About Sword Buyers Guide

"Behind the Scenes at SBG"

Hi there fellow sword lover!

I'm Paul Southren from Adelaide in South Australia - your host and chief editor of SBG (yup, that's me dressed for a casual evening dinner with friends of course! Heh).

I started this site in February 2005, not just a sword review site, but also as a resource to help shorten the usually fairly steep learning curve encountered when someone starts to get interested in anything beyond a display sword...

As such, I like to think that my task here is to help you find the best value for money truly functional swords - while avoiding the cheap and nasty 'sword like objects' that fall apart in your hands when swung or used against even the most basic (and boring) target like a cardboard box...!!

"In short, I like to keep the site simple and FUN..." :-)

MY 'QUALIFICATIONS'

My own knowledge of swords comes from studying books written by the experts, trawling through countless old forum posts and a fair amount of sword handling and test cutting experience...

Despite this (or maybe because of it!), I am not at all embarrassed to say that I do not consider myself in any way as a 'sword expert'. (Indeed, there are people at places like Sword Forum International and My Armoury who have probably forgotten more things than I will ever know...!)

...The only problem is that some of the experts at these forums have a bit of a reputation as being 'sword snobs'.

In other words, if you ask some of them a question about a sub US$300 sword, the typical response is a flippant 'save up your money for something more expensive'.

But as my site and the experiences of my visitors have demonstrated, there are quite a few very sturdy and eminently functional swords in our price range - the real 'jewels in the junk' - and finding these jewels is exactly what SBG is all about...!

REVIEW FORMAT AND RATINGS

We try to standardize our reviews as much as possible, generally starting off with some background info on the sword in question, a component by component overview and then, if appropriate, test cutting results - with lots of original pics and more often than not, a video or two..

At the end of each review, we then wrap it up with a quick 'pros and cons' overview and give the sword a 'star rating' out of 5. The star rating system should only be used as a rough guide, as it is fairly abstract - taking into account factors such as the swords overall quality and value for money combined (i.e. if a sword is only of average quality, but very cheap - it might have a 3 or 4 star rating. If it's an amazing sword, but very expensive, it might lose a rating point... The general idea is that the rating system represents overall quality AND bang for your buck, so just use it as a rough guide - don't take it as gospel!).

To give you some idea of what the different ratings mean...

Each review ends with our recommendation on where to buy the sword being reviewed, for the best price from a reliable and well respected sword vendor. You are of course free to browse the internet for a different seller, but we highly recommend that if you do you stick to our list of tried and trusted sellers listed here in the sword buyers directory as there are quite a few unreliable, and even some downright deceptive sellers out there, so 'caveat emptor' (buyer beware) applies if you go it alone (after all, this IS the internet!!)...

FUNDING

You can probably tell that this site is my passion and a labor of love.

But buying swords to review, giving away FREE SWORDS to my growing review team (For details on how YOU can join the team, click here) and numerous prizes awared to subscribers of my online magazine is obviously a pretty expensive exercise...

Initially, all these expenses came out of my own (rather shallow) pockets. But over time, as my site grew and its reputation began to grow, I was able to make my site self funding without having to compromise my sites integrity...

As a big believer in transparency, I have no problems letting you know that SBG is funded via the following methods:

1) We have affiliated ourselves with THE most professional and customer service focused sword sellers in the industry. Because they have such low prices (and low margins) the percentage of each sale we refer to them is much lower than many of their competitors who offer a similar program, but I refuse to link to sellers who do not offer the best prices and the best service..

I've lost count of the number of deals I have knocked back simply because they are not in my site visitors best interests (we are here for the long term, not to make a 'quick buck').

2) Like most content sites, SBG also receives a small but steady trickle of money from google adsense ads sprinkled on relevant pages. Not a huge amount, but enough to pay for a new sword every month!

3) Finally, SBG is funded "the old fashioned way": by direct sales from the SBG Sword Store where I have arranged some truly excellent value for money deals on swords that I personally recommend and stand behind, as well as some 'SBG exclusives'.

This actually came about by chance, as originally we never intended to be a sword seller ourselves - but you can read more about how SBG started selling Cheness swords and how the SBG sword store got started by clicking the link.

I've found that by maintaining my sites integrity as a completely honest, unbiased resource - and ALWAYS putting the needs of my visitors first – SBG has grown in leaps and bounds and is now completely self funded and even making a reasonable profit.

And while I'm certainly not rolling in cash, in November 2006 SBG was making enough money so that I was able to follow my passion, leave my day job, and dedicate all of my time to building and maintaining my site, online magazine and sword store on a full time basis...!

I definitely feel very blessed... As not only do I get to review and test swords for a living, but my site now pays for my own personal sword collection!!!(I don't mean to brag, but... Well... How cool is that!?!)

HOW I BUILT MY SITE (MY SECRET!)

What's funny is that when I first started to build SBG I really had no clue about website design or indeed didn't even know a single snippet of html code - and even now still consider myself to be barely computer literate...!

So how on earth did someone like me build a site of this size that is literally visited by 3,000+ people a day (and counting) and is in the top 1% of all the websites on the internet??!

SBG started as an idea back in January 2005 when I started playing around something called SBI! (Site Build It!) Dr. Ken Evoys 'revolutionary' no BS approach to online businesses (which is really just a no brainer), the principles of which I would sum up as "put the needs of your visitors first, take your time and have FUN writing your own original content about something that you REALLY love and enjoy. Do this and the money will come - but it's not where your focus should be.."

This sounds like an ad I know, but its true - and I am not the only one this system (which takes a lot of hard work and PASSION) has worked with You can see a very impressive list of several hundred other SBI! websites that have made it into the top 1% of all the sites on the net - covering topics as varied as martial arts, world war II planes, Chinese tattoo designs, weight training – even a site on medieval siege weapons! Check them out here it's a ridiculously huge list - SBG is in there of course!

It's hard work, but man is it a lot of fun.

Anyway, thank you for having an interest SBG and how Sword Buyers Guide came to be. If you have any questions at all, feel free to drop me a line.

Paul Southren

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