Sengoku Seki was an industry: smiths organized under their tutelary Kasuga shrine, arming the war bands of central Japan. Magoroku Kanemoto’s sanbonsugi and the finest Kanesada work prove quality survived inside mass production.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatchThis blade is attributed to a late-gen Kenemoto (兼元) during the late Muromachi period (Late 15th-Early 16th century). The swordsmith name Kanemoto lasted 27th generations from the Muromachi period (the early 16th century) to the Heisei period (modern-day). This blade bears a gold inscription reading “Kanemoto” (兼元). It is said the most skilled Kanemoto of all is the second-gen, also known as Magoroku, who was one of the most famous MINO swordsmiths from the Muromachi period. He forged swords in the Mino province, which is renowned for a particular sword style called MINO-DEN. Each generation was good at creating swords with Sanbon Sugi tempering line (Hamon in Japanese). Sanbon Sugi tempering line resembles a small cedar tree/forest growing horizontally. Highly refined craftsmanship have been passed down for many generations. About MINO DEN MINO-DEN exceedingly prospered during Sengoku Jidai (Warring State period) due to the high demand for weapons. And the location of Mino province beat others. Akechi Mitsuhide controlled Mino province, and Nobunaga Oda ruled Owari province. Tokugawa Ieyasu was the lord of Suruga (Neighboring areas). There was high demand from those powerful feudal lords and their retainers. Furthermore, so many wars occurred between the Kanto region and the Kyoto area. Mino is located in the middle, making feudal lords feel convenient to order swords from MINO-DEN. The blades forged in MINO provinces also had the reputation of their practical design and sharpness. Many feudal lords demanded swords forged in the Mino province. This highly skilled sword-forging technique has been passed down for generations. The smith’s name “Kanemoto” was one of the most famous even after the warring state ended. *Please keep in mind that there are a couple of Kitae Kizu on the blade. Koshirae Plant motifs appear throughout this sword mounting, giving its overall design a harmonious and unified appearance. Fuchi-Kashira The theme of the Fuchi-Kashira is the Chrysanthemum (菊, Kiku). A long time ago, the chrysanthemum was used as a medicine to obtain a long life in China, and it was brought to Japan with this thought in the Nara period (648-781). The chrysanthemum is one of the flowers that symbolize fall, and people have appreciated it very much since ancient times. As its petals form radially, the chrysanthemum has been likened to the sun. That is why this flower pattern is treated as the symbol of perpetual youth and longevity or good health. “Kiku no Gomon (菊の御紋)” is a kind of chrysanthemum pattern, and it has been used as the crest of the Emperor and the royal family in Japan, so it is well-known as a noble pattern. Tsuka and Menuki The motif of these menuki appears to be the lotus (蓮, hasu). In Japanese culture, the lotus is closely associated with Buddhism and symbolizes purity and enlightenment, as it grows in muddy water yet produces beautiful, unblemished flowers. Buddhist statues often sit or stand on lotus-shaped pedestals, and the flower is also associated with the Buddhist Pure Land, a realm of peace and spiritual awakening. Tsuba and Habaki This circular tsuba features autumn flowers engraved on both sides. The front depicts hagi (萩, bush clover), kiku (菊, chrysanthemum), and what appear to be kikyō (桔梗, Japanese bellflowers). The reverse features ominaeshi (女郎花, yellow patrinia) and Japanese bellflowers. With the exception of chrysanthemums, these flowers belong to the Aki no Nanakusa (秋の七草), the seven flowers of autumn. Unlike the Haru no Nanakusa (春の七草), the seven herbs of spring traditionally eaten to wish for good health, the autumn flowers are appreciated for their beauty. Butterflies are depicted among the flowers, adding a sense of movement to the design. Through its transformation from caterpillar to chrysalis and finally to butterfly, the butterfly (chō, 蝶) evokes transformation, renewal, and rebirth. When depicted in pairs, butterflies can also suggest marital harmony and an enduring bond. Saya This scabbard is covered with black lacquer. Due to its high waterproof effect, lacquer has been used since ancient times in Asia. The blade of a Japanese sword is made of iron, and moisture is the greatest enemy of iron. For the purpose of carrying the blade without degrading it, people devised a method of coating the scabbard with lacquer. To prevent not only moisture but also rain and snow from penetrating the inside of the scabbard, it was necessary to apply multiple layers of lacquer. The Nushi (塗師, lacquerers) was born precisely because advanced techniques were required to handle the complicated processes. Authentication Paper They authenticated the blade on November 27th in the 46th year of Showa (1971). They appraised it as Tokubetsu Kichou Touken, an old form of the certificate.
Magoroku兼元
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Sue-Seki / Akasaka (Mino), Kanemoto line · Mino · around 1521-1528
Fujishiro Jo-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 14%
5 pieces on the market now
Among the Mino smiths of the late Muromachi period the published sources name Kanemoto, beside Kanesada, as one of the two representatives of the Seki tradition. The name was carried by several generations, but it is the second, the smith the world singles out as Magoroku Kanemoto, who is held the most technically accomplished, and whose bold two-character signed blades fix the kantei. He worked at Akasaka in Mino, where the family used Magoroku as its hereditary common name; the long signatures reading "Nōshū Akasaka-jū Kanemoto" with dates in the Meiō and Eishō years anchor the first generation, while the niji-mei pieces are read as this prized second hand. There are no examined two-character signed examples bearing a date, so the published commentary places his attribution on the manner of the signature and on the temper rather than on a year-mark, and frankly notes that distinguishing the generations is not yet settled.
The core of his work is the hamon called sanbon-sugi, the togariba (three-cedar) temper he is credited with originating, a run of pointed gunome forged in linked clusters. What the judges return to, blade after blade, is that the second generation does not rule it into uniform threes: "the heads of the gunome become rounded in places, showing change, and the hallmark is that the pattern is not standardized"[[c:1]]. The temper rises and falls in a cursive, gyōsō line, breaking from threes into the "twos, fours and fives" the commentary calls nihonsugi, yonhonsugi and gohonsugi[[c:2]], where the later generations of the line grow sharp-angled and geometric. Ashi enter well, the nioiguchi is nioi-dominant and bright, sunagashi runs through, and on his finest blades kinsuji, yubashiri and tobiyaki gather; one published entry singles a katana out as "an especially cursive, freely irregular sanbon-sugi, the most among works of this same hand"[[c:3]].
The jigane is the Mino constant beneath that temper. It is an itame mixed with mokume, flowing and standing a little with a masame-leaning tendency, fine ji-nie adhering and chikei entering, over which rises the whitish shirake-utsuri of Seki steel, the misty reflection that marks a Mino blade. The bōshi answers the edge: it runs in midare-komi to a jizō-like small round, the return often leaning, with hakikake at the point. The sugata is robust and practical, a Sue-Seki sword made for use: shinogi-zukuri katana of somewhat wide body with strong sakizori and an extended chū-kissaki, and hira-zukuri tantō with mitsu-mune and uchizori.
Not every blade keeps the sanbon-sugi. A small group leaves it for a quiet suguha, which the commentary treats as proof of range rather than the norm; of one katana it remarks that "Kanemoto tempers a suguha, rare for him"[[c:4]], and dates such as Daiei 7 and Kyōroku 2 on these pieces supply the scarce year-marks that documentation otherwise lacks. One suguha tantō is judged a Rai-utsushi, an emulation of Kyoto work that "evokes Kaneyuki"[[c:5]], elegant in shape and in ji and ha; the published note adds that a tell of the smiths working in this Rai manner is the leaning bōshi, which the blade shows. Carvings are uncommon in his work, and bonji in particular are rare, recorded on a single wakizashi.
What sets the second generation apart is therefore drawn from his own work, not from a borrowed comparison: the rounded, cursive sanbon-sugi that refuses to become a template, the bright nioiguchi over a Seki jigane, and the leaning jizō bōshi. The published commentary repeatedly places him at the head of the Sue-Seki smiths, calling individual blades typical yet outstanding work of Magoroku Kanemoto, and reading the geometric, ruled sanbon-sugi as the mark of the later generations he stands before.
Fujishiro grades him Jō-jō saku. Thirty designated works stand on record, with no National Treasure, no Important Cultural Property and no Tokubetsu Jūyō blade among them: twenty-seven Jūyō Tōken; one Jūyō Bijutsuhin, the so-called Aoki Kanemoto said to have cut down Magara Masataka at the Battle of Anegawa; and two katana recorded in Honma's inventory of the Imperial collection. That inventory, illustrating both in sanbon-sugi, adds that Kanemoto also made suguha and rarely hitatsura, but that sanbon-sugi was the temper he did best[[c:6]]. His provenance reads as a roll of warrior houses that prized a cutting blade: the Echizen Matsudaira, the Yagyū family, Tani Tateki, and Makishima Kenmotsu Akishige, whose ownership is recorded in the gold-inlaid inscription that gives one katana the name Sasatsuyu Kanemoto. Because almost nothing in this body of work sits in the locked tiers, a signed Magoroku Kanemoto is among the more attainable of the genuinely famous koto names, yet a fine, soundly preserved niji-mei example with documented provenance comes to market only from time to time, and is a notable thing for a collector to encounter when it does.
Where Kanemoto stands among comparable artisans: across all of nihontō, and within tradition, era, and period. The tiers (Foremost · Leading · Major · Notable) weigh official designations from the NBTHK and Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs, together with historical honors of lasting repute such as the Sansaku and Meibutsu-chō.
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Years he was demonstrably active, proven by signed-and-dated blades
Mino-den · Mino
22 pieces on the market now
Kanemoto (兼元) worked at Akasaka in Mino Province, and the line takes its place among the smiths of the late Muromachi period whom the NBTHK registers under the Mino-den tradition centered on Seki. The setsumei place the family within the Sue-Seki (Sue-Mino) milieu, naming Kanemoto alongside Kanesada as the two leading figures of the province in this era; one tantō note instead pairs the name with Kaneshiba, and another with Izumi no Kami Kaneshige, marking the company the line kept. The name passed through successive generations, and the records repeatedly state that distinguishing each generation has not been definitively settled. Dated long signatures reading "Nōshū Akasaka-jū Kanemoto" survive from the Meiō, Bunki, Daiei, Kyōroku, and Eishō eras, while two-character signatures bear no date. The first generation is documented through pieces dated Meiō 6, 8, 9, and 10, all giving the Akasaka residence; the most accomplished hand, and the one the world singles out under the sobriquet "Magoroku Kanemoto," is the second generation. The shared vocabulary of the line is the sanbonsugi (three-cedar) gunome, a sequence of linked pointed crests that rise and fall in groups. The ground is Mino-den through and through: itame-hada mixed with mokume and flowing masame, tending toward standing grain (hada-dachi), with fine ji-nie, chikei, and a whitish shirake-utsuri that the setsumei call out again and again. The temper mixes togariba (pointed elements) and gunome, is nioi-dominant with ko-nie, and runs sunagashi, kinsuji, and occasional tobiyaki; the bōshi is typically midare-komi turning in ko-maru, often described as Jizō-like with hakikake or a falling kaeri. The chief means of separating the second generation from the later line is regularity: as the generations descend, the pointed crests grow sharply angular and standardized, whereas Magoroku's sanbonsugi is deliberately uneven, the gunome heads rounded in places, and the pattern shifts freely into nihonsugi, yonsugi, and gosugi groupings of two, four, and five. The records describe this as a gyōsō (cursive, free) manner.
The first generation, by contrast, does not emphasize sanbonsugi at all, favoring gunome mixed with gunome-chōji and at times yubashiri and tobiyaki; both generations also made suguha, and one tantō is an uncommon Rai-utsushi in elegant straight temper that evokes Kaneyuki. For kantei, the line is read through the standing Mino grain, the shirake-utsuri, and above all the irregular sanbonsugi, with the leaning bōshi a noted point: the records observe that the honka model and these blades share a bōshi that falls over. Named and documented works recur across the register. A naginata dated Kyōroku 1 (1528) carries the full Akasaka signature and is valued as documentary source material, dated two-character pieces being scarce. A katana bearing a kinzōgan inscription on the reverse is known as "Sasatsuyu Kanemoto" and is recorded in the hands of Makishima Kenmotsu Akishige, of the same clan as Furuta Kosukezaemon. The "Aoki Kanemoto," a second-generation work, is said to be the sword with which Aoki Ichishige, a retainer of Tokugawa Ieyasu, killed Magara Masataka of the Asakura side at the Battle of Anegawa in Genki 1 (1570). A further katana carries a Genna 1 (1615) kinzōgan cutting-test inscription by Nakagawa Saheita reading "two bodies," and one suguha katana descended in the Echizen Matsudaira family. Two katana signed Kanemoto are recorded in Honma's inventory of the Imperial collection. Across these works the line is registered as the cutting-edged representative of Sue-Seki, its hand recognized wherever the three-cedar temper runs uneven over standing Mino steel. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Kanemoto兼元 | 1521-1528 | 30 |
| Kanemoto兼元 | 1532-1555 | 0 |
| Kanemoto兼元 | 1573-1592 | 0 |
| Kanemoto兼元 | 1592-1596 | 0 |
| Kanemoto兼元 | 1818-1830 | 0 |
Mino in the Muromachi period
Sengoku Seki was an industry: smiths organized under their tutelary Kasuga shrine, arming the war bands of central Japan. Magoroku Kanemoto’s sanbonsugi and the finest Kanesada work prove quality survived inside mass production.
This work carries older NBTHK “Kichō”-era papers, which the NBTHK no longer issues and largely disavows today. To confirm the attribution, submission to an official Japanese examination body (such as the NBTHK or NTHK) for modern certification could be considered.
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