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Shinken
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shin·ken (真剣, しんけん), lit. "real sword", is a newly forged Japanese sword, usually for high level iaido and/or tameshigiri (cutting) practice. As opposed to an iaito (a regular metal sword for iaido practice), a shinken has a sharp edge and is hand-made by one of approximately 250 Japanese swordsmiths active at the moment, most of them members of the Japanese Swordsmith Association, but also a few amateurs who work outside the organization. Those swordsmiths are limited by law to producing no more than twenty-four swords a year each, causing many swordsmiths to make cheaper alloy iaito as well. This limit, along with highly specialised skills and the need for a great deal of manual labour, accounts for the high price that a shinken can fetch - starting from about $4,000 for the blade alone, and going many times higher for genuine Mukansa or Ningen Kokuho blades.
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