The Samurai Sword Blog

China has been making swords for thousands of years, and to this day, sword ownership in China is something successful businessmen and families aspire to. Famous smiths can command prices in excess of $100,000USD for a single jian or dao rivaling, and in many instances, eclipsing their Japanese katana making rivals.Becoming a master smith follows the same path it has for countless generations. Apprentice to a master, study, learn, get better, and gain recognition through testing. Master smiths i …

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 …

In part four of the "how samurai swords for sale on ebay get made" series, I am going to focus on saya making. I know the owners of several of the factories making saya, and took pictures in a few different ones. Factory is a pretty lose term, as these places have 3-4 employees. As was shown in part one, the dealers will actually wrap the saya themselves. First up is a look at some of the Ronin dojo pro saya getting made. The brown horn is already attached, and they are about to be taped up …

Ebay sword dealers offer a lot of customization, including custom hamon. As with the other parts of sword making, that too is outsourced to locals who specialize in it. There are several places, that range from very fast, to very detailed. The lower the price point on a sword sale, the lower the amount they are going to spend on a hamon. Consider a hamon no different than fittings, or a saya. It's just something else they need to add to the sword to make the sale.I've visited around 10 places th …

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 …