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.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatchThe first generation Masatsune, whose name was Nanto Sasuke and later changed to Tarosuke, was born in Tenbun 5 (1534) in Nanto, Mino Province (present-day around Chitose-cho, Seki City) as the second son of the eighth generation Nanto Sukeemon Kanetsune, a descendant of the eighth generation Nara Taro Kanetsune of the Mino Province smiths. In Eiroku 10 (1567), at the age of thirty-three, he moved to Komaki Village, Kasugai County to become independent and signed with the mei Kanetsune. During the "Battle of Komaki and Nagakute" in Tensho 12 (1584), he forged one hundred yari under Tokugawa Ieyasu and received silver coins from Ieyasu. When the Kanpaku Toyotomi Hidetsugu became the lord of Kiyosu Castle in Tensho 19 (1591), through Hidetsugu's mediation, on the eleventh day of the fifth month of Tensho 20 (1592), Nobutaka received the title "Hoki no Kami", Ujifusa received "Hida no Kami", and Masatsune received "Sagami no Kami". It is said that he was granted the character "Masa" by Ikeda Terumasa, who was the lord of the Owari Komaki territory at the time, and changed his mei from Kanetsune to Masatsune. On the seventeenth day of the eleventh month of Keicho 5 (1600), when Masatsune was sixty-six years old, at the same time that Tokugawa Ieyasu's fourth son, Matsudaira Tadayoshi, Satsuma no Kami, became the lord of Kiyosu Castle, he moved from Komaki to the Kiyosu castle town in response to a summons from Fukushima Masanori, and served as a kakae-kaji for Tadayoshi from Keicho 8 (1603). In the third month of Keicho 12 (1607), he temporarily retired to mourn the death of the domain lord Matsudaira Tadayoshi, but on the twenty-sixth day of the fourth month of the same year, Ieyasu's ninth son, Tokugawa Yoshinao, became the lord of Kiyosu Castle, and Masatsune served Yoshinao together with his biological son, the second generation, receiving a high stipend of over one hundred koku. Because his biological son, the second generation Masatsune, died young in the fourteenth year of the same era (1609), he adopted the son of Daido from Mino Province (later the third generation Mino no Kami Masatsune) and returned to work himself as "Sagami no Kami Fujiwara Masatsune Nyudo". In the second month of the fifteenth year of the same era, following the opening of Nagoya Castle, he moved to Tomida-cho in the Nagoya castle town (present-day corner of Sakuradori Honmachi, Naka-ku, Nagoya City) and engaged in sword forging. He died on the twenty-eighth day of the second month of Genna 5 (1619). He was eighty-five years old. There are uramei with production dates of Tensho 20, and Keicho 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, and 11; within Masatsune's range of work, katana are rare, and he actively forged yari, naginata, and kogatana, being known as a leader among shinto smiths and a peerless master, and his tanto are said to be of high dignity, with his suguba masterpieces considered the highest level of Owari shinto. This work is a grand o-mi yari of over 2 shaku 5 sun 5 bu, in hira-sankaku-zukuri. The kera-kubi is octagonal, and since the kera-kubi is of a somewhat long tsukurikomi, it is thought to be a piece forged during the period from Tensho 20 through the end of the Muromachi period. On the omote, thick and long double-headed hi are powerfully carved, the jitetsu is itame flowing into masame with mixed moku, chikei enters, and the hada is slightly standing out; the hamon is a fired up gunome, with particularly active hataraki in the lower portion, where another tier of gunome appears remarkably bright within the continuous gunome, and the overall ha-dori accompanying such hataraki has areas with a greatly kuichigai feeling, sunagashi is present, and ashi and yo enter the ha-chu with kinsuji appearing, and small uchioke-style ha and yubashiri-style hataraki can also be seen. The boshi is sugu returning with a maru tip. The first generation Sagami no Kami Masatsune was active from the end of the Muromachi period through the early Edo period and laid the foundation for Owari shinto. Among the many master smiths swinging their hammers, this o-mi yari by the hand of Masatsune, who made his name especially as a master of yari, naginata, and tanto, can truly be positioned as a masterpiece among masterpieces. Unlike the small hira-sankaku-zukuri works with clear jitetsu commonly seen, the jitetsu of this yari, with its heroic forging accompanied by a somewhat o-hada due to the trends of the Sengoku period, is one of the highlights of this piece; it conveys a robust vitality and power to the viewer, and can be called a single blade in which the breath of an era that passed through many battles resides, a fusion of the aesthetics of bu and the passion of the times.
Offered by Toushin
We couldn’t find current papers for this piece. Ask the dealer whether it has been, or can be, submitted to shinsa. — Hoshi
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As written by the shop
Machine translation from the shop's Japanese · may contain errors ·
Owari Masatsune (Mino-derived Owari shinto; retained by the Owari Tokugawa) · Owari · around 1567-1619
Fujishiro Jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 23%
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Masatsune was born at Nodo in Mino Province and first signed Kanetsune, a smith of the Seki tradition who carried that Mino root into the new swords of Owari. The published sources follow his career in unusual detail. In Eiroku 10 he set up an independent branch and moved to Komaki village, changing his name to Masatsune around that time; in Tensho 19 he received the court title Sagami no Kami; in Keicho 5 he followed Matsudaira Tadayoshi to Kiyosu, and he became a retained smith of the Owari Tokugawa house. In Keicho 12 he took the tonsure and retired, passing the name Sagami no Kami Masatsune to his son, but when the second generation died suddenly two years later he returned to the forge, and from that time he signed Masatsune Nyudo. He died in Genna 5 at the age of eighty-four. His first name survives on a katana signed with the two characters Kanetsune, which the published sources read as 「この刀は兼常と二字在銘で, 上記の政常の初期作に該当するものである」 (signed Kanetsune in two characters, an early work of Masatsune), its broad body and extended point placed in the late Muromachi Eiroku years. In later generations he was counted among the Owari Sansaku, the three founding smiths of Owari shinto, beside Hoki no Kami Nobutaka and Hida no Kami Ujifusa.
His recognized hand is the bright straight temper of his hira-zukuri tanto and wakizashi, the form in which his surviving work is most numerous. Over a tightly forged ko-itame mixed with mokume, the steel flows toward masame and carries thick ji-nie, with fine chikei entering and, on several pieces, a mizukage-like feature rising diagonally from below the machi. The temper is a chu-suguha, at times a wide suguha, laid in ko-nie, into which small gunome enter with ko-ashi. What separates his suguha from a plain Seki straight temper is the worked habuchi: it frays into hotsure, with nijuba, kuichigai-ba and uchinoke mixed in and fine sunagashi running through, while the nioiguchi stays bright. The published commentary calls one such tanto a thoroughly characteristic example, with 「相模守政常の典型的な直刃の作例」 (a typical example of Sagami no Kami Masatsune's suguha).
The jigane is the constant beneath both of his manners. It is an itame that overall tends toward masame, with ji-nie attached and, on the better tanto, chikei standing out and the steel reading bright. Where the forging tightens into ko-itame mixed with mokume the impression is of strength, and the published sources single out the diagonal mizukage at the machi and the abundant ji-nie as the marks of his sound forging. On the wakizashi the grain at times stands a little, with the upper half flowing toward the mune, and the carvings he favours, a suken or bonji above the koshimoto with gomabashi on the reverse, are described as crisp and well harmonised with the blade.
His second manner, carried on his naginata and on his rare katana, is a broader and more undulating temper. Over an itame that flows into masame with ji-nie, he tempers a wide suguha tone or a shallow notare-gunome base with togariba and small gunome mixed in, ashi and yo entering, kinsuji and sunagashi seen, and the nioiguchi at times subdued. On a katana from the Tokugawa Iesato collection the published sources describe the temper as 「小沸出来広直刃調に浅く湾れ」 (a wide suguha tone in ko-nie, breaking into a shallow notare), and on another katana the nioiguchi turns subdued and the boshi runs in with abundant hakikake and a long return. His naginata and yari are large and dignified, the boshi at times pointed and Jizo-like; the sources credit him as 「短刀, 薙刀の名手として名高い」 (famed as an outstanding maker of tanto and naginata), while noting that the very finest among the naginata are few. A naginata-naoshi wakizashi recorded in Honma's inventory of the Imperial collection shows the manner at its most vigorous, the nie especially intense in the monouchi, and carries a kurikara in relief with Fudo on the reverse, carving the published sources call extremely rare in his work.
What sets him apart within Owari shinto is exactly what the judges name. His suguha hand, with its fraying habuchi, bright nioiguchi and masame-flowing ji-nie, is the constant by which his tanto are known, and his broader notare on naginata and katana shows the Mino Seki root from which he came. On one wakizashi that departs from his usual restraint, bolder in temper and brighter in nie with an antique flavour in the jigane, the published sources judge that he was reaching higher still, 「相州上工, 就中貞宗や信国あたりを狙ったものであろうか」 (aiming, it would seem, at the superior Soshu craftsmen, especially such masters as Sadamune and Nobukuni), and call the result 「同作中出色の一口」 (an outstanding example among his works). His line continued through the second-generation Mino no Kami Fujiwara Masatsune, an adopted son and son of Gifu Daido, whose signed katana and yari are recorded under his own entry.
For the collector, Masatsune is a well-documented founder of an Owari line rather than a rare ghost. Fujishiro grades him Jo saku. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record runs instead through the modern Juyo rank, with sixteen blades in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers, and two further pieces designated in the prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin, among them a katana that passed through the Tokugawa Iesato collection and is now held by the Tokugawa Reimeikai Foundation. Provenance touches the daimyo houses, with recorded denrai to the Tokugawa family, and one blade preserved at Akihasan Hongu Akiha Shrine. Because the published sources are agreed that 「刀及び鎬造の脇指は極めて少ない」 (katana and shinogi-zukuri wakizashi are extremely few), a signed katana is the scarce thing, valued as material for the study of the smith himself; his hira-zukuri tanto, wakizashi, yari and naginata come to the serious collector from time to time, and a signed Owari Masatsune of his own hand, not the second generation, remains a satisfying and reachable document of how Owari shinto began.
Where Masatsune 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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Mino-den · Owari
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The line begins with a Mino man. The setsumei record that Sagami no Kami Masatsune (政常) was born at Nōdo in Mino Province, where he first signed Kanetsune (兼常) and is variously said to have been the son or a disciple of Kanetsune of Seki. In Eiroku 10 (1567) he established an independent branch line and moved to Komaki village, likely changing his name to Masatsune about that time; in the fifth month of Tenshō 19 (1591) he received the court title Sagami no Kami, and in Keichō 5 (1600) he followed Matsudaira Tadayoshi to Kiyosu in Owari, where he became a retained smith (kakae-kō) of the Owari Tokugawa house. Several records place him at Kiyosu alongside Hōki no Kami Nobutaka and Hida no Kami Ujifusa, the three later counted as the Owari Sansaku (Three Smiths of Owari). After taking the tonsure and retiring in Keichō 12 (1607), he passed the name to his son; when that second generation died suddenly two years later he resumed forging under the nyūdō signature Masatsune Nyūdō, and is said to have died in Genna 5 (1619) at the age of eighty-four. A separate second generation, Mino no Kami Fujiwara Masatsune, is recorded as the son of Daidō of Gifu, adopted into the line, who carried on its spear and naginata work. A Mino foundation worked toward suguha defines the shared hand. The forging is itame mixed with mokume, frequently flowing into masame toward the mune and shinogi-ji, with the grain standing somewhat (hada-dachi), abundant ji-nie, and chikei; a mizukage-like feature rising from the machi is noted on several tantō and wakizashi.
The temper that the setsumei call his specialty is a chū- to broad suguha in ko-nie-deki, the habuchi worked with hotsure, nijūba, kuichigai-ba, and uchi-noke, with ko-gunome and ko-ashi mixed in, fine kinsuji and sunagashi running through, and a bright nioiguchi. Beside this restrained mode runs a bolder midareba of gunome and ko-notare with togariba, sometimes hakogakari or saka-gakari, where the nie grows coarse and clustered and the nioiguchi turns shizumi (subdued); the notare-ba that the setsumei call the Owari-Seki specialty (尾張関得意の湾れ刃) appears in the wider blades. The bōshi tends to straight with ko-maru and hakikake in the suguha works, midare-komi with a rounded or long return in the midareba works. Carving is plain but crisp: suken, bonji, gomabashi, koshi-hi with soe-hi, and the rarely seen shin no Kurikara in openwork. Among extant works, the setsumei agree, hira-zukuri wakizashi and tantō are the most numerous and of high skill, yari and naginata are comparatively common with the spears often hira-sankaku sasaho form, while katana and shinogi-zukuri wakizashi are extremely few. For kantei this rarity gives weight to the long swords: the 67th Jūyō Kanetsune-signed katana, dated by its sakizori and large kissaki to about Eiroku, anchors the smith's early phase, and the 31st Jūyō Masatsune Nyūdō katana shows the flowing masame, shallow notare, and shizumi nioiguchi read as his own. Named pieces include the Sagami no Kami Masatsune Nyūdō wakizashi held by the Imperial Household Agency and the katana once with Tokugawa Iesato and the Reimeikai Foundation; one wakizashi survives in akikusa-mon koshirae with fittings by Mogarashi Sōten of Hikone. The setsumei note that in his bolder work Masatsune looked to the Sagami masters Sadamune and Nobukuni while keeping the togari and Sanbon-sugi traces of his Mino root, placing his line as the Owari channel through which the Mino-den passed into shintō. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Masatsune政常 | 1567-1619 | 19 |
| Masatsune政常 | 1661-1673 | 0 |
| Masatsune政常 | 1688-1704 | 0 |
| Kanetsune兼常 | 1573-1592 | 1 |
| Masatsune政常 | 1615-1673 | 2 |
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.
We could not find an authenticity certificate on the seller’s listing. Japanese swords and fittings are normally papered by the NBTHK (or the NTHK). Without one, the attribution is the seller’s own assessment and has not been independently verified — treat it with caution and ask the dealer about certification before buying.
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