The shipping is excellent, and upon initial inspection the products quite fine, but they are not very strong at all. I bought four to help fill gaps in my dojo's equipment. I broke one myself without even hitting another object. The sword was simply not strong enough to cope with the stresses involved in a thorough exercise. Since then another of the initial four has been broken, and I have retired the remainder for children's exercises only. I don't even want to consider what would happen if you struck them against something solid.