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Ok, lot’s going on at the moment – so it’s definitely time for a quick post to let you all know where we are up to..

First off, a few hours ago the much anticipated Cheness Cutlery restock has come in and perennial favorites like the Tenchi, Oniyuri and Yamakami Katana are again available to order after being out of stock for around 4-5 months.. No need to panic though, it’s a large shipment and there should be enough stock to last until the next replenishment. But anyway, if you are one of the many people who have been emailing me asking about when they will come back in stock – well, they are here!

Within the next few days, we will also be offering a VERY small number of swords from the SBG custom Katana forge that were made with a minor error by the forge (i.e. wrong ito color, etc – purely cosmetic). There aren’t many, and they will be priced to sell – so be sure to check back for those in the next few days as it’s a rare opportunity to get your hands on one of our incredibly popular differentially hardened T10 tool steel blades. Here is an example of one of the blades we have on offer – a Kogarasu with Hamidashi tsuba and kanji engraving ..

For medieval sword lovers, we have a strictly limited opportunity to get one of Valiant Armouries stunning Signature series blades – either the Savoy Bastard Sword, Hedemark Viking or the single handed Bristol sword. Due to an inability to keep up with demand and rising costs, a price increase of 10% has come into effect on this range – however for anyone who reads this blog you can get them at the original price until the end of the month with the coupon code:

(Please note that this offer is ONLY available to people who use the coupon code in the checkout – we operate on very low margins as is, and Valiant have already increased their wholesale price so this special offer squeezes us VERY hard. As such, it is strictly available to people who use it at the time of ordering – it cannot be applied retroactively)…

OK – so that’s about all for this update. There is actually quite a bit going on right now at the store, with more releases and news coming shortly, so stay tuned – more updates coming soon!

Thanks all.

– Paul Southren 

Hi Everyone,

First off, a quick update for casual readers of this blog (customers have already been notified some time ago) – but batch 21 of the custom Katana has ended up somewhat delayed due to two factors:

1) The most senior Smiths father died as we were trying to wrap everything up to go out before Chinese New Year – and naturally he stopped work to grieve and make arrangements for the funeral.

2) Half of the shipment went out before Chinese New Year, but the other half was not completed due to the Senior Smith absense, and as the Chinese New Year celebration lasts almost a full month, I regret to advise that for half of the shipment at least, we are again seriously behind schedule..

It’s all rather unfortunate, because as you can see from the pictures below – some of the swords in this batch are really quite special..

Some of the batch 21 swords (click for larger image)

And the blades have continued to improve, below you can see the prominent natural hamon that this line has been famous for, and the continually refined yokote line and boshi of the kissaki (tip), an area that is so often left unfinished or unsatsifactory on swords around this price point (simply because, it is so time consuming to do).

A batch 21 blade, note the true geometric kissaki with yokote and boshi

Sadly, it would seem that recently – every batch has been delayed much longer than what we are happy with – and the stresses of managing delayed shipments is really getting to be too much. But it is compounded by the fact that we are still selling these swords at 2008 prices despite massive increases in our costs, domestic and international shipping hikes and the fact that with more possible combinations than every before, the slightest error causes us to either remake the sword or offer some kind of compensation – and the losses have reached the point where it is no longer viable to continue the operation as it stands – especially when the amount of time spent managing the project is in the hundreds of hours per batch…

So as customers from batch 21 know, the future of the project is very uncertain..

As such, we are basically left with three choices:

1) Raise the base price and lower the number of orders within a batch to make it more manageable.  The demand is such that now when we open a batch, orders literally flood in and we have to close it up very quickly.

2) Create a new line, custom Katana 3.0 as it were, with less but better options (and again, at a higher base price). Options on ito colors and fittings will still be available, but blade lengths will be standardized and the fittings will be all iron and brass.

OR

3) Call it a day and end the project entirely…

Essentially, we won’t know for certain which direction we will take until batch 21 is all in and accounted for, so I regret to advise to everyone who is waiting for batch 22 – I cannot provide an estimate as to when or if this will happen..

The only good news is that we do not plan on ending our relationship with the forge itself. Their blades are some of the best I have seen, and the SBG exclusive design line – such as the Black Dragon Katana, Yukiken and other limited edition designs that I create myself will continue, and indeed will likely grow larger as the year goes on. Indeed, right now we have two designs in stock and for sale – the SBG Black Dragon Ko Katana and the Oyabun Shirasaya (pictured below)

One of my own designs, the ‘Oyabun’ (Yakuza Godfather). More designs coming soon..

 Anyway, I really can’t say too much more until batch 21 comes in, the forge re-opens from the Chinese New Year shutdown and we sit down and do some serious price calculations..

I’ll keep you all posted, but in the meantime – thanks to everyone for their support. Hopefully we will be able to come up with something in the coming months – I already have some rather interesting designs for the SBG Limited Edition series – but in the meantime for the freestyle custom Katana series, let’s get batch 21 in and see..

Thanks all,

– Paul Southren

Hi everyone,

Update time – and LOTS going on at the moment. Project X in stock sales are about to begin any moment now (the swords have all landed, been inspected and are basically ready) – the only thing I am waiting on is to complete some listings for a brand new service coming to SBG…

It’s in it’s infancy, and you will see it on the site literally ANY time now (just doing the final testing to make sure that it will work the way it is supposed to). So stay tuned – it’s not going to be cheap as it is a premium service (our customizer is an experienced Japanese Sword Art Sensei based out of Oregon), but it WILL open up a world of options for our customers like never before!

The full skinny will be revealed in the February edition of our online magazine the Sword Buyers Digest due to come out early in the morning of the 1st of Feb, so if you haven’t already I suggest you subscribe!

In the meantime, just wanted to add that Cheness orders will face a shipping lag from now until after the 8th of February as they are taking some time off for Chinese/Lunar New Year (2013 is the year of the snake) – so while you can still place orders for their products they will not ship until around tuesday the 12th.

Got to get back into the fray so talk to you all again soon!

– Paul