Recommendation? Practical katana, Paul Chen or Cold Steel?

[Pistoleer]

I'm looking for a basic practical katana and am thinking of either a Paul Chen Hanwei Practical Elite Katana, or a Cold Steel Warrior Katana. Opinions and advice welcome.

 

[Timo Nieminen]

They'll work. Those two are quite different. The Hanwei has synthetic leather ito and no fuller (bo-hi), differentially-hardened. The CS is longer, heavier, with fuller/bo-hi, through-hardened, and about $80 more. Not being a fan of synthetic leather ito, I'd get the CS of these two, but I'd favour the Hanwei Practical Classic, or maybe the Hanwei Renshu, or some other cheaper sword. Or maybe some more expensive sword.

What do you want from it? What about cheaper swords by Masahiro, Musashi, Munetoshi? (The Munetoshi Lion Dog looks quite good, IMO.)

 

[Pistoleer]

The Munetoshi Lion Dog sounds like a good choice, who do you recommend I buy it from?

 

[Timo Nieminen]

AFAIK, Munetoshi is a SwordNArmory house brand, so you don't get much choice: SwordNArmory or second-hand.

 

[J W Bensinger]

I

The Munetoshi Lion Dog sounds like a good choice, who do you recommend I buy it from?

I have a Munetoshi/Jubei Lion Dog and it's nicely executed. Fittings are steel, real rayskin and a lot of distal taper in the blade-for $100 shipped no less. It actually is pretty durable, too

 

[NihontoEd]

Practical and practical plus are both well made and functional. In my opinion they are the best choices or at least as good as any in that price range.