jon
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Post by ggolden219 on Nov 27, 2023 16:28:22 GMT
I feel like there's a conundrum here, if you get a sword with really nice hamon and good polish you won't want to cut with it or it will degrade and scratch. But if you get an ugly functional blade that you're not worried about scratching, then you won't want to look at it! Jon Shelf queens vs work horses. Sounds about right for the average collector, unless you're a practitioner.
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Post by larason2 on Nov 28, 2023 0:10:52 GMT
It's true the nicer it is the less you want to cut with it. No matter how much you pay for a Nihonto, once it's broken, half of it is worth about $150 at most (the other half the same!). For a production blade, if you break it you may be able to sell it per pound. If you scratch a Nihonto, depending on the scratch the cheapest you'll be able to polish out the scratch is $100-200 (and it might need the full $2000 polish!). If you're a really good practitioner and it's your own Nihonto, you might risk cutting with it. Otherwise the risk of devaluation is too high. Even if you're polishing the sword yourself, how many hours are you willing to put into removing a scratch? The nicer you want it to look, the longer that's going to be! I wouldn't spend 75+ hours polishing a sword I'm going to cut with. That's what my beaters are for!
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Post by Lord Newport on Nov 28, 2023 0:29:59 GMT
I feel like there's a conundrum here, if you get a sword with really nice hamon and good polish you won't want to cut with it or it will degrade and scratch. But if you get an ugly functional blade that you're not worried about scratching, then you won't want to look at it! Jon Buy two of the same thing. Problem solved!
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Post by wildv on Nov 28, 2023 8:41:18 GMT
It's true the nicer it is the less you want to cut with it. No matter how much you pay for a Nihonto, once it's broken, half of it is worth about $150 at most (the other half the same!). For a production blade, if you break it you may be able to sell it per pound. If you scratch a Nihonto, depending on the scratch the cheapest you'll be able to polish out the scratch is $100-200 (and it might need the full $2000 polish!). If you're a really good practitioner and it's your own Nihonto, you might risk cutting with it. Otherwise the risk of devaluation is too high. Even if you're polishing the sword yourself, how many hours are you willing to put into removing a scratch? The nicer you want it to look, the longer that's going to be! I wouldn't spend 75+ hours polishing a sword I'm going to cut with. That's what my beaters are for! Unless you live in Japan, I think cutting with any nihonto is just stupid. Even an unsigned one is a piece of history that can never be made again. Once it's wrecked, it's gone forever.
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Post by blairbob on Nov 28, 2023 11:03:11 GMT
I can remember Keith writing about it either on SFI or Bugei's own forum but not half a container!
This is why I think it's so important to buy from a CASIberia/Hanwei seller that will check it out in person rather than just drop shipping it and hoping there are no issues.
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