The Samurai Sword Blog

Recently I commented on a thread posted on the SBG forum. The topic was "Are most ebayer sellers operating under a parent company." The question later came up, as it usually does, about whether these ebay sword dealers own factories as they claim. The best way to answer that question is to get an address and go visit. A few forum members chimed in with addresses, and my wife, who is currently in China went for a visit. I asked her to take pictures of the buildings, and visit with the owners of t …

Chinese forges and factories crank out millions of samurai swords every year. They use several hooks to get unsuspecting buyers to purchase their lower quality katana. Among them, certificates of authenticity, fake hamon, and silk covered display boxes. Believe it or not, Ronin actually loses out on sales because we refuse to print up worthless certificates of authenticity. My personal opinion is that the money should go into the sword, and not the box the sword goes in.In this post, I am going …

Ebay sword sellers often, okay always, claim they have a forge and make the swords they sell themselves. Actually, in 100% of the cases, this is untrue. Yep, they are all lying, and not one of them owns a forge. So where do the mass quantities of swords they sell come from? In some cases, they come from overflow from large factories. Ronin, for example, orders 500+ soshu kitae laminated katana every year. Because of the high failure rate, three blades are forged for every one that we order. The …

Every few years this topic comes up in a big way, and my email box goes crazy. While I've published a few factory videos and wrote a few articles for Sword Buyers Guide, I decided since I already pay for a blog, I may as well put my inside access to use on Roninkatana.com as well. So here it is. Ronin Katana has been around for 10 years now, and during that time I've spent many many months in China living and working. My wife is the niece of Chinese national treasure smith Weiping …