a "katana" is a Japanese longsword, single-edged and chisel-tipped.
a "chisa" katana is shorter but heavier than a normal katana. For some reason, this blade "spoke" to me when I held it last Friday (I refuse to purchase a long blade without first laying hand on it - just not wise to do otherwise)
a "tanto" is a knife styled like a katana
a "magnum" tanto is a LONG tanto with a sword-like handguard
"san-mai" means "five layers" - a san-mai blade is one forged from five laminated layers of steel, having different mechanical properties, allowing a better balance of hardness and toughness than single-billet forgings
a "boken" is a practice sword
if you want to see what I'm getting, check out
(88BCK) magnum tanto
(13MBXIII) synthetic boken
(92BK) then, go to www.budk.com to see the price differences ;)
MyAxe.