Temporary Suspension of International Shipping to Australia and New Zealand

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As we draw close to Halloween, the sword industry is experiencing it’s own little horror show..

International shipping has been problematic for quite a few years now as carriers and customs agents across the world become increasingly paranoid and incredibly difficult to deal with, stepping up to an almost complete halt to sword shipping worldwide in 2019..

“XRAY DETECTED A SWORD”! HELP, RED ALERT! RED ALERT!

Of course, we all know what happened in 2020..

But now in late 2021, long term effects of shutdowns and lockdowns has shaken our rather fragile niche industry to its foundations. Prices are skyrocketing, shipping is jammed up, stock is out across the board and restocks are gobbled up faster than they can come in and as of the 25th of October – suddenly brings the majority of International shipping options to a complete halt with this announcement..

The Postal Service™ is temporarily suspending international mail acceptance for certain destinations due to impacts related to the COVID-19 pandemic and other unrelated service disruptions. Customers: please refrain from mailing items addressed to the countries listed here, until further notice.

While most the countries they listed we don’t usually ship to anyway, Australia and New Zealand certainly do effect us (we already had some idea this may be happening ahead of this announcement when we had a few shipments to New Zealand rejected and are currently dealing with the fallout -average cost to ship is $60, so it hurts a lot when we lose shipments suddenly for no good reason!).

Add this these losses extremely low stock levels across the board (heck, despite some successful restocks this year, we no longer have ANY Hanwei Swords available, have seen a couple of suppliers exit the industry, are suffering from lower sales, lower margins and higher prices – it just keeps on getting better and better!

Will definitely want to blow off some steam this Halloween – in the meantime, our apologies to our Australasian customers – we will do our best to update you as soon as this situation changes. Our little industry must be due for a break sometime soon right? (You would certainly think so, the last 3 years have been extraordinarily challenging)..

Doomsday Series – Dark Ninjato Version 2.0

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The second sword in Jason Woodard’s and Chris Palmer’s collaboration, the Doomsday Line by Scorpion Swords, is following in the footsteps of the Flagship Badland Katana with a redesign to a much stouter, more robust blade design that is proven to take a consistently uniform temper and heat treatment – and deliver even more raw power than ever before:

Chris further refined and expanded on Jason’s basic design concept, giving it a more triangular blade to increase the width of it’s signature piercing ability and add more meat and strength to the overall design.

Once the blank had been shaped, the handle was ground and pins drilled in preparation for the tempering and the heat treatment – where the blade is heated to approximately 1500 degrees, until it becomes non magnetic and then quenched in brine (salt water). The 2nd step is Heat Tempering, which consists of heating the steel to 500 degrees for 2 hours, and letting it air cool. This makes for a Rockwell Hardness of approximately 57.

After some additional refinement, the black linen mircarta slab tang handle is pinned and firmly epoxied in place, ensuring the sword’s handle can withstand any abuse (accidental or otherwise) that it may encounter depending on how rough you are with it (and as you may know, these swords have a deserved reputation for toughness).

The handle is then shaped to be ergonomic and comfortable in the hand, and is completed by wrapping it in deerskin leather.

The end result?

One very mean looking, powerful and durable modern style sword – hand made in the USA for under $300..

Dark Ninjato $279.99

Small restock (and sadly, higher prices again)..

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It is becoming a trend now – with the global supply chain officially and royally screwed, shipping prices at insane levels and higher costs across the board, the price pressure that the sword industry has managed to resist for many years can be resisted no longer – and with each restock, prices are getting nudged upwards every time..

This most recent restock was no exception, and while we have done our very best to absorb as much of the increases as we can – the overflow is significant. However, while the prices have gone up, have a look at the restocked items below to see if you feel that despite higher prices, many still offer great value for money..

Case in point, our ‘generic’ medieval arming sword – previously we squeezed the margins to bring the base model (65mn spring steel blade, peened pommel, steel fittings, leather grip and scabbard) to you for just $184.99..

This price was never really sustainable, and recent price hikes have forced the price up to $229.99 – but if you have a close look and compare it to other similar swords on the market (even those selling ‘older stock’ that has not yet been impacted by the cost increases) you will see it is still definitely great bang for your buck.

65MN Spring Steel Arming Sword – $229.99

This model was hit hardest by the price increases because the original price was simply too low and washed us out when the costs increased above our price… But for the following items in the restock, this time around at least, we were able to absorb most of the increased cost – though for how much longer we can hold prices down remains to be seen..

Giant (nearly 40″ blade) Miao Dao

PRICE $229.99 (+$30)

Han Dynasty Chinese Longsword

PRICE $164.99 (+$15)

Gold Dragon – 1045 Carbon Steel Art Sword

PRICE $69.99 (+$5)

Blue Geisha – 1045 Carbon Steel Art Sword

PRICE $79.99 (+$10)

Despite our best efforts, prices are going to keep ticking up incrementally for the foreseeable future – and with no margins to absorb the costs, I am afraid to say that price increases with each restock cannot really be considered ‘newsworthy’ anymore.. It is, I am sorry to say, the ‘new normal’..

But even with this bad news and higher prices, I think you will agree that we have made sure you always get the very best deal possible – and as the sword market has been under-priced for many years, in this turbulent time, such increases are unavoidable.

New Blades From BCI and Kingdom of Arms

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The joint collaboration between Clyde Hollis of Kingdom of Arms and the skilled artisans at Blade Culture International has certainly experienced some setbacks and delays from Covid-19 related restrictions in the Philippines where these blades are lovingly hand forged. But despite the setbacks and severe understaffing – they have managed to restock at least one of the nicest blades from this venture – and introduce 4 new products (though none are, strictly speaking swords – but certainly will appeal to sword collectors and fans of European history).

The restocked sword is my favorite in the line up so far – a tribute to Fantasy Rangers with their ‘Sword of Strider’

Other new swords were supposed to arrive along with the restock, but only 4 new items were able to be completed in time with the rest coming in hopefully by the end of October.

So without any further ado – here are the new additions:

Viking Scamasax

Designed by Bruce Brookhart, the pictures don’t really do this blade justice – but Bruce’s Video certainly does!

Next up, a very inspired and beautiful Scottish Sgian Dubh (the second model released in their line up) – truly a bargain for such a piece of hand crafted art (just $129).

Sgian Dubh

And then there are the feasting sets – much better quality than anything else similar on the market and great for pumpkin carving this Halloween!

Medieval Feasting Set
Renaissance Feasting Set

Awesome and rare new additions to round out any collection – but the best is yet to come, so stay tuned for more updates accordingly!

Long awaited restock and long dreaded price increases..

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With the long awaited (since around March this year!) and long delayed restock of swords from our friends at Ryujin Swords, including the classic bo-hi and solid bodied blade versions of their standard Shinogi Zukuri Custom Katana series and associated sub swords comes some news that is NOT so welcome..

Long dreaded price increases..

You see, the pandemic has been putting massive upward price pressure on pretty much everything around the world – and we have been warning that swords were not going to be exempt. But with global shipping jammed up and at unprecedentedly high prices, we are completely unable to absorb all of the additional costs and have been forced to raise prices accordingly.

This is not something that we take lightly – we fight price rises at every turn and do our best to absorb additional costs at our end for as long as we possibly can. But while we are absorbing a lot – we cannot afford to shoulder all the additional costs – so while the restock is great news, prices are a little higher on all the restocked swords and components..

While prices are a little higher, the increase is MUCH lower than it should be – but with the holiday season rapidly closing in on us, continued worldwide shipping chaos and spiraling inflation pushing on us we worry that this is just the start of a disturbing new trend.

So grab what you can while the prices are still relatively low (we really went out of our way to bear as much of the cost increase as we could muster), because at the end of the day we just don’t know how long we can hold them down:

Ryujin Swords

P.S. We ALSO have a lot of price pressure on our flat rate $20 shipping for 2 swords and FREE shipping on 3 or more. This is becoming very unsustainable – so do not be surprised if we are also forced to overhaul shipping prices in the not too distant future.