The blade on this thing is incredibly sharp. The overall quality is very good, although it seems a bit blade heavy and unbalanced. I imagine if I were looking for an authentic (and perfect) samurai sword I would be spending thousands of dollars. Regardless, this is a beautiful and well made katana for the price.
If you look at the question and answer section for this sword someone asked if you can cut a watermelon. Someone answered that the Damascus lines are just a decal that can be removed with chemicals. This is not true. You can see the continuation of the Damascus lines where the blade has been sharpened.
After doing a lot of research on the types of steel and the way it is made, I settled on the mid range steel in this sword which is not as brittle at the higher rated steel but also maintains its edge better than the lower rated steel. This is a nice trade-off for optimal flexibility and sharpness. The sword itself came with a certificate of authenticity, which was a great touch since this made a beautiful gift for my friend.
Now I may be mistaken, but this looks just like the Musashi Bamboo Warrior katana. Which in that case isn't a pretty awesome bugmdget katana with real carbon steel and hamon. But it's also like only a $100 sword. Soo... Look for the authentic Musashi stamp or Smith signature on the tang.
I spent hours going through the hundreds (thousands?) of swords offered by Amazon, attempting to find a high quality Samurai Sword that I could afford. After looking at many prospects, I saw this beauty that was hand forged and folded and less than $200. Could this be possible? It looked good and I had a good intuition about it so I took a chance and ordered it. Am I ever glad I did.
