These are dull for iaido practice (much safer) so they won't cut people in half but they look and feel fairly real aside from the edge of the blade:

I got a pair of Chinese made matched shinken and iaito, 1065 carbon steel, same 2.55 shaku length blade, same fittings aside from the seppa which are brass on one and copper on the other to tell them apart, same (rayskin, I think its real) and cotton ito wrapped tsuka, take (real bamboo) pegs, one is razor sharp and the other is dull for safety in practice but both are the same weight, length and balance so using the sharp one is otherwise just like using the dull one. Can anyone guess which is sharp and which is dull?











And here they (2.55 shaku long blade, 9.3 sun tsuka) are along with my old previous iaito (2 and 1.5 shaku long blades, plastic handle wrap, wood non-bamboo pegs):



As always, see my flickr page for larger images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/15483055@N07/

I'm going to guess the katana with the gunome midare (wavy) hamon is the sharper of the two. Admittedly... The hamon doesn't appear to have too much waviness in the hamon, but it's there. Forging and tempering a katana with a gunome midare hamon for a dull practice sword just doesn't make sense to me. Not to mention... Their's a blade that appears to have some nie, which is used for polishing and sharpening a katana.

Why just for practice? Well, first, the dull one could be a sharp one by just sharpening it but mostly it is to make them as similar as possible to make their weight and balance as similar as possible. The more they differ in construction, the more they differ in function. I use choji and polishing powder on both the iaito and the shinken.

Just got back from Japan, so sorry for taking so long to respond. I held 500 and 300 year old nihonto katana there! A godan in kendo (the superintentent of the residence I was staying or all things) showed them to me while I was doing laundry. I got some pictures of museum pieces but didn't have my camera on me while doing laundry...

Check my flickr pages for pictures of my trip to Japan if you're interested. Yes, of course I had lots of green tea (and oolong, and mugicha) in Japan and brought back lots too.