Store Functionality Upgrades

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Over the coming weeks and months I will be spending a lot of time updating the store and working on ways to make my customers experiences better.

Two of these changes have been added in the last couple of days – the first one is a much better and more robust shipping module. In the past we had some orders come in for products that cannot be shipped to some countries, or that did not automatically calculate the shipping cost which created a fair amount of extra work and delayed the order. This has since been fixed, and it would seem the new module is doing a great job.

The second update is an ‘out of stock’ notifier so if you click the order button on a sword that is out of stock you get the option to enter your email address and be notified when it comes back in.

Many more changes and updates are on the books – our goal is and has never been to be the biggest store. The store is, after all, just a way to fund the site and SBG community. So competing with normal sword stores is not something that we want to or will do – the more varied the vendors the better for everyone!

Our goal has always been to highlight a few really good swords that are not widely distributed elsewhere – and do it in a way that makes it as easy and informative for the sword buyer as possible.

More coming on this shortly, we have some very exciting months ahead. 🙂

Talk again soon,
– Paul

Batch 18 and 19 – quick update

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Ok, just a very quick update – I’m actually waiting on some pictures from the forge of batch 18 – but in the meantime, since we are a bit overdue for an update, this quick blog update will have to suffice.

Batch 18 is running a couple of weeks behind schedule as suspected due to the Chinese New Years celebration that lasted the better chunk of January, but the forge promised 100% completion by the 21st of March at the worst.

Naturally I am waiting until the swords are completed and shipped out from the forge to my agent in Canada before opening up on new orders for batch 19. So in the meantime I will be contacting everyone who has asked a question about the custom swords as we usually prefer to answer such questions as close as possible to when we start to take new orders again to ensure we provide the most up to date information (because as anyone who has been following the SBG custom Katana over the years will know that we do add new options and improvements every few batches).

Anyway, just wanted to let you all know where we are up to – stay tuned, not long to go if you are waiting for your sword to come in or waiting to place your order.

– Paul

Quick Update

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Phew, that flu really did mess up my schedule (first time in 7 years I have had a cold or flu, so I felt like I got ‘up to date’ and came down with at least 7 years worth in one go! Lol).

Anyway, there were actually quite a few new products added to the store during the flu downtime – including the 3 for 1 price deal on 3 models of the Hanwei/Tinker Pearce blunt training swords, the latest batch of Hattori Katana (including my favorite, the model 2202) – the last of the $149 Raptor Katana sold and post-flu, recently added, a LAST chance to pick up the Hanwei Yasukuni Colonels Gunto (pictured below).

Oh, and I nearly forgot, we also added one more in stock SBG Katana – the Yukiken (snow sword):

Speaking of the SBG Custom Katana – an official update is coming soon, but batch 18 is nearly finished and will ship out from the forge within the next 2 weeks, so that means we will be gearing up for the next batch VERY soon. For more information on these, please check the SBG custom Katana blog.

Anyway, apologies for the lack of updates – talk to you all again soon!

– Paul

– most notably the fourth addition to the SBG

Bit of a back log..

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Hi everyone,

I had been meaning to give an overview of new products added since the start of this month but after completing this months issue of the sword buyers digest came down with a nasty flu and fever. And while I have been working sporadically the whole time, there is a significant email backlog that I am doing my best to answer..

So if you are waiting on a reply from me on something non-urgent please bear with me a little longer, I am trying to address the most urgent emails first at this point – while it’s a good thing to say that I handle my own emails, times like this make it a bit of a nightmare..

I should be caught up soon and will do another proper update then.

Thanks for your patience,

– Paul

“Instant” SBG Custom Katana? Kind of…

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Sometimes customers of the SBG custom Katana, having waiting 3 months or more for their personalized design or having decided so at the start, decide not to actually use these blades to the full potential of the cutters that they are.

This fantastic photo sent in by one of the batch 17 custom Katana shows that many are intended for functional art or display swords (real swords behind glass, a LOT different than a purely decorative sword as any serious collector knows).

The customer that sent me this photo asked me about the other recent SBG made blades available ex stock, the blinged up SBG prototypes – but these swords again are just a little too nice to just use as a daily cutter.

So I am pleased to offer him and everyone else a solution.

It’s been on ice for a few months as I didn’t feel comfortable releasing it until batch 17 was wrapped up properly and batch 18 well underway – but here it is now:

Introducing…

The SBG “Black Dragon” Katana – a basic SBG custom Katana based on a popular design configuration, premade and in stock!

This basic design first appeared in the SBG custom Katana gallery, and since then has proven very popular – with at least 2-3 orders with every batch (and quite a few more that are similar). No real surprise actually, as they are some of the coolest fitting sets on offer.

Basically, it is a 28″ blade available with or without bo-hi with P2 brass Dragon tsuba, C10 Dragon fittings and all black ito wrap/rayskin plus a black glossy saya.

Rather than explain it all again here simply click the link below to read the full story.

SBG Black Dragon Information

Hope you like them!

– Paul