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.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatch出ました出ました金象嵌銘兼元の名刀が出ました。天下に有名な孫六兼元は刀剣愛好家の垂涎の的です。兼元の刀を生涯の内に所持したいのは日本男子の本懐の証です。兼元家は代々孫六を称し天下に有名な刀です。本兼元は孫六兼元として伝わった名刀ですが、本阿弥光遜先生は天文頃（1543年）（483年前）の孫六兼元の子の刀として激賞されています。兼元は戦国時代から大業物で良く斬れると言い余りにも有名です。二念仏兼元は斬られた相手が念仏を2度唱えるまで切られた事が判らなかったほど切味が素晴らしかったとして名づけられた名刀です。本刀の元は2尺5寸程の長寸の兼元の刀を後の武将が自分の愛刀にしたいが為に自分の剣法に合せ短くした為に無銘になったのを惜しんで金象嵌で兼元の名を残した刀です。本刀はやや腰反りで元身幅と先身幅との差のある良い刀姿を現し。地金は板目肌に良く鍛えられ、鎬地には柾目肌も現れ、地には地沸が付き、刃紋は匂い出来に小沸の付いた家伝の三本杉の尖り刃をきりりと焼き如何にも物切れする兼元の刃紋です。金象嵌銘兼元の銘が本刀に一層の凄みをと迫力を与えています。この度古いお家の方から家代々大切にしてきた刀ですが自分達も年を取りましたので大切にして頂ける方にお安くお譲り下さいとお預かりした為に特別に格安にて御提供いたします、憧れの的の金象嵌銘兼元の迫力のある刀を是非お楽しみ下さいませ。
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Mino-den · Mino
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Kanemoto (兼元) worked at Akasaka in Mino Province, and the line takes its place among the smiths of the late Muromachi period whom the NBTHK registers under the Mino-den tradition centered on Seki. The setsumei place the family within the Sue-Seki (Sue-Mino) milieu, naming Kanemoto alongside Kanesada as the two leading figures of the province in this era; one tantō note instead pairs the name with Kaneshiba, and another with Izumi no Kami Kaneshige, marking the company the line kept. The name passed through successive generations, and the records repeatedly state that distinguishing each generation has not been definitively settled. Dated long signatures reading "Nōshū Akasaka-jū Kanemoto" survive from the Meiō, Bunki, Daiei, Kyōroku, and Eishō eras, while two-character signatures bear no date. The first generation is documented through pieces dated Meiō 6, 8, 9, and 10, all giving the Akasaka residence; the most accomplished hand, and the one the world singles out under the sobriquet "Magoroku Kanemoto," is the second generation. The shared vocabulary of the line is the sanbonsugi (three-cedar) gunome, a sequence of linked pointed crests that rise and fall in groups. The ground is Mino-den through and through: itame-hada mixed with mokume and flowing masame, tending toward standing grain (hada-dachi), with fine ji-nie, chikei, and a whitish shirake-utsuri that the setsumei call out again and again. The temper mixes togariba (pointed elements) and gunome, is nioi-dominant with ko-nie, and runs sunagashi, kinsuji, and occasional tobiyaki; the bōshi is typically midare-komi turning in ko-maru, often described as Jizō-like with hakikake or a falling kaeri. The chief means of separating the second generation from the later line is regularity: as the generations descend, the pointed crests grow sharply angular and standardized, whereas Magoroku's sanbonsugi is deliberately uneven, the gunome heads rounded in places, and the pattern shifts freely into nihonsugi, yonsugi, and gosugi groupings of two, four, and five. The records describe this as a gyōsō (cursive, free) manner.
The first generation, by contrast, does not emphasize sanbonsugi at all, favoring gunome mixed with gunome-chōji and at times yubashiri and tobiyaki; both generations also made suguha, and one tantō is an uncommon Rai-utsushi in elegant straight temper that evokes Kaneyuki. For kantei, the line is read through the standing Mino grain, the shirake-utsuri, and above all the irregular sanbonsugi, with the leaning bōshi a noted point: the records observe that the honka model and these blades share a bōshi that falls over. Named and documented works recur across the register. A naginata dated Kyōroku 1 (1528) carries the full Akasaka signature and is valued as documentary source material, dated two-character pieces being scarce. A katana bearing a kinzōgan inscription on the reverse is known as "Sasatsuyu Kanemoto" and is recorded in the hands of Makishima Kenmotsu Akishige, of the same clan as Furuta Kosukezaemon. The "Aoki Kanemoto," a second-generation work, is said to be the sword with which Aoki Ichishige, a retainer of Tokugawa Ieyasu, killed Magara Masataka of the Asakura side at the Battle of Anegawa in Genki 1 (1570). A further katana carries a Genna 1 (1615) kinzōgan cutting-test inscription by Nakagawa Saheita reading "two bodies," and one suguha katana descended in the Echizen Matsudaira family. Two katana signed Kanemoto are recorded in Honma's inventory of the Imperial collection. Across these works the line is registered as the cutting-edged representative of Sue-Seki, its hand recognized wherever the three-cedar temper runs uneven over standing Mino steel. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Kanemoto兼元 | 1521-1528 | 30 |
| Kanemoto兼元 | 1532-1555 | 0 |
| Kanemoto兼元 | 1573-1592 | 0 |
| Kanemoto兼元 | 1592-1596 | 0 |
| Kanemoto兼元 | 1818-1830 | 0 |
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.
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