NihontoWatchOrdering Number: AS26342Wakizashi in Shirasaya with Koshirae (NBTHK Tokubetsu Hozon Token) (NBTHK Tokubetsu Kicho Token)Signature: Sagami no Kami Fujiwara Masatsune相模守藤原政常Shinto: Jyojyo Saku: Owari.(We divide 4 sections for each sword as Saijyo Saku, Jyojyo Saku, Jyo Saku and Regular Saku).This blade is ranked as Jyojyo Saku among the works of Sagami no Kami Fujiwara Masatsune.Habaki: Double silver-foiled habaki.Blade Length: 34.7 cm (13.66 in).Curvature: 0.45 cm (0.18 in).Mekugi Hole: 1.Width at Base (Motohaba): 2.91 cm (1.15 in).Thickness of rim (Kasane): 0.58 cm (0.23 in).Sword Weight: 275 g.Era: Edo period, around the Keicho era (1596–1615).Shape: A sun-nobi tanto of katakiriha-zukuri construction. The omote is carved with a bohi and soehi, while the ura is also carved with a bohi and soehi.Jigane: Ko-itame hada with a clearly visible grain pattern.Hamon: Rounded gunome-midare with a boshi that returns in a rounded form.Features: Sagami no Kami Fujiwara Masatsune was active from the end of the Sengoku period into the early Edo period and was regarded as one of the foremost swordsmiths of his age. He was especially renowned as a master maker of yari and enjoyed the patronage of the Tokugawa family and Fukushima Masanori, producing many outstanding works. The first-generation Masatsune was originally from Mino Province (present-day Gifu Prefecture) and first signed his works Kanetsune. After relocating to Komaki and later the castle town of Kiyosu in present-day Aichi Prefecture, he received the title Sagami no Kami during the Tensho era and changed his name to Masatsune. His exceptional skill earned widespread recognition, and the Masatsune line continued through successive generations until the end of the Edo period. Masatsune's swords were so highly esteemed that legends arose claiming they possessed spiritual power, capable of curing fox possession and illness.Koshirae:Tsuba: Round shakudo nanako tsuba with gold iroe on the rim.Fuchi: Shakudo nanako ground car
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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 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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