After the Ōnin War broke the Ashikaga order, a century of Sengoku warfare armed nearly every province in Japan. The era rewards a discriminating eye: routine work exists in quantity, and beside it stand custom blades of the first rank.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatchVery Rare Historically important tanto owned by Maeda Daimyo Tanto With NBTHK Tokubetsu Hozon Certificate in original wooden storage box with inner makie lacquered box with Maeda Mon on the lid . Koshirae also has Maeda mon on the saya and Kashira, excellent kozuka with Hou bird / Phoenix signed Goto Misuhisa, Kogatana has very fine horimono .Very well forged blade with active hamon with loads of hataraki and Great Horimono of Fudo. NBTHK Tokubetsu Hozon Certificate KANTEI-SHO (鑑定書) ‒ APPRAISAL No 1001416 Tantō, signed: Tomoshige (友重) (Fujishima, 藤島) Nagasa ~ 24.9 cm According to the result of the shinsa committee of our society, we judge this work as authentic and rank it as Tokubetsu-Hozon Tōken. June 28, 2013 [Foundation] Nihon Bijutsu Tōken Hozon Kyōkai, NBTHK (日本美術刀劍保存協會 Sayagaki on Shirasaya by Kanzan Sato Sensei 不動友重 藤島之二字 天文頃之作也 ⻑八寸二分有之 昭和己酉初冬 寒山誌「花押」 Fudō Tomoshige Fujishima kore niji Tenbun goro no saku nari Nagasa hassun ni-bu kore ari Shōwa tsuchinoto-tori shotō Kanzan shirusu + kaō Fudō Tomoshige [Reference to engraving of deity Fudō-Myōō] Fujishima [smith], signed two characters. Tomoshige. Work from around Tenbun (1532-1555). Blade length ~ 24.9 cm Written by Kanzan in October of the year of the rooster of the Shōwa era (1969) + monogram Ink inscription of wooden storage box: 御守刀 Omamori-gatana “Protective sword” Tag on top right of box: 前田家傳来名物不動友重短刀 Maeda-ke denrai meibutsu Fudō Tomoshige tantō “Famous tantō that was handed down within the Maeda family as Fudō Tomoshige” Tag on bottom left of box: 哲太郎君御守刀 寛政十二庚申二月 Tetsutarō-kimi omamori-gatana, Kansei jūni kanoe-saru nigatsu “Protective sword of Tetsutarō, second month of Kansei twelve (1800), year of the monkey.” Tag on side of box: 刀之部 第百八十一号 ロ十七番 Katana no bu Dai hyakuhachijūichi gō Ro jūshichi-ban “Sword section Nr. 181–B17 Maeda Toshiyasu (前田 利保, March 23, 1800 – September 14, 1859) was the 10th daimyō of Toyama Domain in the Hokuriku region of Japan, and a noted Japanese naturalist and entomologist. Toshiyasu was born in Edo as Keitaro (啓太郎), the second son of Maeda Toshinori, but was still underage on his father’s death, so the domain was assigned to Maeda Toshitsuyo instead. In 1811, he was adopted by Toshitsuyo to restore the line of succession and became daimyō in 1835 when Toshitsuyo retired due to illness. On taking office, the domain was hit hard by a crop failure, which continued through 1838 as part of the Tenpō famine. The domain defaulted on all its debts, and was forced to take a 30,000 ryō loan from the shogunate in 1838, followed by an additional 25,000 ryō the following year. In 1841, the domain reported that it did not have the funds to make its required sankin kōtai to Edo. In 1846, citing ill heath, Toshiyasu went into retirement in favor of his sixth son, Maeda Toshitomo. His wife was a daughter of Asano Narikata of Hiroshima Domain. Along with Kuroda Narikiyo of Fukuoka Domain, he was also a noted scientist, and organised a society of naturalists which met each month. An account was written of the subject discussed, for instance, in September 1840 they discussed the beetle family Scarabaeidae and wrote Kyōro-shakō-zusetsu in which twenty chafer species are scientifically drawn and described. As these studies were refined each member of the group became a specialist. Maeda learned the Dutch language (the Japanese naturalists followed Philipp Franz von Siebold and also learned the French language Siebold’s choice for Fauna Japonica and Flora Japonica) and translated the Dutch language Systema Naturae into Japanese. He is also noted for authoring the Honzō Tsūkan, an encyclopaedia of Chinese medicinal herbs, which remained uncompleted in 94 volumes at the time of his death.
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Yamashiro-den · Kaga
17 pieces on the market now
Among the provincial lineages of the Hokurikudo, the Fujishima school took its name and its base from the village of Fujishima in Kaga province, where Tomoshige stands as founder and the name he set down passed through several generations from the close of the Nanbokucho period across the Muromachi and on into the early-modern Shinto era. The members place the chronological anchor with care: the earliest firmly dated work is a tanto of Oei 2 (1395), and the NBTHK finds nothing among the surviving blades that goes back earlier than Nanbokucho. Old documentary tradition reads the first generation as a pupil of Rai Kunitoshi of Yamashiro, alternatively of Kashu Sanekage or Rai Toshimune, but the published sources doubt each reading in turn, finding no stylistic tie to Rai Kunitoshi and a chronological impossibility with Sanekage; judging from the make and the nakago finish, they settle by elimination toward the Yamato tradition, close to the Yamato Shikkake hand. A tachi held at Atsuta Shrine and a two-character ken read as the oldest surviving piece bracket the early end of the line. The recognition of the school lives in its jigane. The members agree on a board-grained itame that mixes in mokume and runs to nagare, standing somewhat open (hada-dachi), the surface gathering ji-nie and chikei, the steel carrying a distinct blackish cast named kan'a-iro and tied directly to the northern provinces as hokkoku-hada; a faint whitish shirake-utsuri rises quietly against this dark ground rather than a bright Bizen reflection. Over that ji the school tempers a gunome-midare into which box-shaped (hako-ba), pointed and angular (togariba) teeth enter together with notare and ko-notare, the ashi running rather long, the ha nie-laden with sunagashi sweeping it and kinsuji entering, small tobiyaki and muneyaki scattered here and there.
The NBTHK reads the feel of it as a make in which Bizen temperament and Mino flavor coexist, the boshi running straight or midare-komi into a ko-maru, often swept with hakikake or running to yakizume. The members also mark the short blades apart: on the tanto the hand can quiet to a ko-itame and a narrow hoso-suguha or low ko-gunome with ko-nie, the nioiguchi sometimes clouding to urumi, the boshi turning jizo-like or returning deep, this the simplest face of the Yamato base while the dark steel keeps its northern mark. To kantei a Fujishima blade the eye works the conjunction rather than any single trait: the standing dark ji read together with the box-and-pointed midare and the constant sunagashi names the school where a clean Bizen choji or a true Yamashiro ko-itame would not. The members note works read variously toward an Aoe air, toward Naoe Shizu and Sekishu Naotsuna, the Mino and northern lines the school sits between, kin in feel to the Etchu and Echizen smiths of the same region. Among the membership Tomoshige carries the name and the standing; Fujishiro rates the founder Chu-jo saku and places others among the middle ranks of the koto smiths, and the most highly regarded work falls in the Oei generation while the Muromachi work survives most often. The single finest piece is a great spear (o-mi-yari) signed Fujishima Tomoshige and carved with a sanko-ken and the deity-name Myoken Daibosatsu, which the published sources judge not merely the best spear of the school but one of the representative famous spears of its age; surviving naginata by the line are noted as rare, their ubu-nakago valued as dating evidence. Provenance gathers around named houses recorded in the blades themselves, an Oei katana descended in the Inaba daimyo house and a tanto recorded in Honma's inventory of the Imperial collection, heritage pieces in long-standing hands; yet the line is not among the unattainable names, and a Juyo Tomoshige remains a realistic if uncommon encounter for the patient collector, valued for the way a single dark-steeled blade carries the whole northern school in its ji. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Tomoshige友重 | 1394-1428 | 15 |
| Tomoshige友重 | 1346-1370 | 5 |
| Tomoshige友重 | 1324-1326 | 5 |
| Fujishima藤島 | 1394-1428 | 4 |
| Yukimitsu行光 | 1340-1346 | 0 |
The Muromachi period (1392 to 1573)
After the Ōnin War broke the Ashikaga order, a century of Sengoku warfare armed nearly every province in Japan. The era rewards a discriminating eye: routine work exists in quantity, and beside it stand custom blades of the first rank.
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 sitePrice on request
Certificate reading — 銘 友重