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Forum Question Posted By: Replies:
Japan
Samurai swords in Japan
Posted: Tue July 19, 2005 07:16 AM UTC
I've love to buy a Samurai sword while in Japan (if it's cheaper then elsewhere) but not sure where to look.

Any suggestions?
Thanks!
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Japan
RE: Samurai swords in Japan
Posted: Tue July 19, 2005 10:00 AM UTC
Do you have a first born child to sell? A genuine katana is very rare and expensive; thousands of dollars. A cheap one (worth about $9000) was used on a TV show recently to split a round fired from a .45 automatic pistol from 5 meters away. If you are looking to get one of the cheesy fakes, then any old gift shop will carry them (complete with stand). You can also get sushi (the kind used by expert chefs) knives made the same way the original katana was, but they too cost into the thousands. They are called hocho. The largest of these hocho can be over a meter in length.

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RE: RE: Samurai swords in Japan
Posted: Tue July 19, 2005 10:35 AM UTC
ditto. authentic swords are very expensive and some of them are literally priceless. there's a small museum (called the japanese sword museum, surprisingly), which i believe is somewhere near nishi shinjuku although it's down a quiet side street and difficult to find, if you want to see some of the real thing. you can search for it on google and find a map.

much bigger and more interesting though with fewer swords is the tokyo national museum in ueno park.

plenty of cheap replicas are available from specialist gift shops along with all kinds of knives and so forth.

before you buy one i'd advise you to check import regulations for your home country and any applicable local laws on swords. i'm not sure it would be legal to bring such a thing back into the UK, for example.

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