The Oakeshott Type XVIII by Kingston Arms was designed by none other than the Legendary Sword Maker, Angus Trim and made by Kingston Arms out of hard wearing monotempered 9260 Spring Steel for the most durable blade possible.
The end result? A particularly well balanced, great handling and almost indestructible blade – now marked down from our already discounted price of $299.99 to BELOW WHOLESALE/COST pricing of $249.99..
One of the biggest problems with buying swords online from even established companies like Amazon.com is that not only do they rarely understand much about the products they sell, but pricing is all over the map.
It’s made worse because at the same time there are certain swords out there that LOOK like they might be quite expensive, especially if the seller is unscrupulous. I mean, let’s take a look at the blade below.
Well, the blade above is in fact made from 1045 carbon steel – the most commonly used (and abused) steel the majority of swords made in China are made from. When through hardened and well tempered, they are surprisingly strong.
For example, while its thicker than average, the early Ronin Katana blades were all made from 1045 carbon steel and could chop up a 2×4 with nary a scratch. And so, it’s very easy for a sword seller looking to make a HUGE profit to market these blades as a more desirable steel and lie about what the components are made from or how they are made (i.e. hand painted when they are a stencil, etc). And even when they are honest about the steel, price gouging is not uncommon. For example, the EXACT same sword pictured below (minus the Ryujin name, they call it the – wait for it…
“Hand-Forging Full Tang Spring Steel Blade Sharp Japanese Samurai Dao Sword Katana Dragon Saya Home Decoration Collection Asian Real Knife Saber” (btw, it’s not hand forged, nor is it spring steel).
We sell for $64.99 is nearly DOUBLE the price here at Amazon.com for a mere $125..
As you can plainly see, it’s very easy for a sword seller looking to make a HUGE profit to market these blades as a more desirable steel and lie about what the components are made from or how they are made (i.e. hand painted when they are a stencil, etc) or just charge a premium because they LOOK like they should be sold for over $100, so they charge what they think they can get away with…
SBG has never and never will operate or support this principle. So to help out buyers on a budget get something decent and fairly priced, we have selected what we feel are the best designs from this series we call the Ryujin ‘Art Sword’ collection – which we first introduced with a couple of models in THIS blog post from September 28.
Here are the next 5 swords in the series:
Sure, the blades may not be made of a fancy steel – but they are honest and certainly safer than most other similar blades – especially those that are folded (many cheap swords that claim to be folded are faked – and believe it or not – you are better off if it IS fake when it comes to cheap folded steel blades, but that is a discussion for another time).
Now this is a pretty good deal just as it is. But, especially for our US based customers, we sweeten the deal because if you order any 3 of ANY of the 1045 carbon steel swords on the new Art Sword Page, you get a FREE SHIPPING and a FREE Tanto valued at $29.99.
It’s going to be a case of the quick and the dead here..
First off, just a quick update on Project X Japanese – right now we are below the 40% mark left for pre-orders, so at that rate it’s pretty likely that all available spots will be taken by the end of the month..
Truly some amazing tweaks to the main designs have been submitted and the forge is already at work making them, so if you are interested in getting a Project X from round 2 – don’t leave it too late as the faster your order comes in, the higher up in the que it is..
Anyway, that’s not what the theme of this post is about. As many of you know, the SBG Custom Katana line recently reached what we think is the point of no return – but we have a few scratch and dent swords that failed QC available for pennies on the dollar – two are one off customs and two are failed QC swords from the Black Dragon Forge which makes the SBG Custom Katana.
Discounts on these are crazy low – and may be the last chance to pick these kind of swords up ever.. (almost all are under $300 with FREE SHIPPING in North America).
Speaking of which, the final sword in the Quick and the Dead Listing – a beautiful basic 1045 carbon steel blade with Dragon engraving on the wood
Only about a dozen are left and once sold out are gone for good.
Blades are solid and well tempered, and the price is just $69.99 – so if you are into last chance special offers, well – you need to take a close look at this baby..
Check out all these limited availability blades, from the best of the best in Project X to the one off scratch and dents and the closeout sale on the Dragon Shirasaya..
While it might be an unlucky day for some, for those of you who are into somewhat more ‘sinister’ swords you just hit the jackpot.
From now until midnight Sunday the 15th we have selected 5 of our most ‘Halloweeny, Friday the thirteenthy’ themed swords to be heavily discounted this Sunday the 15th (midnight EST).
First off, 10% off EVERY sword in the Apocalypse ready A.P.O.C. series of 9260 Spring Steel blades designed by the Legendary Gus Trim.
Already priced well under $200, from now until Sunday you can save an extra 10% off our already low prices. And remember, save even more with $15 flat rate shipping for 1-2 swords and FREE SHIPPING for 3 or more, why not collect the whole set?
And then, the most wicked looking Katana ever – the ‘Shi’ Katana by Dragon King.. With skull themed silver and black fittings as a theme, it sports a stunning T10 tool steel blade and is no mere ornament.
Normal MSRP on this one is just a few $ shy of 1K, but you can get it for just $499.99 until midnight this Sunday..
You might remember from a blog post made on the 26th of April “A lucky Mistake For Some..” where we found out much to our distress that the Wakizashi we had been advertising to match the $229 T10 Custom Katana actually had elite Choji Hamon blades to match the $479.99 Choji Elite Custom Katana..
As such, we had to increase the price from $184.99 (which was fine for the standard level blade, but below cost on the Choji Elites) up to a very reasonable $284.99..
Unfortunately though, this killed off sales of this product entirely.
The only way forward for a Ryujin Custom Wakizashi then is to have them made using the basic hamon as was originally planned, not the high polish Choji Midare hamon – which clearly is not viable at the price it needs to sell for..
So with no sales forthcoming, and a production run of the basic entry level blades commencing soon, this Wakizashi needs to go. So we have marked it down to $179.99 for a final liquidation sale.