In the Sengoku era the school served a second warrior court: the Later Hōjō at Odawara, whose patronage kept the Tsunahiro line forging hitatsura for the uchigatana age until the castle fell to Hideyoshi in 1590.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatch(Also famous in Touken Ranbu) (Showa 54 Tokubetsu Kicho Token) It has appeared, it has appeared, a Muramasa tanto has appeared. This is the appearance of a work by Muramasa (later generation) certified as Tokubetsu Kicho Token (already confirmed with the society that the certificate matches the headquarters' records). The famous Saigo Takamori particularly cherished Muramasa swords with the aim of overthrowing the Tokugawa Bakufu. This tanto, popular as Sengo Muramasa in Touken Ranbu, bears the mei of the 2nd or 3rd generation Muramasa. It is a work of longing for Touken Joshi. While Muramasa is world-famous by the name of "yoto" (demon blade), the number of extant works is extremely small, making this a precious piece. The sugata of this tanto shows a sharp yoroi-doshi tanto sugata with a thick moto-kasane and a difference between the moto-mihaba and saki-mihaba; the jigane is forged in ko-itame hada, and the horimono consists of skillfully carved gomabashi on both sides. The hamon is in nioi-deki with ko-nie, with koshibaba at the moto, followed by gunome-midare ba, and deep yaki is also put into the mune, resulting in hitatsura with a spirited blade. Muramasa was a swordsmith from Ise in Mie Prefecture; because his swords were said to bring misfortune to the Tokugawa family, many had their mei removed to become mumei during the Edo period out of deference to the Tokugawa family, making this signed tanto precious. While these were works particularly detested by the Tokugawa Bakufu, it is a very famous story that when Prince Arisugawa became the Commander-in-Chief of the Eastern Expeditionary Force during the Boshin War, his haito was a Muramasa sword, carrying the meaning of striking down the Tokugawa Bakufu. This time, we received this Muramasa tanto from an old family who had cherished it for generations, with the request to pass it on cheaply to someone who will treasure it as they have grown old; if it were to become Tokubetsu Hozon Token, it would be over ¥10,000,000. As it is currently certified as Tokubetsu Kicho Token, we offer it at a special bargain price to someone who truly wants a work by Muramasa, based on a full understanding and acknowledgement of its current status as Tokubetsu Kicho Token; please enjoy it.
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As written by the shop
Machine translation from the shop's Japanese · may contain errors ·
Soshu-den · Ise
5 pieces on the market now
Kuwana, in Ise Province, gave the Sengo line its base, and from there the Muramasa (村正) name carried the work of late-Muromachi Ise into the Sengoku decades. The oldest extant date in the whole line is Bunki 1 (1501), carried by a katana signed "Seshu Kuwana-ju Uemon-no-jo Fujiwara Muramasa saku"[[c:1]]; from that anchor the prevailing scheme reads the Bunki pieces as the first generation, the Tenbun as the second, and the Tensho as the third, with the second master held the most skillful and most prolific of the three. The published sources set aside the popular tale that the founder studied under Masamune, calling it an unfounded tradition; the line begins instead near the close of the Muromachi period. Its hand shares common features with Mino, Shimada, and Sue-Soshu, and resembles Heianjo Nagayoshi of Kyoto so closely that the judges presume some relationship between the two, while a likeness to the Shimada smiths and to the Sue-Seki Kanesada is noted as a thing that can confuse a first reading. From the workshop issued the disciples Masashige (正重) and Masazane (正眞), filed by tradition as students of the shodai, who carried the manner forward alongside the Muramasa name itself. The feature the commentary names again and again as the school's own is the matched temper: the hamon on omote and ura align to one mirror-image pattern (omote-ura soroi), and the valleys of the midare press in toward the cutting edge. To this the masters add box-shaped elements (hako-midare), a gunome and notare base mixed with compound gunome, togariba, and yamagata figures, the nioiguchi drawn tight with patchy ko-nie in mura, and sunagashi running frequently; the boshi runs midare-komi or sugu to a ko-maru, often swept with hakikake. The forms that carry it are the wide hira-zukuri tanto and sunnobi ko-wakizashi with mitsu-mune, and the short, strongly saki-zori uchigatana; the jigane is itame tending to stand, mixed with flowing and masame-inclined grain, the steel dark at times and showing the whitish shirake cast the descriptions repeatedly note. Beneath sits the tanago-bara nakago, the fish-belly swelling that grows pronounced from the second generation, cut with a thick-chisel two-character mei.
The successors diverge by proportion rather than trick: Masashige opens the same vocabulary out, his grain standing more openly and his o-gunome and nie carried further; Masazane draws it in, holding box teeth low at the koshimoto under a calm suguha, his jihada closing tighter than his fellow pupil's. Beside the flamboyant rule each smith keeps a quiet register, tanto in suguha aimed at the Rai manner, and an occasional reach toward hitatsura with tobiyaki and muneyaki, never the rule of the work. To kantei the school, the matched faces are the first tell: the aligned omote and ura, the box figures, the valleys pressing to the edge, the tight nioiguchi with its patchy nie, and the tanago-bara nakago under the thick mei part Muramasa from the Mino, Shimada, and Heianjo hands it otherwise resembles. Within the line the nakago-mune decides: cut angular on Muramasa, it rounds out fleshily on Masashige, while Masazane is told from Masashige by his tighter steel. The Sengo reputation for cutting sharpness, with the midare valleys driven toward the ha, drew the Tokugawa legend that the blades brought calamity on the house; the sources handle it as recorded fact, noting that from the Edo period many signatures were effaced for fear of the name, so that signed katana in particular grew comparatively rare, and that one of Masazane's katana was cut "Yamashiro Province Masazane" as a deliberate screen for a daimyo recipient. Provenance runs through private and daimyo hands rather than institutional holdings: a first-generation wakizashi transmitted as a possession of Oda Nobunaga, a Masazane descended in the Mizuno and Tosa Yamauchi houses, a Lotus Sutra katana held in the Nabeshima line. The Nichiren devotion read off some blades, the title Myoho-renge-kyo cut into the steel, ties the work to its Ise region. A signed, ubu Sengo blade of secure date and matched temper comes to notice only from time to time, the legend that thinned the signatures adding to the call for those that remain. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Muramasa村正 | 1521-1528 | 41 |
| Muramasa村正 | 1501-1521 | 17 |
| Masashige正重 | 1521-1528 | 12 |
| Masazane正眞 | 1501-1504 | 4 |
| Muramasa村正 | 1573-1592 | 1 |
Sōshū in the Muromachi period
In the Sengoku era the school served a second warrior court: the Later Hōjō at Odawara, whose patronage kept the Tsunahiro line forging hitatsura for the uchigatana age until the castle fell to Hideyoshi in 1590.
This work carries older NBTHK “Kichō”-era papers, which the NBTHK no longer issues and largely disavows today. To confirm the attribution, submission to an official Japanese examination body (such as the NBTHK or NTHK) for modern certification could be considered.
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