who is top dog for the buck

by Josh
(Louisiana)

QUESTION: Ok. I'm confused is there any difference between Masahiro, Musashi,and Shinwa? They all seem the same, they even have the same names for some of thier swords. What I would realy like to know is, if they are different then who has the best overall quality and who is most reliable? What I'm trying to ask is who is top dog for my hard earned bucks?

ANSWER: The situation is that there are quite a few forges and factiories in China, and they often make the same swords for different 'manufacturers' - creating a situation where the only difference is in the packaging or the product name.

Musashi have been quite open about this, and their best swords are made at Chris Zhou's forge (such as the Wind Katana, reviewed here) - though these tend to be a bit pricier than the others (but worth every extra penny!).

If I had to sum it up, when it comes to this level of swords, look more at the SELLER rather than the manufacturer. Swords at this price range make more than their fair share of lemons, so the important thing is to ensure that you buy from a seller who does some preliminary pre-inspections and weeds out the utter crap ahead of time for you (or has a good reputation for taking care of customers if something goes wrong).

Hope this helps.

- Paul