Update and introduction to the Black Dragon Forge

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Hi everyone,

Looks like an update is WELL overdue – but with some major product releases and a revolutionary and VERY exciting change just about to occur, I will try to compress 9 months worth of updates into a couple of paragraphs and some pics!

Naturally batch 22 was made, the swords came in – and they were, as we expected, quite lovely.

Unfortunately, batch 23 – which was originally scheduled to open in August/September was put on hold in preparation for phase II of a planned, site wide upgrade and expansion – and so naturally people have been wanting to know when WILL the next batch open, especially as batch 22 met and exceeded our expectations, guaranteeing the future of the project for the foreseeable future.

The answer, in another post – this blog is about to get VERY busy…

ABOUT THE “Black Dragon Forge”

Since 2008 SBG, our Canadian Agent and a micro forge in China who specialized in high end and top quality blades have collaborated together to produce the custom katana that we all know and love and who the blog is all about in the first place.

But at a certain point in our history, we decided to get some stock made of a design combination whose basic theme appeared more than once in EVERY batch, the so called Black Dragon design – and the Black Dragon Katana became the first in a series of swords that were later to be known as the SBG designs series.

Here is the Katana in question:

And now, as we are about to release even more designs to this line and need a better brand identity than “those guys who make the custom katana” a proper name was needed, and the Black Dragon Forge was born – and the blog updated with the new look accordingly…

 

STAY TUNED

As I hinted at earlier in this post, this blog is about to get BUSY. Indeed, I am sitting on a huge amount of news that I need to get out to you guys but will break it down into more easily digestible posts – so stay tuned, some major and exciting developments and announcements are imminent!!!

– Paul

Oops, we meant the 6th – not the 4th (plus quick update)…

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Hi everyone!

I just realized that the stores vacation this year has been advertised as going from the 23rd of Dec to the 4th of Jan..

Sat the 4th, not ideal to commence shipping on and not correct.. The date we had meant to publish was of course Monday the 6th of January and NOT Saturday the 4th as mistakenly advertised..

Anyway, I hope people can be patient with us just a little longer..

In all honesty, we avoid holding Christmas sales per se the last 2 weeks are the WORST for damages, problems, lost items, mix ups and all the major carriers get overheated, overstressed and all in all – its a REALLY bad time to ship vulnerable to breakage and/or non regular shaped parcels – like swords – and it not ending up something like this…

So please be patient with us until the team get back in the saddle on MONDAY the 6th.. We have quite a backlog to tackle and we need to allow a little time for everyone to settle back down from holiday mode and generally get the motor running and get a handle on the backlog, so please rest assured we will do our best to get ack to any loose ends or emails from the holiday period as quickly as we can..

WHILE WE ARE BLOGGING – QUICK UPDATE TIME..

Its going to a pretty big year for SBG as a whole. Indeed regular or semi-regular site and store visitors may well have noticed a series of rolling improvements occuring to the store since around the 15th of December, and even a cursory look at some older images of the store cached by google shows that behind the scenes at the store, there have been major
 changes to both the way it looks and fundamentally operates..

I will save more detailed explanations of what has changed and what is omgoing in another post, but in the meantime just wanted to correct the store opening typo thing and suggest that if you have not visited the store or a few days you might be somewhat surprised at some of the things showing up as the secure update continues to roll out..

To whet your appetite, we have a lot of very cool swords in stock and ready to ship right now that have or will become available to purchase over the course of the next week or so in a new section of the website called appropriately enough..

New Products..

While I think the products designated for this list are exciting, I struggled with how to sum up “new products” in the themed ackground and header.. Actually, it looks terrible – but I am fairly new to using photoshop in any serious way so while I like some of the designs, its my least favorite..

Favorite new theme – SBG Black Dragon Forge!

 I have been doing all the photoshopping nonsense over the last few weeks and am happy with the way most turned out, but this is my fav.

The fire is all from a picture of the actual forge where the SBG custom katana and later some limited edition runs of popular designs have been made since the beginning..

The Black Dragon was our most popular sword – and leading with a small batch of just under 40 swords listed for sale only a few hours previous, – well, we think the “SBG Black Dragon Forge” just sounds cool and fits for us in some way.. But I dont know..

The actual page that is currently hosting this stock of lackdragons is also the page whose top graphic I KNOW is just, well – I was just trying to drum up excitement as the theme in picture form and got, er, this..


                                                                                      
It is ridiculous I know.

My Canadian agent friend who has also been a major part of the whole success of these very popular and well received swords said of the hatching dragon in the image that maybe I really have been living in Kawaii obsesssed Japan for too long..

But I dont kmow, how can I really capture how exciting and cool this page will be

And I dont know, its I thought amusing at first, but when you have a botique run of the Black Dragon Katana appear for sale along with the last release of the last few Jian of Marquis Yi on one page as a WARM UP – this is as good as anything else..

But anyway, thats all for now – will post again soon as there is quite a lot going on and even more generally in store around the place in the next few months for you, so until then – watch this space!!!

NEW ADDITIONS AT THE SBG SWORD STORE

Cheness Restock, Valiant Armoury and SBG Limited Editions!

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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:

Old Pricing

(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