Samurai Swords Buyers Guide
Your Guide to buying a quality Japanese Samurai Sword
At
Japanese Swords 4 Samurai we offer a wide selection of
Japanese swords and other oriental weapons, such as
ninja swords and various other Chinese
swords & weapons. You will also find several
authentic samurai swords to choose from. Our most popular are
Paul Chen Swords and
Thaitsuki Nihonto Swords.
When it comes to
samurai swords, there is quite a bit of terminology for the new collector to
understand. But we want to make it easy for anyone to find a good
quality samurai sword that will last a lifetime, no matter if you’re looking
for one of the very sought after
Paul Chen swords for battle or just a quality sword to hang over the
mantle.
The first thing to consider
for your new samurai sword is the type and quality of the blade. If you’re
looking for a
battle ready samurai sword you want to be sure and choose a full tang blade,
which all of our authentic samurai swords feature as well as all of our battle
ready swords. The term “full tang” means that the blade and the part of the
sword under the Tsuka (handle) is one long piece of steel. If you get a sword
that is not full tang then you’re basically buying it to hang on the wall and
nothing more.
The next thing to consider
when choosing a sword is the type of steel that the blade is made of. There are
basically 3 types of steel, 420 J2 (Stainless steel), High Carbon, and Folded
steel. If you are looking for a battle ready sword you’ll want to stay away
from the 420 J2 Stainless. High carbon steel is very high quality steel;
however folded steel is the strongest. Actually it’s not that the folded steel
is a different type of steel, but how the blade is forged.
Some people say that a good
high carbon steel blade can be just as strong as a folded steel blade. The
smiths for the
Thaitsuki Nihonto Sword claim to have mastered a form of forging high carbon
steel blades that is just as strong if not stronger than many of the folded
steel blades.
When choosing a sword samurai
sword there are basically 3 different styles to consider, the
katana sword, the
Wakizashi and the
Tanto sword. The
Japanese Katana Sword is the most popular among collectors and martial arts
students alike.
The
katana sword was the first and is still the most popular of all
samurai swords. The blade is typically 29” long with an overall length
around 40” and sometimes up to 40".
The
Wakizashi sword is the shorter companion blade of the katana sword. We
first see the Wakizashi sword during the Muromachi period (1568-1603). The
Wakizashi was about 18” long and only allowed to be carried by a samurai.
Carrying both the katana and the Wakizashi was popular for the next several
hundred years.
The smallest samurai sword
would be the
tanto sword or dagger. Originally tanto swords were 12” in length or less
but it’s not out of the ordinary to come across a Tanto that is 14” long.
Samurai sword collecting is a very popular past time for many Americans.
Something that is becoming even more popular is martial arts that make use of
samurai sword for fighting and cutting exercises. The most popular and
affordable
authentic samurai swords are the
Paul Chen Swords. You can find a
Paul Chen Practical Katana Sword for under $200. However for less than a
hundred more you can get yourself a
Paul Chen Practical Plus Katana. If you’re looking for something a little
more pricy the
Paul Chen Bushido Katana or
Orchid Katana will last a lifetime and can take quite a beating. The Orchid
and Bushido also come in a Wakizashi and Tanto.
Last, even though most are not battle ready, many movie swords are becoming very
popular these days. The
Kill Bill Swords for
instance are in high demand. You can find the
Kill Bill Bride's Sword
for a very reasonable price. They look just like the swords used in the
movie.
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