Category Archives: Store Product Info and Musings

The joint collaboration between Clyde Hollis of Kingdom of Arms and the skilled artisans at Blade Culture International has certainly experienced some setbacks and delays from Covid-19 related restrictions in the Philippines where these blades are lovingly hand forged. But despite the setbacks and severe understaffing – they have managed to restock at least one of the nicest blades from this venture – and introduce 4 new products (though none are, strictly speaking swords – but certainly will appeal to sword collectors and fans of European history).

The restocked sword is my favorite in the line up so far – a tribute to Fantasy Rangers with their ‘Sword of Strider’

Other new swords were supposed to arrive along with the restock, but only 4 new items were able to be completed in time with the rest coming in hopefully by the end of October.

So without any further ado – here are the new additions:

Designed by Bruce Brookhart, the pictures don’t really do this blade justice – but Bruce’s Video certainly does!

Next up, a very inspired and beautiful Scottish Sgian Dubh (the second model released in their line up) – truly a bargain for such a piece of hand crafted art (just $129).

And then there are the feasting sets – much better quality than anything else similar on the market and great for pumpkin carving this Halloween!

Awesome and rare new additions to round out any collection – but the best is yet to come, so stay tuned for more updates accordingly!

While the industry generally is still struggling to restock and find the ‘new normal’ balanced between supply and demand, we are pleased to show you some brand new (and quite revolutionary) swords from our friends at Ryujin Swords.

First up, an almost perfect entry level traditional Katana from the new Sengetsu (War moon) series.

With tightly wrapped cotton itomaki, solid brass Samurai themed fittings and a beautiful, traditional 1095 carbon steel blade with unenhanced natural hamon – this sword ticks all the boxes, and is amazing value at just $229.99.

The next sword is one of the most unique, standing tall at the head of new releases of the so called ‘Art Line’ of Swords – and boy is this one unique..

With a stunning mix of folded 1045 and 1060 carbon steel it has a very prominent Damascus steel pattern – and a very unique, serrated forge hammered spine – again for just $229.99 (click here to see the pictures, the patterning really is something else).

Following hot on it’s heels, 5 more art swords – but these ones are a bit different..

While most swords under $100 use very cheap wooden saya that are prone to crack and rarely fit as well as they should, the new art swords line uses form fitting, crack and scratch resistant PVC plastic – taking the best of modern manufacturing processes on their line of well tempered, and great value, $69.95 range of 1045 carbon steel blades.

Check them out below:

Check out the full line up below:

And one last addition to the line up, a sword that pictures really do not do it justice on – the new Ryujin Oxtail Dao with a whopping 30.5″ blade makes it the largest sword of all those listed here today (though it does not look it).

Amazing value at just $199.99

It was the very first sword in Jason Woodard’s Doomsday Series and it stretched the capabilities of Chris Palmer’s small family business forge in every capacity – creating these swords with longer blades that he specializes in. And over time, it became apparent that not every blade leaving his workshop was receiving the benefits of the heat treatment that was the foundation of the toughness his short bladed swords were famous for..

It was a rocky time as swords were recalled, refunded or exchanged. And out of the ashes it rises once again – the Badlands Katana Version 2.0

After learning that the longer blades were hit and miss in the heat treat department, Jason Woodard went back to the drawing board to redesign his flagship sword. Below is a picture of the original Badland Katana 1.0:

To ensure it had the same basic mass and cutting power, Jason widened and shortened the blade – optimizing it for the cut and creating a unique design that still keeps to the spirit and the cutting power he first envisaged.

After discussing the design features in detail, Chris went to work cutting out the basic shape that would be the template for all future orders of this design – grinding the beveled edge, drilling holes for the multiple steel pins that peg it all together and adding a shallow fuller to the blades spine.

From there it is given a proper heat treatment – something that proved difficult to achieve a consistently good temper with on the original Badland Katana, but is more reliable and predictable when making the shorter blade styles like version 2.0. Below you can see clearly how the steel looks very different where it has been tempered and where it has been left as is to allow for a shock resistant handle.

Once tempered, the sword is cleaned up, refined, polished, sharpened and mounted by pinning and epoxying in Black Mircarta scales on the handle, later bound with deerskin.

I think the end results speak for themselves..

Available to order below, the other previously discontinued swords in the Doomsday line are also in the process of being redesigned and updated, so stay tuned! But in the meantime, check it out below:

Some more good news! Following hot on the heels of the successful relaunch of the Forge Direct Custom Katana we are pleased to see the second major restock for Cas Iberia, one of the largest sword companies around whose brands include Paul Chen’s Hanwei Forge, A.P.O.C., Kingston Arms, Dragon King and more..

With this restock, we see a temporary increase of sword stock across the board. However, as there is a LOT of pent up demand, many of the best and most popular items are not going to remain restocked for very long..

As such, NOW is the perfect time to check what is currently on offer in each of their restocked product lines. So take a quick look and see for yourself if something has come back that you had your eye on now is the best time to pull the trigger because despite a lot of pressure to do so, we have NOT raised our prices yet – and the most popular items are likely to sell out in a matter of days:

The only catch? The volume of orders while managing the actual restock and processing backorders may mean that there could be a delay in shipping until early next week.

But it is a small price to pay to secure some of these popular swords before they are all sold out once more..