anyone heard about this place?

[Tommy S]

Hi i was wondering if anyone on this forum has have any experience with buying swords from this place http://www.swordart.co.kr and if u have what is the quality of their products?.

Im was quite amazed when i first saw this sword. http://www.swordart.co.kr/producte/02jingum/02japjin/jap12jingum/jap-12.htm
and im eager to find more info about this manufacturare...but my ability to understand the korean language is quite limited.

i apologize for my bad english.

[seskoad]

where are you from man??(Just curious maybe you are indonesian too) What do you use the sword for? is for collection or training? if for collection maybe the sword is good enough but for training I don't think it's suitable. It does not look like real iaito but I am not an expert so don't count my opinion.

[Tommy S]

Im from Sweden and when it comes to this sword i'l think its a sharp sword not an iaito cause the price is quite high about 200 000yen if i calculated it right, my interested in this sword is a future investation cause i am beginner when it comes to Iaido and i will settle with a standard Iaito for now. But im really eager to save up the money to maybe buy this sword in the future if its cut out for Iaido practice.

[GarethB]

I don't read any Korean at all. I've had a look at the closeup pics on that site and the metal for the blades looks like either aluminium-zinc alloy or possibly stainless steel (I'm not 100% certain, but it looks a bit too white to be carbon steel IMO, unless it's the lighting used for the photos). They may have some blades in alu-zinc and some in stainless. Either way, if they're not made from carbon steel, they're not intended for cutting. If they're made from stainless, I'd personally be very wary of using them even for Iaido kata.

Some of their items do look interesting and if you're only looking for a sword you can display in your home (and you aren't concerned about something with a more antique appearence) they should be fine. If you want something that you can actually use in some way, I wouldn't buy anything from them without contacting them and finding out what metal they're made from and how secure the blade and tsuka (grip) are, at the very minimum. As for overall quality, they don't look any worse than Japanese made Iaito to me, and they appear a lot better than many el-cheapo display swords from other parts of the world, but I certainly can't say anything more definitive based on web site pictures.

What I did find interesting was following a link from that site onto another site that is selling what appear to be signed katanas with hamon for around the same price as the swords on the swordart.co.kr site. http://www.n-p-s.net/katana.htm (click in the white text in the dark green bars on that page). I suspect that these are made in Korea or China, and I'm not sure if the prices are in Japanese Yen or Korean Won, but the text on that page doesn't look Korean to me. Are they any good? It's impossible to say without looking at one in person, although the polish of the blades looks a bit rough to me. The hamon on this ( http://www.n-p-s.net/katana-10.htm ) shows some evidence of not being faked and there does appear to be some jihada ( http://www.galatia.com/~fer/sword/buy/jihada.html ) in the metal between the hi and the hamon (see the fourth pic from the bottom). Hmmm, interesting....

[roninseb]

I checked the website and the sword you linked to if you check the URL is called shingum (Seems to bo shinken/real sword in Korean). The only thing that gets me is the fact that the blades look awfully shiny but this could be just the way the picture was taken. I am tempted to write to them in English and ask them since some of those have really nice mountings. I suspect that those shinken are mounted with Japanese fittings or fittings the were acquired in Japan that were then copied/reproduced in Korea or China. IF anyone as more info please share it with all of us.

[Tommy S]

The japanese site u mentioned GarethB was the site i found the link to the korean site and i also looked at some of N-P-S swords and the korean site sells some Iaitos that also appears on the N-P-S site and if u compare u will notice that that swordart uses alot of light and photo skills when displaying their swords and i guess that's the reason that the blades are unusually white.

[GarethB]

Tommy, yes. I do some photography and understand that depending on how you use a flash and other lighting, you can make something appear different in a photo compared to looking at it with your own eyes. This is particularly true when polished metal is being photographed. It's possible that very bright lighting/flash was used and that the metal looks whiter in the pictures than it really is.

There are some things about the NPS site that puzzle me, but I'd need to write a small essay to explain why, so I'll leave it be for now.

[Jonathon T]

wow, some of those look really amazing! Heres some more I found

http://www.swordart.co.kr/producte/03gagum/produc3.htm

Anyone know of an english version? I'ld love to order one of these.

Jonathon

[Jonathon T]

:nw: :nw:

http://www.swordart.co.kr/producte/03gagum/20nps/20ga.htm

:nw: :nw:

Jonathon

[Shihogiri]

As mentioned earlier, shingum is a shinken (live blade) and gagum is an iaito (mogito). Jonathon, the blade you seem to like is an iaito.