If you do start reading the series, one warning: the pacing can get very, VERY slow. Jordan has a tendency to describe everything in extremely minute detail, so there's often an entire 30 page chapter of someone just walking down the road.
Thanks for the compliment, too- I really like the sword. Got a nice full tang, as well as great balance and very light weight (I think it's just a little over 2 pounds)- took a snap of it as I disassembled it to inspect everything
And cool to know about real hamons- now you've got me looking at pics of real and fake ones and it's amazing how much variability there is in the real ones while the fakes are all just creepy, uncanny wavy lines.
(And here's a pic of the nigh invisible hamon on mine:)
And finally, I got this from Valiant Armory- it's a design by John Lundemo, and thanks to it only being his design rather than an entire custom sword by him, it doesn't cost thousands of dollars
EDIT: And your katana looks wickedly cool as well. And yours has the bonus of actually having a razor-sharp blade. I was too chicken to ask for my Warder to be sharpened. Still sharp, but not as sharp as a real sword should be.
