A quick trip to China

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As anyone who read the latest issue of the Sword Buyers Digest will know, this month I am off to oversee Project X with Chris Scoggin from Ronin Katana, and as I will be in a VERY remote part of China (Longquan is very much off the beaten track) I will have zero internet access during this time. As such, from this Wednesday the 19th of September no orders will ship and there will be no responses to emails until I get back on the 29th.

My assistant Karyn will be overseeing recent orders and shipment information while I am away, but no new orders will be processed from the 19th until the 29th (orders can still be placed, but they won’t ship until the first week of October).

Sorry for the inconvenience folks, any questions or concerns please let me know.

– Paul

Quick Update

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Ok, quick overall update time – as I have a fair bit of ground to cover I’ll break this update up into several sections, starting with:

PROJECT X

Project X closed off around 24 hours ago and formatting the pre-orders and getting the final production information out to the Master Smiths accordingly. Sorry to everyone who is asking if they can get a pre-order in now, at this stage of the game it is a little bit late, but don’t worry – you’ll get another chance when the swords come in sometime in Jan/Feb (sure, the pre-orders get the best pick – but we are making enough swords – made by the RIGHT people – that even the worst of them would still be an incredible buy. And if there are any that come in with any flaws, we will offer them at reduced price respectively).

Updates will be sent via email to pre-order customers, but you can also stay abreast of the project by signing up to the Project X newsletter here.

HOT SPECIALS

With the end of August looming, the Hanwei Raptor special has sold out and been replaced by the Hattori folded model 2202 Katana, back by popular demand.

Check them out here.

SBG CUSTOM KATANA

I will post a proper update shortly on the dedicated blog, but just wanted to keep the stragglers from batch 19 in the loop. Customs finally released all but 10 of the swords and my agent is feverishly inspecting them and shipping as fast as possible without messing it up (after all, after waiting a month extra it would be a disaster to send the wrong sword out just because we are trying to make up for time).

SBG EXCLUSIVES

Held back due to the backlog of the SBG Custom Katana in batch 19, we have been sitting on a quantity of Black Dragon Katana – the famous ‘all black’ design that out of all the possible variations of the SBG Custom Katana appeared time and time again as a popular combination (take one look at it and I think you can see why)..

Shipping may be slightly delayed as my agent concentrates on shipping out those stragglers from batch 19, but we should be fully caught up by next week. Check them out here.

I think that’s about it for the time being, as always any questions send me an email and I’ll get back to you as quickly as I can.

– Paul

Project X Pre-orders closing shortly

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Just a very quick post to let everyone who is interested that we are about to close off on accepting pre-orders for project X – likely within the next 24-48 hours. Due to the price and the wait time, this project clearly isn’t for everyone – but for those patient few who know just how much of a revolutionary deal this is – this is the last call before we close off and submit the orders and the payment to the master smiths.

I’ll post again when we close off so talk again very soon.

– Paul

Quick Updates on Batch 19 and 20

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Sorry for the apparent radio (but definitely not email) silence guys – as many of you will know we are a little bit behind on completing the final shipping of batch 19.
It seems like a rerun of what happened with batch 18, which is very frustrating as we though we thought we had the problem licked. But it seems because of the way we have our batches shipped in from China (by EMS air in separate cartons of 10pcs) again we got about 50% of them through and quickly into the hands of quite a few of you guys (below is a nice montage from a customer from batch 19 with his sword on the right), but the others have been much slower, dribbling through as we fight through customs paperwork and requests (as I am sure you can imagine, importing cartons of many different styles of swords attracts some interest from customs).
A Batch 19 Katana that will see some serious useage, that is for sure!
Fortunately, it should not be TOO much longer now. There are still swords being processed to out, and we also have a restock of the Black Dragon models that came in with them (with and without bo-hi) but I’m not going to list or sell them until we get all of batch 19 cleared up, so my apologies to everyone who has been inconvenienced (customs seems to really like the sword sets)..
Anyway, I’m working on a time frame now to get the last of them out – as I said most of the stragglers are through customs and now being inspected, checked against the original specs, repackaged, cross checked, labelled, etc. Of course, we like to do this the right way so just because we received them late doesn’t mean we want to rush them out the door as I am sure you understand. If all goes to plan, the rest should clear customs by the end of this week and will go out steadily as soon as they are received.
So if you are waiting please bear with us a little longer, I’m waiting on the latest overview report from my agent on what is where and will send out some supplemental emails as necessary to keep everyone in the loop.
Batch 20 is also soon reaching the first month post and apart from the unexpected cancellation of the H17 tsuba (which all effected customers have selected a different option) is progressing smoothly and due to the way customs has again pounced on our air shipping by EMS we will be looking into some new shipping options for this one (sadly they will eat into our already thin margins, but I’ll do my utmost to ensure that when we open for batch 21 in October it will not increase the base price, though I cannot guarantee it – these days it is harder and harder to ship swords overseas, pretty frustrating).
As always if anyone has any questions or concerns just shoot me an email and I’ll get back to you as fast as possible.
Thanks to all again for your patience. The SBG custom Katana are always a rather stressful project for me personally, but when I get delighted emails from customers who receive their own decently made differentially hardened blade made with some very personal, it’s sounds cliche I know, but it really DOES make it all worthwhile..
Talk to you all again soon.
– Paul
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