The most eye catching feature of this sword would have to be the silvered viper and bamboo themed tsuba, followed by the all black handle with bright red saya. All in all, it’s just a great looking piece – and is functional enough for some good old fashioned light backyard cutting (water filled bottles, soft wood saplings, light bamboo, etc) in fact a well tempered 1045 carbon steel blade is often passed off as 1060, 9260 or whatever is the ‘super steel’ of the month because it’s stronger than you might think.  – this is the type of sword you might find in the hands of a wild Kabukimono gang member Samurai or Masterless Samurai who follows his own path and could not care less about offending the higher ups..