Happy New Year!

Hi everyone, hope you enjoyed the New Year celebrations and here’s to a happy and healthy year in 2012!

Quite a bit going on at the moment (and lots more in store for 2012!) but a couple of immediately newsworthy things..

RONIN KATANA 1045 LINE

Firstly, you may have noticed a brand new line has been added to the SBG Sword Store – the Ronin Katana Dojo Line

While the Dojo Pro series uses 1060 carbon steel blades, the Dojo line is a ‘budget’ version that uses 1045 – but unlike most other 1045 carbon steel swords these ‘Dotanuki’ style blades are thick and extremely well tempered, resulting in a blade that could easily be mistaken for 1060 (indeed, a dishonest seller could easily pass them off as such and only a handful of experts would be able to tell the difference!).

Anyway, there are 5 designs in this series – 2 traditional ones, and 3 somewhat ‘anime’ themed swords including 2 with Shinobi/Ninja themed fittings as shown below:

Ronin “Miyamoto” Dojo Katana

Ronin “Okinawa” Dojo Katana

Ronin “O-Suzumebachi” Dojo Katana

Ronin “Black Shinobi” Dojo Katana

Ronin “Red Shibobi” Dojo Katana

All of these designs are available at a super low price of just US$174.99 with FREE shipping in the USA and come with a 7 day inspection period. As far as value for money goes, it honestly doesn’t get much better than this and I am proud to be able to exclsively offer you these designs.

CHENESS CUTLERY WAREHOUSE HOLIDAY

In other sword store news, the Cheness warehouse will be closing down for a company holiday for three weeks over the Lunar New Year holiday period, so the last chance to get an order in and shipped is really either by today or Thursday at the absolute latest, with all orders coming im after this time shipping after the 1st of February. So if you want to get a Cheness sword before the warehouse closes, NOW is definitely the time to do so..!

That’s it for now, though stay tuned – there is a lot going on behind the scenes at the moment and 2012 will see several long term SBG projects that we have been planning come to fruition!

Talk to you all again soon.

– Paul

Boxes finally made, tracking information to follow

Just a quick update for those customers from batch 17 who have been waiting patiently for the boxes to be made, even though they were a day late with it I am pleased to advise that the boxes are FINALLY made and that some tracking numbers will be issued to everyone shortly (though it may be a day or two after Christmas).

Thanks for your patience – I’ll be in touch with everyone individually soon.

– Paul

Delay on the last of batch 17 shipments

This is definitely extremely frustrating – the last few batch 17 Katana are stalled due to a very annoying issue..

While most swords have been shipped out, a couple of weeks ago we ran into a problem with the shipping boxes. As you probably know, the swords are shipped within a form fitting styrofoam box shown below:

The problem is that we also need to ship this box with an external cardboard box, but the company that makes them for us ran into a delay and then seemingly got overwhelmed by the general Christmas rush, so the most recent update we have is that the boxes will be ready by the 22nd of December..

To say this is extremely frustrating is an understatement, and while we have shipped or are in the process of shipping several swords that were intended as Christmas presents via Express on our dime to cover it, the last few are still stalled and all we can do is keep pushing this company to hurry up and deliver the boxes..

Anyway, I truly am sorry for this delay – we are doing our best and once all the smoke has cleared I’ll be looking at some ways to try and offer something more tangible than just an apology to everyone who ended up waiting longer than expected.

– Paul

Free 3 day select shipping for Christmas on Ronin

Just a quick update, the Dojo Pro Line has been added to the store and until the 20th of December you can get one in time for Christmas in the USA with free 3 day select shipping!!

Otherwise, I think that most of the other products in the store are unlikely to make it in time for Christmas, so if you are looking for a last minute bargain – this is definitely it!

Ronin Katana at SBG

Cheness and Ronin Back in Stock!

Just a quick post to let everyone know that after a loooong time of running low on stock (or in the case of Ronin, no stock!) both Cheness and Ronin restocked within the last 24 hours and there’s some great news for both of them..!

Cheness are 100% restocked on their entire range of swords, including of course the infamous SGC Yamakami Katana (which has been out of stock for perhaps 5 months?) and one of my favorite traditional Katana of all time, the Kaze Katana (which I think has been out of stock around 2 months)..

They also have introduced the choice of a bo-hi or no-hi (solid bodied blade) on their range of Tenchi Ko Katana and the Tenchi Wakizashi so now you can get a Tenchi Daisho set (full length Katana and matching shortsword) in whichever configuration you prefer.

At the same time, Ronin Katana have their entire range back in stock with the NEW swords that I mentioned starting to be listed within the next 24-48 hours, though for now the super cool Ko Katana and the O-Katana (pictured below) have been listed, and of course models 1-7 are finally back in stock..! (its been a looong while, maybe 6 months!).

It seems that the Ronin swords are getting even BETTER than ever, with much better kissaki shaping and sharpness than ever before. You can see what we have so far here (more swords being added shortly).

While it is a bit disappointing that these swords are arriving so close to Christmas, and as such may not be able to make it in time for Christmas (depending on how close to you are to the warehouses – San Diego for Cheness and Texas for Ronin) some models may well sell quite fast so it is recommended to get in over the next few weeks if there is a particular sword that you have been waiting for as the next restock will not be for quite some time (and Cheness in particular will be closing their warehouse for 3 weeks in mid-January for a much deserved vacation, so the sooner you get an order in the better).

Another update coming soon but it’s definitely nice to have some stock again as I really was starting to feel like mother hubbard there for a bit..!

– Paul