NihontoWatchKoto josaku, Tokubetsu Hozontoken by NBTHK Daido saku Daido is first sword smith of Mishina school. Aikuchi koshirae is wonderful. <体配 style> 平造り庵棟、身幅重とも尋常、反り僅か、ふくら枯れる。茎は生で筋違い鑢がかかり、茎尻は栗尻。 The style is Hirazukuri with Iorimune and the width and thick is usually. Also a few curvature and Fukura to wither. Nakago is original, and design of the file is kaichigai-yasuri, and end of nakago is kurishiri. <彫り物 carving> 彫物は片チリの棒樋が茎中部まで掻き流しとなる。 Bohi. <地鉄 jigane> 地金はよく板目肌が流れ柾となり、白気映りを見せる。 Itame hada flows and becomes the Masame hada, and it has Utsuri of white. <刃紋 hamon> 刃紋は互の目、飛び焼きを見せ、刃緑は銀筋が流れ、刃中は金筋、葉を見せる。鋩子は乱れ込み小丸へと返る。 Gunome, there is show a Tobiyaki. Habuchi with sunagashi. Hachu with a lot of kinsuji and yo. Boshi is Midarekomi and Komaru. <特徴 detailed> 大道、初銘兼道、美濃国志津三郎兼氏九代の孫という、生国、美濃関、永禄年間に京西洞院に移る。その後正親町天皇より「大」の字を賜り、「大兼道」と改銘、陸奥守を受領後「大道」と改銘する。また大道は伊賀守金道ら三品四兄弟の父としても広く知られる。 本短刀は、天正年間に作られた寸延短刀で、真鍮粟穂地据紋(中輪に反り菱)一作金具を使った、合口拵が付属する。 刀身に傷欠点は有りませんが、研ぎが古研のため、汚れやヒケ、薄錆が有ります。研ぎ直せば全て取れます。 About Daido. His first name is Kanamichi, People say he is descendant nine generations later of the Shizu Kaneuji. He was born and raised in Mino-Seki, and Moved to Kyo-Nishinotoin in Eiroku era. After that, He was given a Kanji of DAI from a Emperor Ogimachi, so changed the name to Dai-kanemichi. Furthermore, he changed the name to Daido after got Mutsu-no-Kami. Also He is famous as father of IgaIganokami-Kinmichi and their Mishina 4 brothers. This Tanto is Sunnobi-tanto made for Tensyo era, and with a Aikuchi-koshirae. This Koshirae has metal parts of the same design made of the brass. The blade has almost no crack, but cloudy due to sharpened of many years ago. but those can remove all, if doing re-polish. <拵 koshirae> ハバキ Habaki :銀無垢一重の腰祐乗。Pure silver and pattern is Koshiyujo. 金具類 fitting metal parts:縁頭、鯉口、栗形、一文字、コジリは、真鍮粟穂地据紋(中輪に反り菱)一作金具。The metal parts of the same design made of the brass. 目貫 menuki :金地山椒の図。The design is Japanese pepper. 柄 Tsuka :柄巻きは正絹紺色の諸摘み巻。The Tsukamaki is blue of pure silk. 鞘 Saya :焦げ茶色の縦刷毛目。The Saya color is vertical brush mark of dark brown. <刀剣の状態 condition of blade> 研ぎ:古研のため曇っていますが、地刃は良く見えます。The blade is cloudy due to sharpened of many years ago. but Ji and Ha can see well. 傷:欠点に成るような傷は有りません。It has almost no crack.
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Mino-den · Mino · around 1573-1592
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From the end of the Muromachi period into the early Shintō era, several Mino swordsmiths bore the name Daidō. The most prominent among them was Mutsu no Kami Daidō, whose signed and dated works survive from the Tenshō era, with recorded dates including Tenshō 2 (1574), 4 (1576), 13, and 18 (1590). Other smiths of the name carried various court titles -- Izu no Kami, Mikawa no Kami, Kawachi no Kami, and Shinano no Kami -- while still others signed without titles as "Seki-jū Daidō," "Gifu-jū Daidō," or "Heianjō-jū Daidō." Among the Mino smiths of this period, Mutsu no Kami Daidō is regarded as particularly highly skilled, "standing alongside Wakasa no Kami Ujifusa."
Daidō's forging typically shows ko-itame mixed with masame, with fine ji-nie well applied. His hamon is characteristically an ō-notare-based ko-gunome-midare, or a shallow notare mixed with ko-gunome, hakoba, and togari-ba; the nioiguchi is consistently described as tight and clear, showing lively variation, with ko-ashi and yō and adhering ko-nie. His bōshi tends toward midare-komi, turning back in a Jizō-like manner or with a pointed tendency. His sugata favors wide mihaba with imposing, dignified constructions, and he produced both katana and wakizashi in hira-zukuri. The carvings found on certain works -- including renderings of "Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō" and Kurikara -- are noted as "superb."
The NBTHK consistently describes Daidō's workmanship in jigane and hamon as "excellent," with blades that are kenzen and of especially fine quality among his oeuvre. His technical ability is characterized as "extraordinary," and the dated inscriptions on his works -- particularly the Minamoto surname and Tenshō-era dates -- are valued as significant documentary records of late-Muromachi swordsmithing in Mino Province.
Where Daido 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
130 pieces on the market now
Seki (関), in Mino Province, grew from two roots set down in the Nanbokuchō period and rose to become the great center of mass sword production in the late medieval age. The published sources trace the wellspring of Mino swordmaking to Kinju (whose name the commentary also reads Kaneshige), counted since antiquity among the Masamune Jittetsu, the ten disciples of Sōshū Masamune, and to Kaneuji of the Shizu line; the Kokon Meizukushi records Kinju as a native of Tsuruga in Echizen who "crossed over to Seki and resided there," carrying the Sōshū-den manner east. Beneath that Sagami inheritance lay a Yamato foundation, legible in the Tegai descent of the Seki Zensada line through Kaneyoshi, so that the Mino-den the Seki workshops forged stands as a fusion of Yamato grain and Sōshū activity in nie. From this Nanbokuchō founding the name multiplied across the Muromachi period into Sue-Seki, the last and largest body of the tradition; its representative masters at the close of the old-sword age were Magoroku Kanemoto, famed for the sanbonsugi, and Izumi no Kami Kanesada, the smith called Nosada, while the Kanefusa, Ujifusa and Daidō hands worked beside them and the move of Wakasa no Kami Ujifusa to Kiyosu carried the Mino body to the threshold of Owari shintō. A common Mino vocabulary binds the Seki body, however widely its members range. The forging is an itame that stands and runs to masame, often mixed with mokume and nagare, over which rises the cool whitish shirake-utsuri of Mino steel rather than the bright midare-utsuri of Bizen; this pale, standing jigane is the constant tell the judges read first, present alike on Kinju's Nanbokuchō katana, Kaneyoshi's Ōei tachi and Nosada's late-Muromachi blades. Over it the smiths temper gunome into which the pointed togariba of Mino enters, with ko-nie clinging to a tight nioiguchi, ashi and yō, and sunagashi streaming through; the bōshi answers in midare-komi turning to a pointed or jizō-cast ko-maru swept with hakikake. From this shared grammar the individual hands diverge.
Kanemoto fixed the regular three-cedar sanbonsugi of pointed teeth; Kanefusa devised the rounded-head, constricted-waist "Kanefusa midare"; Kinju and the early founders held a calmer, rounder gunome away from the restless Shizu line, their work laid with thicker ji-nie and dry, standing grain. The late masters carried the manner to a higher finish: Nosada wove togariba among rounder forms for a broader temper than Kanemoto's one-sided file, and turned at times to a slender Rai-styled suguha with a hidden gunome; Kaneyoshi held instead to a cool ito-suguha, the disciplined Yamato face of late Seki, lightly broken with ko-gunome. A collector seeks Seki because it is the connoisseur's ground for reading Mino-den across a vast body of signed and attributed work. The kantei runs through the jigane first: the standing, masame-leaning itame and the whitish shirake separate a Seki blade from Bizen and Yamashiro, after which the pointed togariba, the dry nie, and the pointed or jizō bōshi confirm the province; the discriminations the judges draw, Kinju held apart from Shizu by his rounder gunome, Nosada parted from Kanemoto by his breadth, give the eye its anchors. Within the school the standing of the best members is settled: Magoroku Kanemoto for the sanbonsugi, Nosada whom the swordbooks call simply "an excellent master" and the most accomplished of the several Kanesada hands, and the early Kinju as a rare and precious founding name, his record running through the Jūyō tier with the signed pieces few and the long blades attributed den. Signature works carry real provenance: a Kinju tantō presented to the Tokugawa shogunal house in 1679, a Nosada katana borne by a chief retainer of the Kii Tokugawa and a tachi forged for the father of Takeda Shingen, a Kaneyoshi tachi transmitted in the Chikuzen Kuroda family. Beyond connoisseurship, Seki's blades earned a battlefield reputation for cutting; the full hiraniku and stout build of the Sue-Seki katana, made to sever, set the wazamono standing that made Mino the working sword of its age. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Kinju金重 | 1340-1346 | 42 |
| Kaneyuki金行 | 1350-1352 | 10 |
| Kanekore兼之 | 1504-1555 | 7 |
| Kanenori兼法 | 1579-1615 | 5 |
| Nagasada永貞 | 1862-1866 | 5 |
Mino in the Momoyama period
Unification closed the mass market, and Seki’s smiths moved to where the new money was: the Mishina line to Kyōto with court titles, Daidō smiths to castle towns across the provinces. Mino became the great technical ancestor of the Shintō age.
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.
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