NihontoWatch珍しい薩摩拵え半太刀仕様のお刀が入荷しました。 伯耆守藤原信高は 慶長のはじめに初代が美濃から尾張清洲城下を経て、名古屋城が完成した慶長十五年頃に名古屋に移住します。 初代信高の刻銘と技術は二代信高に受け継がれ、その後も代々尾張徳川家の藩工として栄え六代まで続きます。 美濃国関三阿弥派の兼則の末と伝える初代信高は、政常・氏房と共に尾張新刀を代表する刀工です。 同一派は初代から五代までが「伯耆守」を受領している尾張刀匠の名門です。 今回のお刀ですが未鑑定品です。 私見では審査に通らないと思っております。 そもそも信高は脇差が多く刀はあまり見かけません。 刀はとても出来が良いのですが、その作風や銘を見ても 審査合格は厳しいと思いました。 ですが刀身拵え共に出来が良いので、無銘のお刀としての値付けをして掲載しております。 その辺りをご理解いただきたく宜しくお願い致します。 ちなみに、兵庫県の1400番台で昭和26年の大名登録です。 きっと家伝の宝刀として大切にしてこられたのでしょう。 さて、本作を見ていきます。 姿は元先身幅やや付いて、腰反りもやや付きその先は反り少なく、猪首気味な切先となり、ハバキ元から切先まで重ね厚めに実戦での耐久力を考えて造られています。 地金は板目良く練れて刃紋は匂出来の小互の目丁子、ハバキ元はのたれ気味に焼き入って、小さ目な互の目はふんわりと足が入って連なり、時折小さ目な尖り刃を交えて、切先はのたれて入って小丸に短めに返っています。 刀身も良いですが、拵えが素敵です。 薩摩拵えの半太刀仕様です。 名著 ※調所一郎先生【薩摩拵】によると、大まかに4種類の拵え仕様（上級武士一般仕様、東郷示現流仕様、薬丸自顕流、折衷仕様）に分類出来ると記されています。 ※薩摩藩家老 調所笑座衛門 末裔 その中の上級武士一般仕様に同じ特徴を持つ、半太刀薩摩拵えが掲載されていますのでご参照ください。（P20、1-5図） 薩摩拵え特有の返り角（さるすべり）や、半太刀金具と一作で作られた赤銅小鍔等その特徴が良く表れております。 しとど目も赤銅を入れた3パーツから出来ており、鞘の造り、塗も含めてとても渋くセンス良く出来ています。鞘には修理跡が見られますが、納刀抜刀問題ありません。 武道的に見ますと、刀身刃肉付き方を見るに、藁は勿論、堅めの竹まで対応できます。 バランスは先重心で、振ると刀が良く走ります。 更に鍔が小さく耳に寄せてトンボの構えが取れますので、示現流の修行者の方には、特によろしいのではないでしょうか。 刀は出会いです。宜しくお願い致します。 ご質問等、お気軽にお問い合わせください。
NihontoWatchOffered by Token Hasegawa
This piece has sold
Get an email when a new Sanami Nobutaka piece hits the market.
As written by the shop
Mino-den · Owari · around 1581-1615
Fujishiro Jo-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 21%
1 piece on the market now
The first-generation Hoki no Kami Fujiwara Nobutaka was born in Eiroku 6 (1563) at Kami-Aruchi in Mino Province. Traditionally said to descend from the San'ami Kanekuni lineage, he received the court title of Hoki no Kami in Tensho 9 (1581) at the age of nineteen. He subsequently moved to Kiyosu in Owari Province and, in Keicho 15 (1610), accompanied Tokugawa Yoshinao to Nagoya, where he became one of the founding figures of the Owari shinto tradition. In Kan'ei 10 (1633) he retired under the Buddhist name Keiyu, dying three years later at seventy-six. His personal name was Kawamura Saemon, and the majority of his extant works are shinogi-zukuri katana and wakizashi, with hira-zukuri tanto and polearms comparatively few.
Nobutaka's forge work reveals the Mino tradition of his origin: itame-hada mixed with nagare-hada, tending toward hada-dachi, with thick ji-nie and chikei. His tempering ranges from tightly controlled notare with clear nioiguchi to bold, spirited compositions in which gunome-midare, tobiyaki, and yubashiri span into the shinogi-ji, developing into hitatsura-like all-over hardening. The nie is deep and sometimes coarsely formed, yielding nie-kuzure at the yakigashira and hotsure along the habuchi, punctuated by frequent kinsuji and sunagashi. His boshi tends to be deeply tempered with long kaeri, at times assuming an ichimai-like boldness.
Among the designated pieces, the Tensho 9 katana is celebrated as an utsushi after the renowned Inabae, executed with natural assurance immediately upon receiving his court title. His imposing o-kissaki katana display the wide-bodied proportions characteristic of the Momoyama period, while even his yari of extraordinary length show no breakdown in execution, demonstrating technical mastery across blade forms.
Where Nobutaka 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.
Select a lens to see how it's measured.
Years he was demonstrably active, proven by signed-and-dated blades
Mino-den · Mino
8 pieces on the market now
The San'ami line takes its root in Mino Province, where its head smith Kanenori (兼則) worked as one of the so-called Seki Seven Schools. The setsumei place Kanenori from the close of the Nanbokuchō period into the Ōei era of the early Muromachi, alongside Kanemoto and Kanesada among the representative hands of Sue-Seki, and the earliest extant signed tachi of his is appraised as no later than Ōei. A second early smith, Kanekuni (兼国), is recorded as belonging to the San'ami lineage and is judged to predate the Sue-Seki group proper; the remote ancestry given for him runs variously to a disciple of Naoe Kanetomo, to Yamato Kanekuni, or to Kanenori, though the setsumei note that nothing survives to confirm so distant a descent. From this Mino stock came Hōki no Kami Fujiwara Nobutaka (信高), born at Kami-Ōchi in Mino in 1563 and said to descend from San'ami Kanekuni. After receiving the title Hōki no Kami in Tenshō 9 (1581) he moved to Kiyosu in Owari and, serving Tokugawa Yoshinao, later settled at Nagoya, carrying the line into the early Shintō era through a second generation who took the tonsure in Kanbun 2 (1662). Across the corpus the jigane is itame, often closely forged and tending to nagare-hada or flowing grain along the edge, with ji-nie and a frequent standing of the grain (hada-dachi); a faint whitish cast (shirake) marks the older Mino work of Kanenori and Kanekuni. The temper rests on suguha as a base. In the early hands it is a tight, clear (saete) suguha in nioi-deki, sometimes mixed with small gunome, angular elements and pointed ha, carrying ashi, hotsure and scattered tobiyaki.
The Nobutaka works open this out: a broad suguha shifting to shallow notare, ko-notare with a gunome-flavored edge, deep nioi with nie unevenly applied and partly coarse, nie-kuzure at the yakigashira, kuichigai-ba, kinsuji, sunagashi, yubashiri and tobiyaki that climb into the shinogi-ji until the upper half reads as hitatsura. The bōshi runs to sugu with ko-maru, at times midare-komi, pointed, or hakikake, and the early swords keep a slender, high-sori tachi shape while Nobutaka's carry the wide-bodied, ō-kissaki form of the Momoyama transition. The hand is recognized in this pairing of a flowing Mino itame with a suguha core that, in the descendants, breaks toward bold hitatsura. For kantei, the setsumei fix several anchors. In Kanenori's signature the scooped chisel at the fourth stroke of the character kane (兼) is read as a trait of late Nanbokuchō through Ōei work, matched in dated Kaneyoshi mei; the clear suguha of Kanekuni is likened to a Zenjō Kaneyoshi masterpiece. The jizō-flavored bōshi and the nagare-mixed itame in Nobutaka are named as the surviving stamp of the Mino root beneath his Owari manner, and one of his katana is recorded as an Inabae-utsushi. Provenance runs through the corpus: a Kanekuni bears kinzōgan recording it as the sashiryō of Ōkubo Genban-no-jō Tadanari, lord of Odawara in Sagami, worn at the age of ninety-three; Kanenori's tachi descended in the Yamanouchi family. Among the Owari yari makers beginning with Masatsune, Nobutaka's yari of extraordinary length is held in particular regard, and the second-generation Nobutaka is judged no less skilled than his father, with the finest extant Nobutaka works counted to his hand. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Nobutaka信高 | 1581-1615 | 3 |
| Nobutaka信高 | 1624-1644 | 2 |
| Nobutaka信高 | 1673-1681 | 0 |
| Kanekuni兼國 | 1455-1457 | 1 |
| Kanenori兼則 | 1370-1372 | 1 |
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.