New Product Releases
Albion Swords Ltd
The people over at Albion Swords have put out a whole batch of blades for 2010. With three new gladii, and a new spatha, Albion Swords has made it really hard to hold on to your money. The gladii released are the Tiberius, the Augustus, and the Trajan. Each is a modern representation of classical Roman forms.
The Tiberius is a Fulham style II gladius. This particular sword features a hilt made from hand-crafted
walnut and has a brass guard plate and pommel nut.
Bugei
The Peace sword, and the Old Pine Sword mark the first additions to the Bugei product line in a very long time. The Bugei swords are each a work of art in the truest sense. Seriously, James Williams gave Keith Larman, of Summerchild Polishing, free reign to design the Peace Sword from the "ground up". This sword features a more historically accurate design, from the slightly thinner saya, and fittings, to the blade design (based on Hizen Tadayoshi school). The blade design itself is actually something to behold. This blade feature a full bo-hi as well as a thinner groove, soe-hi below the shinogi, the central ridge. This coupled with the prominent hamon (milky white area at the edge), really lends this sword a very artistic appearance. This should not be a source of underestimation. These swords are still from Bugei, and thus promise to be quite fit to do some serious cutting. The pretty pictures can be found here:The Old Pine Sword is a special sword on its own. This sword is made with Bugei's fancy new super steel. So as not to bias this article, I will quote James Williams directly with regard to this metal:
"This beautiful sword was created using a new, modern, high alloy unfolded steel with a completely modern heat treatment developed by a metallurgist at Hanwei. The result is a sword with an extremely interesting hamon and incredibly high performance. James Williams has spent a great deal of time with a number of prototypes and has cut a huge number of varied targets with these swords. James has said that there is *nothing* on the production market today that approaches the durability of these blades."-James Williams
The fittings on this sword fall inline with the kind of quality people have come to expect from Bugei. Apart from this, there is nothing really oustanding about them. The Old Pine motif is supposed to symbolize the perennial durability of this sword. Bugei promises that this sword will be a "workhorse" for years to come. Again, all of the great pictures can be found here:
