The line of Bizen Saburō. From the Naomune group of Kamakura Bizen rose Kunimune — called Bizen Saburō, the third son — summoned east to forge for the Hōjō regents at Kamakura, where his Bizen hand helped seed what would become the Sōshū tradition. Three Kokuhō stand among the school’s small body of work, the emigrant master’s above all.
The The Bizen Naomune School (直宗), active 1220–1330 in Bizen Province across 4 documented smiths: 4 Kokuhō (National Treasures), 11 Jūbun, 19 Jūbi, 10 Tokubetsu Jūyō, 57 Jūyō.
Phase 1 · The Bizen Naomune School (直宗) · 1220 – 1330
Kunimune (國宗) — Mainline · 1278-1310. Kokuhō, Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Kunimune of Bizen, called Bizen Saburo, worked in the middle Kamakura period, the published sources placing him around the Shogen years (about 1259). He belonged to the Naomune line (直宗系), the third son of Naomune's son Kunizane, and from that birth order he was known as Saburo, the third. He lived at Osafune, yet the published sources keep his line clear of the Osafune mainstream and read his metal as Bizen to the last. The texts also carry an old account of his career: that the regent Hojo Tokiyori summoned him east, where with Sukezane of the Fukuoka-Ichimonji school and Kunitsuna of the Awataguchi school in Kyoto he became one of the pioneers of Sagami swordmaking (相州鍛冶). One Tokubetsu Juyo tachi sets the story down plainly, saying he 'was later summoned by the Kamakura shogunate under Hojo Tokiyori and moved to Kamakura, where together with Sukezane of the same province's Fukuoka-Ichimonji school and Kunitsuna of Kyoto's Awataguchi school he became one of the pioneers of Sagami swordmaking' (後に鎌倉幕府の北条時頼に召されて、鎌倉に移住し、同国の福岡一文字派の助真や京の粟田口国綱等と共に、相州鍛冶の先駆者の一人となったとの古伝がある).
The published sources divide his work into two hands, and that division is the whole of the smith. The first is a wide, powerful tachi, often with high koshizori and funbari and on the finest pieces an ubu pheasant-thigh kijimomo nakago, tempered in a flamboyant choji-led midare. Over an itame mixed with mokume that tends to stand he forges a vivid midare-utsuri, the temper crowding with gunome, angular and pointed teeth, ashi and yo entering richly, nioi-laden with ko-nie, kinsuji and sunagashi working through. The signature feature appears in this hand: the texts say that in the flamboyant midare works there is, as it has been called since old times, the 'Bizen Saburo no shirajimi,' a whitish stain that shows within the ha (古来「備前三郎の白染み」と称して、刃中に染みがあらわれるところが特色とされている). The same texts add that the stain belongs mainly to this flamboyant hand and is little seen in the quiet one, so that its presence reads as a mark of the maker rather than a flaw.
The jigane is where the published sources set his point of difference. His flamboyant choji recalls Mitsutada and Moriie at first glance, yet beside them his forging stands somewhat more, the ha-hada at times rises, and nie mixes into the ha; ji-nie gathers on the standing itame, fine chikei runs in it, and the midare-utsuri rises bright. In places the nioiguchi sinks and clouds, an urumi the texts read together with the shirajimi as one quality of his steel. Over this hand the boshi runs midare-komi with a pointed tendency, or rises sugu and returns in a small round with brushed hakikake at the tip.
Beside the flamboyant hand stands a quiet one, and the two together are the spine. The second manner is a slender or ordinary-width, gentle sugata, the forging tighter, at times a fine ko-itame with minute ji-nie. Its temper is a suguha-cho mixing ko-choji and ko-gunome, with ashi and slanting saka-ashi, the nioiguchi tight with ko-nie, bright and clear at its best. The texts tie the two manners to the signatures themselves: the flamboyant hand is signed large, with a thick chisel and rounded calligraphy, the quiet hand small, with a thinner chisel and squared calligraphy. This quiet hand carries the dated remains, the late-Kamakura Showa years (正和年紀), and from the breadth of the two manners and those late dates the texts judge that 'taking the change of styles and the chronological evidence together, it appears the name was probably not the work of a single generation, though this point should await further study' (これら作風の変遷と年代的な面から推して一代限りではないように察せられるが、この点については今後の検討に俟つべきである).
For recognition the boshi is the working tell in the quiet hand. A calm Kunimune in suguha may look at first like Osafune Sanenaga or Kagemitsu, but the texts mark the difference at the turnback: of one signed tachi they say it 'at first sight recalls the workmanship of Sanenaga or Kagemitsu of Osafune, yet shows a difference in that the boshi rises straight and returns in a large round o-maru' (一見長船の真長や景光を思わせる出来であるが、帽子が直ぐに大丸に返っている点に相違を見せ), the slightly nie-laden ji and ha and the prominent chikei completing the judgment. At the flamboyant top end the confusion runs instead toward Ichimonji, and there a koshi-biraki opening in the midare and nie clotting even inside the ha settle the attribution; that koshi-open manner marks the small sub-group of the Tenkyuwari look, an anchor for mumei blades of the same air. The shirajimi too is a keyed feature rather than a constant: the texts note that 'this phenomenon is frequent in the works with a flamboyant midare temper and is little seen in those of a suguha-toned make' (この現象は盛んな乱れ刃を焼いたものに多く、直刃調の出来のものに見ることは少ない). The lineage is kept clean at the root: the Naomune line stands apart from the Osafune mainline, and Nakahara Kunimune, whose dated tachi run from Kagen to Engyo in a quiet suguha base, is regarded as a pupil of the first generation.
For the connoisseur, Kunimune is Sai-jo saku in Fujishiro's grading, with three National Treasures, ten Important Cultural Properties and eight Tokubetsu Juyo among ninety-seven designated works on record. The National Treasure tachi of Terukuni Jinja in Kagoshima stands at the head of his signed work; the Nikko Toshogu tachi is the National Treasure of his rarer nie-based hand. The named blade Tenkyuwari carries one of the great sword histories: it was the sword Uesugi Kenshin wore when he broke the camp of Takeda Shingen's brother Tenkyu Nobushige at Kawanakajima, was given by Kenshin to Satake Yoshishige, and was held thereafter in the Satake house, lords of Kubota in Dewa, with an itomaki tachi koshirae of Kansei date. The Uesugi, Satake and Shimazu, the Kishu and Owari Tokugawa, the Ii and Abe houses and the Imperial Household appear among his recorded owners, and one tachi reached the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. About sixty-three of his blades fall in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers, which makes a designated Kunimune among the more attainable of the great Kamakura names; the National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties are heritage held in shrines and museums and do not trade, while a Tokubetsu Juyo or Juyo example, most of them held rather than offered, comes to a private collector only with patience, and is a major acquisition when it does, the one realistic way to own the Bizen master whose journey east stands behind the rise of Soshu.
Kunisada (國貞) — Mainline · 1259-1260. Kokuhō, Jūbun, Jūbi, Jūyō. Smith of the Bizen Naomune School.
Kunimune (國宗) — Mainline · 1303-1308. Tokujū, Jūyō. Nakahara Kunimune (中原国宗) is traditionally transmitted as a disciple of either the first or second generation Kunimune of the Bizen Osafune lineage. The Kunimune house resided at Osafune yet belonged to a line distinct from the group descending from Mitsutada; according to *meikan*, the first-generation Kunimune was also known as "Bizen Saburo" and appears to have been active in nearly the same period as Mitsutada and Morie. Regarding the appellation "Nakahara," one prevailing view holds it to be a place-name in Mikawa Province, while another theory considers it the family surname of the Kunimune lineage; no settled conclusion has been reached. His active period is clearly established through dated inscriptions: extant works bear the dates Kagen 2 (1304), Kagen 4 (1306), Tokuji 3 (1308), and Enkyo 2 (1309), placing him firmly in the late Kamakura period.
Nakahara Kunimune's forging characteristically employs a well-kneaded *itame-hada* mixed with *mokume*, upon which extremely fine *ji-nie* adheres thickly, accompanied by delicate *chikei*. A particularly striking feature of his work is the manner in which *suji-utsuri* and *midare-utsuri* overlap to produce a stepped, *dan-utsuri*-like effect — a phenomenon the NBTHK considers especially noteworthy. In other works, the *utsuri* appears as a subdued, low mottled pattern in darker banded areas, with localized streak-like *utsuri* near the edge. The *hamon* is consistently *suguha*-based, at times with a slight admixture of *ko-gunome* in the lower half, with fine *ashi* and *yo* entering well. The *nioiguchi* is bright with a tendency toward tightness, and *ko-nie* adheres, while fine *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* appear in the best examples. The NBTHK observes that his workmanship reveals a style from which an Aoe temperament — an *Aoe-kishitsu* — can be plainly sensed, and that at a glance his superior works call to mind the finest productions of Bizen Unsho.
The NBTHK consistently praises both *ji* and *ha* as extremely *kenzen* — sound and well-preserved — across his surviving oeuvre, and his workmanship is assessed as demonstrating an excellent level of quality that reveals high technical skill. His dated inscriptions are repeatedly singled out as exceptionally valuable documentary material for understanding the breadth and scope of his working range. One tachi was transmitted in the Satake family, lords of Kubota Domain in Akita, attesting to the esteem in which his work was held during the domain-administration period. All known works are described as constructed in a consistent vein, and together they establish Nakahara Kunimune as a smith of considerable accomplishment operating within, yet stylistically distinct from, the mainstream Osafune tradition.
Kuniyasu (國安) — Mainline · 1264-1275. Jūbi. Kuniyasu is a Bizen swordsmith of the Naomune line, the lineage that descends from the Ko-Bizen smith Naomune through Kunizane to the Kunimune group of the middle Kamakura period, the group whose head is known by the personal sobriquet Bizen Saburo. By the genealogy the published sources record, he is the fourth son, the Shiro of the house, standing beside Bizen Saburo Kunimune and Kunisada. The single blade that reads cleanly as his own hand is an o-suriage tachi, shortened yet keeping a two-character signature at the tang tip and a *bō-hi* carried through both faces, designated Juyo Bijutsuhin before the war and recorded in the *Kōzan Oshigata* and the *Shinkō Meitō Zufu*.
The forging of that tachi is an *itame* that tends a little to a standing grain, with *ji-nie* gathered on the surface. Over it the temper is a *suguha* set with *ko-midare*, *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* running through the line. The seeing-point is in the *nioiguchi*: it clouds softly to *urumi* in places, and the published record names exactly that feature as the mark of his hand, observing that 'the nioiguchi has places where it clouds, showing the seeing-point of this smith's work' (匂口はうるむところがあり、この工の見処を示している). It is a quiet manner, the straight-toned Bizen of the Naomune line rather than the showy *chōji* of Fukuoka Ichimonji.
His place in the school is at a notable hinge in the history of the craft. Naomune, the founder, is counted by scholarship a Ko-Bizen and Ko-Ichimonji smith; from him the line runs through Kunizane to Kunimune, who, with Fukuoka Ichimonji Sukezane and Awataguchi Kunitsuna, was summoned to Kamakura by the regent Hōjō Tokiyori and is held to have helped found the Sōshū tradition. The Naomune line therefore stands at the join of Kamakura Bizen and the rise of Sōshū-den, and Kuniyasu's straight, *ji-nie* temper keeps to the Bizen side of that descent.
His record carries a caution worth stating plainly. Three further blades signed Kuniyasu, all prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin katana, are wide in body with large or extended points, the published sources calling them 'broad in width, with a large kissaki' (身幅広く大切先の姿である). Their *itame* is coarse, with large grain showing across *ji* and *ha*, the temper a large *ō-wan-midare* or *notare* in deep *nie* with *gunome* and pointed elements, and their carving runs to *futasuji-hi*, a Kurikara and a hatahoko. Those are features of a later, Sōshū-toned hand, not of a mid-Kamakura Bizen smith, and they are best read as the work of a different, later Kuniyasu sharing the name. Set against them, the suguha tachi with its clouded *nioiguchi* is the one piece that speaks for the Bizen Saburo Kuniyasu.
For the collector he is among the rarest of names to encounter authentically. His designation factor is modest, he has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties, and his whole surviving record runs through the prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin tier. The blades of recorded whereabouts passed through private hands rather than great institutions, the signed tachi held by Kimura Teizō of Osaka at its designation, the related katana by Yoshida Yoshimichi of Kyoto and Hamada Shigesanji of Kumamoto. A securely authenticated Bizen Saburo Kuniyasu, distinguished from his later namesakes by the soft clouding of the *nioiguchi* the published sources single out, is a thing a collector of Kamakura Bizen meets only seldom and only with patience.
Live·Naomune lineage
直宗
The Bizen Naomune School
The line of Bizen Saburō. From the Naomune group of Kamakura Bizen rose Kunimune — called Bizen Saburō, the third son — summoned east to forge for the Hōjō regents at Kamakura, where his Bizen hand helped seed what would become the Sōshū tradition. Three Kokuhō stand among the school’s small body of work, the emigrant master’s above all.
The The Bizen Naomune School (直宗), active 1220–1330 in Bizen Province across 4 documented smiths: 4 Kokuhō (National Treasures), 11 Jūbun, 19 Jūbi, 10 Tokubetsu Jūyō, 57 Jūyō.
Phase 1 · The Bizen Naomune School (直宗) · 1220 – 1330
Kunimune (國宗) — Mainline · 1278-1310. Kokuhō, Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Kunimune of Bizen, called Bizen Saburo, worked in the middle Kamakura period, the published sources placing him around the Shogen years (about 1259). He belonged to the Naomune line (直宗系), the third son of Naomune's son Kunizane, and from that birth order he was known as Saburo, the third. He lived at Osafune, yet the published sources keep his line clear of the Osafune mainstream and read his metal as Bizen to the last. The texts also carry an old account of his career: that the regent Hojo Tokiyori summoned him east, where with Sukezane of the Fukuoka-Ichimonji school and Kunitsuna of the Awataguchi school in Kyoto he became one of the pioneers of Sagami swordmaking (相州鍛冶). One Tokubetsu Juyo tachi sets the story down plainly, saying he 'was later summoned by the Kamakura shogunate under Hojo Tokiyori and moved to Kamakura, where together with Sukezane of the same province's Fukuoka-Ichimonji school and Kunitsuna of Kyoto's Awataguchi school he became one of the pioneers of Sagami swordmaking' (後に鎌倉幕府の北条時頼に召されて、鎌倉に移住し、同国の福岡一文字派の助真や京の粟田口国綱等と共に、相州鍛冶の先駆者の一人となったとの古伝がある).
The published sources divide his work into two hands, and that division is the whole of the smith. The first is a wide, powerful tachi, often with high koshizori and funbari and on the finest pieces an ubu pheasant-thigh kijimomo nakago, tempered in a flamboyant choji-led midare. Over an itame mixed with mokume that tends to stand he forges a vivid midare-utsuri, the temper crowding with gunome, angular and pointed teeth, ashi and yo entering richly, nioi-laden with ko-nie, kinsuji and sunagashi working through. The signature feature appears in this hand: the texts say that in the flamboyant midare works there is, as it has been called since old times, the 'Bizen Saburo no shirajimi,' a whitish stain that shows within the ha (古来「備前三郎の白染み」と称して、刃中に染みがあらわれるところが特色とされている). The same texts add that the stain belongs mainly to this flamboyant hand and is little seen in the quiet one, so that its presence reads as a mark of the maker rather than a flaw.
The jigane is where the published sources set his point of difference. His flamboyant choji recalls Mitsutada and Moriie at first glance, yet beside them his forging stands somewhat more, the ha-hada at times rises, and nie mixes into the ha; ji-nie gathers on the standing itame, fine chikei runs in it, and the midare-utsuri rises bright. In places the nioiguchi sinks and clouds, an urumi the texts read together with the shirajimi as one quality of his steel. Over this hand the boshi runs midare-komi with a pointed tendency, or rises sugu and returns in a small round with brushed hakikake at the tip.
Beside the flamboyant hand stands a quiet one, and the two together are the spine. The second manner is a slender or ordinary-width, gentle sugata, the forging tighter, at times a fine ko-itame with minute ji-nie. Its temper is a suguha-cho mixing ko-choji and ko-gunome, with ashi and slanting saka-ashi, the nioiguchi tight with ko-nie, bright and clear at its best. The texts tie the two manners to the signatures themselves: the flamboyant hand is signed large, with a thick chisel and rounded calligraphy, the quiet hand small, with a thinner chisel and squared calligraphy. This quiet hand carries the dated remains, the late-Kamakura Showa years (正和年紀), and from the breadth of the two manners and those late dates the texts judge that 'taking the change of styles and the chronological evidence together, it appears the name was probably not the work of a single generation, though this point should await further study' (これら作風の変遷と年代的な面から推して一代限りではないように察せられるが、この点については今後の検討に俟つべきである).
For recognition the boshi is the working tell in the quiet hand. A calm Kunimune in suguha may look at first like Osafune Sanenaga or Kagemitsu, but the texts mark the difference at the turnback: of one signed tachi they say it 'at first sight recalls the workmanship of Sanenaga or Kagemitsu of Osafune, yet shows a difference in that the boshi rises straight and returns in a large round o-maru' (一見長船の真長や景光を思わせる出来であるが、帽子が直ぐに大丸に返っている点に相違を見せ), the slightly nie-laden ji and ha and the prominent chikei completing the judgment. At the flamboyant top end the confusion runs instead toward Ichimonji, and there a koshi-biraki opening in the midare and nie clotting even inside the ha settle the attribution; that koshi-open manner marks the small sub-group of the Tenkyuwari look, an anchor for mumei blades of the same air. The shirajimi too is a keyed feature rather than a constant: the texts note that 'this phenomenon is frequent in the works with a flamboyant midare temper and is little seen in those of a suguha-toned make' (この現象は盛んな乱れ刃を焼いたものに多く、直刃調の出来のものに見ることは少ない). The lineage is kept clean at the root: the Naomune line stands apart from the Osafune mainline, and Nakahara Kunimune, whose dated tachi run from Kagen to Engyo in a quiet suguha base, is regarded as a pupil of the first generation.
For the connoisseur, Kunimune is Sai-jo saku in Fujishiro's grading, with three National Treasures, ten Important Cultural Properties and eight Tokubetsu Juyo among ninety-seven designated works on record. The National Treasure tachi of Terukuni Jinja in Kagoshima stands at the head of his signed work; the Nikko Toshogu tachi is the National Treasure of his rarer nie-based hand. The named blade Tenkyuwari carries one of the great sword histories: it was the sword Uesugi Kenshin wore when he broke the camp of Takeda Shingen's brother Tenkyu Nobushige at Kawanakajima, was given by Kenshin to Satake Yoshishige, and was held thereafter in the Satake house, lords of Kubota in Dewa, with an itomaki tachi koshirae of Kansei date. The Uesugi, Satake and Shimazu, the Kishu and Owari Tokugawa, the Ii and Abe houses and the Imperial Household appear among his recorded owners, and one tachi reached the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. About sixty-three of his blades fall in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers, which makes a designated Kunimune among the more attainable of the great Kamakura names; the National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties are heritage held in shrines and museums and do not trade, while a Tokubetsu Juyo or Juyo example, most of them held rather than offered, comes to a private collector only with patience, and is a major acquisition when it does, the one realistic way to own the Bizen master whose journey east stands behind the rise of Soshu.
Kunisada (國貞) — Mainline · 1259-1260. Kokuhō, Jūbun, Jūbi, Jūyō. Smith of the Bizen Naomune School.
Kunimune (國宗) — Mainline · 1303-1308. Tokujū, Jūyō. Nakahara Kunimune (中原国宗) is traditionally transmitted as a disciple of either the first or second generation Kunimune of the Bizen Osafune lineage. The Kunimune house resided at Osafune yet belonged to a line distinct from the group descending from Mitsutada; according to *meikan*, the first-generation Kunimune was also known as "Bizen Saburo" and appears to have been active in nearly the same period as Mitsutada and Morie. Regarding the appellation "Nakahara," one prevailing view holds it to be a place-name in Mikawa Province, while another theory considers it the family surname of the Kunimune lineage; no settled conclusion has been reached. His active period is clearly established through dated inscriptions: extant works bear the dates Kagen 2 (1304), Kagen 4 (1306), Tokuji 3 (1308), and Enkyo 2 (1309), placing him firmly in the late Kamakura period.
Nakahara Kunimune's forging characteristically employs a well-kneaded *itame-hada* mixed with *mokume*, upon which extremely fine *ji-nie* adheres thickly, accompanied by delicate *chikei*. A particularly striking feature of his work is the manner in which *suji-utsuri* and *midare-utsuri* overlap to produce a stepped, *dan-utsuri*-like effect — a phenomenon the NBTHK considers especially noteworthy. In other works, the *utsuri* appears as a subdued, low mottled pattern in darker banded areas, with localized streak-like *utsuri* near the edge. The *hamon* is consistently *suguha*-based, at times with a slight admixture of *ko-gunome* in the lower half, with fine *ashi* and *yo* entering well. The *nioiguchi* is bright with a tendency toward tightness, and *ko-nie* adheres, while fine *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* appear in the best examples. The NBTHK observes that his workmanship reveals a style from which an Aoe temperament — an *Aoe-kishitsu* — can be plainly sensed, and that at a glance his superior works call to mind the finest productions of Bizen Unsho.
The NBTHK consistently praises both *ji* and *ha* as extremely *kenzen* — sound and well-preserved — across his surviving oeuvre, and his workmanship is assessed as demonstrating an excellent level of quality that reveals high technical skill. His dated inscriptions are repeatedly singled out as exceptionally valuable documentary material for understanding the breadth and scope of his working range. One tachi was transmitted in the Satake family, lords of Kubota Domain in Akita, attesting to the esteem in which his work was held during the domain-administration period. All known works are described as constructed in a consistent vein, and together they establish Nakahara Kunimune as a smith of considerable accomplishment operating within, yet stylistically distinct from, the mainstream Osafune tradition.
Kuniyasu (國安) — Mainline · 1264-1275. Jūbi. Kuniyasu is a Bizen swordsmith of the Naomune line, the lineage that descends from the Ko-Bizen smith Naomune through Kunizane to the Kunimune group of the middle Kamakura period, the group whose head is known by the personal sobriquet Bizen Saburo. By the genealogy the published sources record, he is the fourth son, the Shiro of the house, standing beside Bizen Saburo Kunimune and Kunisada. The single blade that reads cleanly as his own hand is an o-suriage tachi, shortened yet keeping a two-character signature at the tang tip and a *bō-hi* carried through both faces, designated Juyo Bijutsuhin before the war and recorded in the *Kōzan Oshigata* and the *Shinkō Meitō Zufu*.
The forging of that tachi is an *itame* that tends a little to a standing grain, with *ji-nie* gathered on the surface. Over it the temper is a *suguha* set with *ko-midare*, *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* running through the line. The seeing-point is in the *nioiguchi*: it clouds softly to *urumi* in places, and the published record names exactly that feature as the mark of his hand, observing that 'the nioiguchi has places where it clouds, showing the seeing-point of this smith's work' (匂口はうるむところがあり、この工の見処を示している). It is a quiet manner, the straight-toned Bizen of the Naomune line rather than the showy *chōji* of Fukuoka Ichimonji.
His place in the school is at a notable hinge in the history of the craft. Naomune, the founder, is counted by scholarship a Ko-Bizen and Ko-Ichimonji smith; from him the line runs through Kunizane to Kunimune, who, with Fukuoka Ichimonji Sukezane and Awataguchi Kunitsuna, was summoned to Kamakura by the regent Hōjō Tokiyori and is held to have helped found the Sōshū tradition. The Naomune line therefore stands at the join of Kamakura Bizen and the rise of Sōshū-den, and Kuniyasu's straight, *ji-nie* temper keeps to the Bizen side of that descent.
His record carries a caution worth stating plainly. Three further blades signed Kuniyasu, all prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin katana, are wide in body with large or extended points, the published sources calling them 'broad in width, with a large kissaki' (身幅広く大切先の姿である). Their *itame* is coarse, with large grain showing across *ji* and *ha*, the temper a large *ō-wan-midare* or *notare* in deep *nie* with *gunome* and pointed elements, and their carving runs to *futasuji-hi*, a Kurikara and a hatahoko. Those are features of a later, Sōshū-toned hand, not of a mid-Kamakura Bizen smith, and they are best read as the work of a different, later Kuniyasu sharing the name. Set against them, the suguha tachi with its clouded *nioiguchi* is the one piece that speaks for the Bizen Saburo Kuniyasu.
For the collector he is among the rarest of names to encounter authentically. His designation factor is modest, he has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties, and his whole surviving record runs through the prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin tier. The blades of recorded whereabouts passed through private hands rather than great institutions, the signed tachi held by Kimura Teizō of Osaka at its designation, the related katana by Yoshida Yoshimichi of Kyoto and Hamada Shigesanji of Kumamoto. A securely authenticated Bizen Saburo Kuniyasu, distinguished from his later namesakes by the soft clouding of the *nioiguchi* the published sources single out, is a thing a collector of Kamakura Bizen meets only seldom and only with patience.