Edo was the sword’s age of connoisseurship: the Hon’ami appraisers, the shogunal register of famous blades of 1719, and a thriving literature turned the sword into an object of study even as it ceased to be drawn in war.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatchThis blade was signed by Musashi Daijo Korekazu (武蔵大掾是一). Based on the signature, we believe it was signed by the first-gen Korekazu, active during the early Edo period (1648-1673). The maker’s name Korekazu lasted seven generations. He belonged to the Edo Ishido school, which flourished during the Edo period. He played an essential role in spreading the fame of Edo Ishido school (江戸石堂派) nationwide. The first-gen Korekazu was originally from Omi (近江, Today’s Shiga prefecture). It is said that he was a descendant of Ichimonji Sukemune(一文字助宗) from Bizen(Today’s Okayama prefecture). He moved to Edo and founded the Edo Ishido school at the beginning of the Edo period. This school became one of the most popular ones in Edo city, Musashi Koku. And the third-gen Ishido Korekazu became an Okakaekaji for the Edo government in 1721, exclusively forging swords for the Tokugawa clan. The Foundation of Ishido School Ishido school was founded by Sukenaga, an offspring of Ichimonji Sukemune, who made Fukuoka Ichimonji school in Bizen province (Today’s Okayama prefecture). During 1492-1501 (Late Muromachi period), Sukenaga and his school moved from Bizen province to Omi province after being summoned by Gamou family, a powerful feudal line in that region. Sukenaga started to live in front of Ishido temple, and he changed his surname to Ishido. As of the early Edo period, many Ishido swordsmiths moved to other parts of Japan, looking for better opportunities. Following this trend, Ishido Korekazu moved from Omi province to Edo city (Today’s Tokyo). There are four areas: Edo, Osaka, Kishu(Wakayama prefecture), and Chikuzen(Fukuoka prefecture). It is appraised as a Tokubetsu Hozon Token (特別保存刀剣) issued by NBTHK (Nihon Bijutsu Touken Hozon Kyokai: 日本美術刀剣保存協会). Fuchi-Kashira This Tsuka is made of wood and is characterized by the absence of a traditional wrapping. The central section is carved with a series of ring-shaped grooves, which improve the grip and serve as a practical design feature. At the position of the Mekugi, a diamond-shaped metal plate is set into the surface, and the Mekugi passes through its center to secure the Nakago of the blade. Authentication Paper They authenticated the blade on August 22nd in the 7th year of Reiwa (2025). They appraised it as Tokubetsu Hozon Touken, the blade especially worth preserving for Japanese society.
Offered by Samurai Museum
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Shinto · Musashi · around 1648-1652
Fujishiro Jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 37%
Where Korekazu 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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Shinto · Omi
40 pieces on the market now
The Ishido school (石堂) traces its root to Omi Province, where smiths surnamed Hioki and bearing names such as Ishido worked before the line dispersed across the country in the early Edo period. From that Omi stem grew four principal branches: the Fukuoka Ishido of Chikuzen, the Edo Ishido carried east by makers who had first gone up from Omi to Kyoto, the Osaka Ishido seeded by smiths who settled in the merchant city, and the Kishu Ishido working under the Kii daimyo. What bound these scattered workshops was a single, deliberate program: the recovery of the choji-midare of the old Ichimonji and Ko-Bizen, complete with the utsuri that the medieval Bizen masters had carried in their steel. The school's very name records this revival as a historical project rather than an imitation, for its smiths set out to recover the bright, reflection-bearing Bizen jigane that most shinto makers of the seventeenth century could no longer produce. Korekazu, Tsunemitsu, Moritsugu, and Tameyasu stand among the names by which the branches are known, alongside Bicchu no Kami Yasuhiro, who bridged the Kishu and Osaka lines, and Tatara Nagayuki of Osaka. The shared vocabulary of the school begins with the temper. Over a tightly forged itame, often a well-packed ko-itame mixing mokume and a little nagare-hada, the Ishido smiths cut a choji-midare crowded with double-flower juka-choji, fukuro-choji, large and small choji, gunome, and pointed elements, so the line shows pronounced height as it crests and falls. Ashi and yo enter in profusion, the work turning nioi-dominant with attached ko-nie, sunagashi running through and kinsuji appearing here and there. Beneath sits the surer half of the recognition: a well-forged itame carrying ji-nie in minute particles, across which stands a midare-utsuri.
Utsuri on a new-sword blade is rare and deliberate, and its recovery was the school's whole purpose, so a flamboyant choji standing over a clear irregular reflection is the first thing that separates an Ishido blade from any other shinto choji. The published sources name the school's two Bizen models directly: the Ichimonji-copy choji-midare and the Sue-Bizen-copy gunome with an opened lower contour, both worked in nioi-deki. Within these constants the branches diverge. Tsunemitsu of the Edo group holds his bright, height-varied juka-choji over a vividly standing reflection across every blade on record; Yasuhiro of the Kishu and Osaka lines tells himself by a saka-gokoro, a reverse slant in the choji and ashi most marked in his early work, and by the chrysanthemum crest of his titled years; Nagayuki of Osaka, reckoned the leading Bizen-den hand among the shinto makers, divides cleanly between his Ichimonji choji and a gunome modeled on Yosazaemon no Jo Sukesada, the boshi entering midare-komi, pointed at the tip, and turning back deeply. To kantei an Ishido blade is to read revived Bizen choji on a shinto ground: the flamboyant clove temper above, the midare-utsuri standing below, but a jigane whose nie and forging belong unmistakably to the new-sword period rather than to any true koto reflection. The recurring verdict the judges return to is that the best work recalls the old Ichimonji of classical times, brought vividly to mind by Tsunemitsu's Edo pieces in particular. Among the school's members the first-rank names carry the recognition: Korekazu and his fellows of the Fukuoka and Edo branches, Tsunemitsu by his standing utsuri and juka-choji, Yasuhiro at the junction of two branches, and Nagayuki at the head of the Bizen-den shinto hands. Provenance attaches to a portion of the school's record; Yasuhiro's broad pre-title wakizashi was transmitted in the Shimazu house of Satsuma, and one of his katana is recorded in Honma's inventory of the Imperial collection, while much of the wider Ishido output sits in the Juyo tier, more often kept than traded. A securely signed Ishido blade, showing the bright clove over a standing reflection, remains the document of how a shinto school brought the old Ichimonji choji back to life. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Tsunemitsu常光 | 1648-1661 | 7 |
| Yasuhiro安廣 | 1661-1673 | 3 |
| Nagatsugu長次 | 1681-1684 | 0 |
| Nagayoshi永吉 | 1688-1704 | 0 |
| Nagatsugu長次 | 1345-1350 | 0 |
The Edo period (1615 to 1868)
Edo was the sword’s age of connoisseurship: the Hon’ami appraisers, the shogunal register of famous blades of 1719, and a thriving literature turned the sword into an object of study even as it ceased to be drawn in war.
A Hozon-certified blade judged to show notably superior workmanship and a better state of preservation. The bar is higher: re-tempered blades and most unsigned Muromachi/Edo works are excluded.
The NBTHK (Nihon Bijutsu Tōken Hozon Kyōkai, the Society for the Preservation of Japanese Art Swords) is a public-interest incorporated foundation founded in 1948 and supervised by Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs (Bunkachō); it is based at the Japanese Sword Museum in Tokyo. Its expert panels physically examine each submitted work (shinsa) and issue a certificate (kanteishō) ranking it by artistic and historical merit. NBTHK papers are the most widely recognized standard of authentication for Japanese swords and fittings.
NBTHK official siteReturns/exchanges limited to defects caused by shipping (except willful misconduct or gross negligence by the company); customers must contact within 72 hours of receiving the product.