Shinken (真剣), 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 organisation. Those swordsmiths are limited by law to producing no more than twenty-four swords a year each. 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.

See also

• katana