Катана 60 (shinken). Сталь, ковка, хамон, цукаито, самекава.
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Shin·ken (), Shin·ken? 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
United States Dollars for the blade alone, and going many times higher for genuine Mukansa
or Ningen Kokuho blades.