Bitchū’s other school. In the shadow of neighbouring Aoe, the Senoo smiths — Masatsune, Saneyuki, Sukezane, Munesada — worked the same riverlands with a quieter hand through the Kamakura age. The body of work is small but distinguished: a Kokuhō crowns it.
The The Bitchū Senoo School (瀬尾), active 1180–1350 in Bitchū Province across 16 documented smiths: 0 Kokuhō (National Treasures), 2 Jūbun, 3 Jūbi, 6 Tokubetsu Jūyō, 14 Jūyō.
Phase 1 · The Bitchū Senoo School (瀬尾) · 1180 – 1350
Yukizane (行眞) — Mainline · 1260-1261. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Yukizane (行真) was a swordsmith of the Seno group in Bitchu Province, active during the Kamakura period. The Bitchu smiths are broadly divided into two lineages: the Aoe smiths — Moritsugu, Tametsugu, Sadatsugu, and others — who commonly employ the character "tsugu"[[c:1]] in their names and forged along the basin of the Takahashi River, and the Seno smiths, situated to the east toward Bizen, who rarely incorporate that character. Seno is known as a place developed by Seno Taro Kaneyasu, a retainer of the Taira. The *Kokon Meizukushi* records Yukizane as a son of Suemasa within the Seno lineage, and sword-mei manuals list several smiths of this name from the Kamakura period through around the Oei era. Extant works by Yukizane are few, making each surviving example of considerable documentary importance.
Yukizane's tachi present an old-fashioned, imposing form with wide *motohaba*, a pronounced taper to the tip, lofty *koshizori*, and a *ko-kissaki*. The forging shows *itame-hada* mixed with *mokume*, with a slightly standing grain and areas of *chirimen*-like texture toward the edge — a recognized hallmark of Seno workmanship. Fine *ji-nie* forms densely, *utsuri* appears, and *jifu*-like mottling gives the ground a distinctive *jiban*-toned character. The *hamon* is based on *suguha*, mixed with *gunome*, *ko-midare*, and a *ko-gunome*-like feeling; *ashi* and *yo* enter well, *nie* forms throughout the temper, and fine *sunagashi* and slight *kinsuji* appear. The *boshi* is vigorously *hakikake*, becoming a flame-like *kaen*-style appearance — a particularly striking feature. The *nakago* typically displays *sujikai* or *o-sujikai* file marks with a finely chiseled two-character signature on the *omote*, clearly expressing distinctive features of Seno workmanship.
The NBTHK has described Yukizane's best works as possessing a dignified, imposing presence and a subdued, deeply flavorful character, with both *ji* and *ha* in *kenzen* — sound and well-preserved — condition. As the *Genki Mekikisho* observes, Seno blades convey a temperament "resembling Bizen work," and Yukizane's hamon indeed carries something of a Ko-Bizen flavor even as the *jigane* and file-mark conventions identify the hand unmistakably as Bitchu Seno. It is especially desirable that his surviving tachi retain *ubu* nakago with original signatures, providing irreplaceable source material for the study of this maker.
Saneyuki (眞行) — Mainline · 1293-1299. Jūbun, Jūyō. Smith of the Bitchū Senoo School.
Sukezane (助眞) — Mainline · 1232-1249. Tokujū, Jūyō. Sukezane was a swordsmith of the Senoo school of Bitchū Province during the Kamakura period. The Senoo district, opened by Senoo Tarō Kaneyasu, a retainer of the Taira clan, lay along the lower reaches of the Takahashi River to the east of Aoe, closer to Bizen, and the old appraisal texts *Genki Mekiki-sho* and *Kokon Mei-zukushi* divide the smiths of Bitchū into the Aoe and Senoo forges. The meikan genealogies list two smiths of this name: one a pupil of Noritaka working around the Jōei era (1232–1233), the other a pupil of Tsunetō placed around Bun'ei (1264–1275). Surviving examples are very few, and blades bearing his signature are accordingly treasured.
The Senoo smiths — Noritaka, Masatsune, Tsunetō, Koreshige, Yasuie, Hirotsune, Tsunezane, Moritsune, Sukezane, Tokizane, and Yukizane among them — seldom used the character *tsugi* (次) that was customary in Aoe signatures, and unlike the Aoe smiths of the same era they generally signed in tachi-mei. Sukezane's extant tachi preserve ubu, deeply koshi-zori shapes of dignified form. The *kitae* is itame or ko-itame mixed with mokume, tending toward a crêpe-like *chirimen-hada* with thick *ji-nie*, fine *chikei*, and *jifu-utsuri* standing out — the hallmarks of the Bitchū smiths. The *hamon* is a wide *suguha* base mixed with ko-gunome, kaku-gunome, or chōji, with abundant *ko-ashi* and *yō*, *nioi-gachi* with *ko-nie*, at times slanting (*saka-gakari*) in the lower half, and accompanied by *hotsure*, *kinsuji*, and *sunagashi*. As the old texts note, the workmanship "resembles Bizen work," carrying a Ko-Bizen flavor while at first glance approaching Aoe; the *yasurime* in ō-sujikai is a further mark of the province.
Sukezane's importance rests on the rarity of signed Senoo work surviving today. A signed tachi of 76.3 cm passed Jūyō at the 64th session and rose to Tokubetsu Jūyō at the 26th session; another, descended in the Bizen Ikeda family and accompanied by a Momoyama-period itomaki-no-tachi koshirae with bear-fur scabbard cover, holds Tokubetsu Jūyō rank from the 16th session; a third, an ubu tachi from the Kishū family collection, is Jūyō. The NBTHK descriptions repeatedly note that the Senoo forge still awaits fuller study, making each of these signed blades primary research material for the school.
Moritsune (守恒) — Mainline · 1233-1234. Jūbi, Jūyō. Smith of the Bitchū Senoo School.
Noritaka (則高) — Mainline · 1184-1185. Jūbi, Jūyō. Smith of the Bitchū Senoo School.
Munesada (宗貞) — Mainline · 1240-1243. Tokujū. Smith of the Bitchū Senoo School.
Noritsune (則恒) — Mainline · 1260-1261. Tokujū. Smith of the Bitchū Senoo School.
Tsuneto (常遠) — Mainline · 1247-1249. Tokujū. Smith of the Bitchū Senoo School.
Other smiths
Kaneyasu (包安) — Mainline · 1261-1264. Smith of the Bitchū Senoo School.
Munetada (宗忠) — Mainline · 1306-1308. Smith of the Bitchū Senoo School.
Noritsune (則常) — Mainline · 1235-1238. Smith of the Bitchū Senoo School.
Tokizane (時眞) — Mainline · 1240-1243. Smith of the Bitchū Senoo School.
Yasuie (安家) — Mainline · 1312-1318. Smith of the Bitchū Senoo School.
Yasumitsu (安光) — Mainline · 1319-1326. Smith of the Bitchū Senoo School.
Yukikuni (行國) — Mainline · 1329-1331. Smith of the Bitchū Senoo School.
Masatsune (正恒) — Mainline · 1184-1185. The published sources open his record with the old Muromachi texts: the Genki Mekikisho and the Kokon Meizukushi divide the swordsmiths of Bitchu into the Aoe smiths and the Senoo smiths, and where the Aoe line customarily carries the character tsugu (次) in its signatures, the Senoo line, derived from the founder Noritaka, does not use it. Masatsune is the representative smith of this Senoo group, active from the end of the Heian period into the early Kamakura period. The forge stood on the lower reaches of the Takahashi river, east of the Aoe site and toward Bizen, a place one paper records as opened by the Taira retainer Senoo Taro Kaneyasu, and the NBTHK cites this geography, together with the likeness of the work itself, to explain the Bizen cast of his manner. The smiths around him, Koreshige, Yasuie, Hirotsune, Tsunezane, Moritsune and Yukizane, survive almost nowhere, so the Senoo school is known today essentially through his blades; of those, the same sources note, the surviving examples "are not particularly few"[[c:1]]. The older Juyo papers filed the very same man as the Ko-Aoe Masatsune, and only the more recent designations title him Bitchu Senoo, a shift in filing that is itself part of his scholarship.
His tachi keep the grace of their era. Blade after blade is described as slender, deeply curved at the koshi and closing in a small kissaki, "a classical and elegant tachi sugata that does not descend below the early Kamakura period"[[c:2]]. Over this form runs a chu-suguha in shallow notare, mixing ko-midare, ko-gunome and ko-choji. Ashi and yo enter well, and fine ko-nie attaches overall. In places the edge frays into hotsure, with kinsuji and sunagashi working through. The boshi continues sugu into a ko-maru, or finishes near yakizume, lightly brushed with hakikake. He signs only the large two character mei, cut with a thickish chisel, and the published record notes as a peculiarity of the name that examples exist with the characters on the haki-omote and on the haki-ura both ways. Twelve signed blades stand on his record, and the published sources repeatedly mark the signed state itself as "precious as research material"[[c:3]].
The jigane is where his province declares itself. The forging is ko-itame to itame with mokume mixed in, thick in ji-nie, with fine chikei entering; jifu appears, and at its fullest the jigane takes on the crepe-like quality the sources call chirimen-hada, over which a faint jifu-utsuri can stand. The NBTHK states the marks of his country as a formula: "the jigane presents a chirimen-hada texture, jifu appears, and the yasurime become o-sujikai, and in these points the kantei marks of the Bitchu smiths are shown"[[c:4]]. The temper of the whole nevertheless leans east. The old transmission texts already record of the Senoo work that it "resembles Bizen things"[[c:5]], more Bizen in spirit than the Aoe mainline, and the Juyo Bijutsuhin compiler, before a deep ko-nie suguha with ko-midare, finds the man himself in the crowding of the temper: "the nie-ashi enter thickly, showing this smith's character well"[[c:6]].
The scholarship around the name is layered. The signatures vary enough that, the published sources repeat, the name does not appear "limited to a single smith"[[c:7]], and some connection with the Masatsune of neighboring Ko-Bizen is suspected from geography and style alike, a question the NBTHK expressly leaves open for further study. The filing itself has moved with the scholarship: the Juyo designations of the 1960s through the 1980s title his blades Ko-Aoe, those from the 1990s onward Bitchu and then Bitchu Senoo, as the school's separate identity firmed. One case shows the old connoisseurship crossing the line between the two names. To a tachi of his, "in Genbun 5 Hon'ami Koyu appended an origami attributing it to Bizen Masatsune"[[c:8]]; examined today, the NBTHK writes, the jigane is "a state close to the so-called chirimen-hada, with jifu mixed in"[[c:9]] and the original yasurime are clearly o-sujikai, so that "it is appropriate to judge it as the Masatsune of the Bitchu Senoo line"[[c:10]]. A horimono, for the rest, is an exception in his work: the Juyo Bijutsuhin text remarks of the single tachi carrying a hi that this is "rare for Masatsune"[[c:11]].
The heart of his connoisseurship is the namesake problem, two smiths called Masatsune working at almost the same time in adjoining provinces. The published sources state it without evasion. Blade after blade is introduced as showing "at first sight a workmanship closely approaching Ko-Bizen Masatsune"[[c:12]]; next to the contemporary Ko-Bizen pieces, they concede, many of his works carry "a somewhat more austere flavor"[[c:13]], while "among them are examples that leave almost nothing to choose"[[c:14]]. Style alone, in other words, does not decide between the two, and the decision rests on his own marks. The Tokubetsu Juyo texts give the rule plainly: "compared with Ko-Bizen, most show a nioiguchi slightly subdued, and a hada that stands somewhat is general"[[c:15]], and there, they write, the slight individuality of Bitchu work shows. To this the ji adds the jifu-laden, chirimen-like quality of his jigane, and the nakago adds the decisive mark, an original yasurime unmistakably o-sujikai, the very point on which the NBTHK set aside the old Honami origami.
Fourteen designated works stand on record, among them three Tokubetsu Juyo and five Juyo blades together with five Juyo Bijutsuhin. Fujishiro rates him Sai-jo saku, and the Toko Taikan sets his value at 2,500. Seven of his blades carry recorded provenance. One Tokubetsu Juyo tachi is recorded as the sword worn by the Sengoku general Satake Yoshishige, passing in the later Edo period to the Kikkawa, a bakufu retainer house, and a katana with folded back signature descended in the Date house of Sendai. His designated blades sit in the Tokubetsu Juyo, Juyo and Juyo Bijutsuhin tiers, so the record is not closed to private hands, and of recorded whereabouts his blades rest almost entirely in private collections; even so, one comes to market only rarely. What a collector may realistically encounter is a signed two character mei tachi of the end of Heian or the opening of Kamakura, of the kind the NBTHK judged "an unmistakably archaic piece, its ji and ha carrying a moist quality, of high dignity"[[c:16]], and the appearance of one is an uncommon event.
Live·Senoo lineage
瀬尾
The Bitchū Senoo School
Bitchū’s other school. In the shadow of neighbouring Aoe, the Senoo smiths — Masatsune, Saneyuki, Sukezane, Munesada — worked the same riverlands with a quieter hand through the Kamakura age. The body of work is small but distinguished: a Kokuhō crowns it.
The The Bitchū Senoo School (瀬尾), active 1180–1350 in Bitchū Province across 16 documented smiths: 0 Kokuhō (National Treasures), 2 Jūbun, 3 Jūbi, 6 Tokubetsu Jūyō, 14 Jūyō.
Phase 1 · The Bitchū Senoo School (瀬尾) · 1180 – 1350
Yukizane (行眞) — Mainline · 1260-1261. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Yukizane (行真) was a swordsmith of the Seno group in Bitchu Province, active during the Kamakura period. The Bitchu smiths are broadly divided into two lineages: the Aoe smiths — Moritsugu, Tametsugu, Sadatsugu, and others — who commonly employ the character "tsugu"[[c:1]] in their names and forged along the basin of the Takahashi River, and the Seno smiths, situated to the east toward Bizen, who rarely incorporate that character. Seno is known as a place developed by Seno Taro Kaneyasu, a retainer of the Taira. The *Kokon Meizukushi* records Yukizane as a son of Suemasa within the Seno lineage, and sword-mei manuals list several smiths of this name from the Kamakura period through around the Oei era. Extant works by Yukizane are few, making each surviving example of considerable documentary importance.
Yukizane's tachi present an old-fashioned, imposing form with wide *motohaba*, a pronounced taper to the tip, lofty *koshizori*, and a *ko-kissaki*. The forging shows *itame-hada* mixed with *mokume*, with a slightly standing grain and areas of *chirimen*-like texture toward the edge — a recognized hallmark of Seno workmanship. Fine *ji-nie* forms densely, *utsuri* appears, and *jifu*-like mottling gives the ground a distinctive *jiban*-toned character. The *hamon* is based on *suguha*, mixed with *gunome*, *ko-midare*, and a *ko-gunome*-like feeling; *ashi* and *yo* enter well, *nie* forms throughout the temper, and fine *sunagashi* and slight *kinsuji* appear. The *boshi* is vigorously *hakikake*, becoming a flame-like *kaen*-style appearance — a particularly striking feature. The *nakago* typically displays *sujikai* or *o-sujikai* file marks with a finely chiseled two-character signature on the *omote*, clearly expressing distinctive features of Seno workmanship.
The NBTHK has described Yukizane's best works as possessing a dignified, imposing presence and a subdued, deeply flavorful character, with both *ji* and *ha* in *kenzen* — sound and well-preserved — condition. As the *Genki Mekikisho* observes, Seno blades convey a temperament "resembling Bizen work," and Yukizane's hamon indeed carries something of a Ko-Bizen flavor even as the *jigane* and file-mark conventions identify the hand unmistakably as Bitchu Seno. It is especially desirable that his surviving tachi retain *ubu* nakago with original signatures, providing irreplaceable source material for the study of this maker.
Saneyuki (眞行) — Mainline · 1293-1299. Jūbun, Jūyō. Smith of the Bitchū Senoo School.
Sukezane (助眞) — Mainline · 1232-1249. Tokujū, Jūyō. Sukezane was a swordsmith of the Senoo school of Bitchū Province during the Kamakura period. The Senoo district, opened by Senoo Tarō Kaneyasu, a retainer of the Taira clan, lay along the lower reaches of the Takahashi River to the east of Aoe, closer to Bizen, and the old appraisal texts *Genki Mekiki-sho* and *Kokon Mei-zukushi* divide the smiths of Bitchū into the Aoe and Senoo forges. The meikan genealogies list two smiths of this name: one a pupil of Noritaka working around the Jōei era (1232–1233), the other a pupil of Tsunetō placed around Bun'ei (1264–1275). Surviving examples are very few, and blades bearing his signature are accordingly treasured.
The Senoo smiths — Noritaka, Masatsune, Tsunetō, Koreshige, Yasuie, Hirotsune, Tsunezane, Moritsune, Sukezane, Tokizane, and Yukizane among them — seldom used the character *tsugi* (次) that was customary in Aoe signatures, and unlike the Aoe smiths of the same era they generally signed in tachi-mei. Sukezane's extant tachi preserve ubu, deeply koshi-zori shapes of dignified form. The *kitae* is itame or ko-itame mixed with mokume, tending toward a crêpe-like *chirimen-hada* with thick *ji-nie*, fine *chikei*, and *jifu-utsuri* standing out — the hallmarks of the Bitchū smiths. The *hamon* is a wide *suguha* base mixed with ko-gunome, kaku-gunome, or chōji, with abundant *ko-ashi* and *yō*, *nioi-gachi* with *ko-nie*, at times slanting (*saka-gakari*) in the lower half, and accompanied by *hotsure*, *kinsuji*, and *sunagashi*. As the old texts note, the workmanship "resembles Bizen work," carrying a Ko-Bizen flavor while at first glance approaching Aoe; the *yasurime* in ō-sujikai is a further mark of the province.
Sukezane's importance rests on the rarity of signed Senoo work surviving today. A signed tachi of 76.3 cm passed Jūyō at the 64th session and rose to Tokubetsu Jūyō at the 26th session; another, descended in the Bizen Ikeda family and accompanied by a Momoyama-period itomaki-no-tachi koshirae with bear-fur scabbard cover, holds Tokubetsu Jūyō rank from the 16th session; a third, an ubu tachi from the Kishū family collection, is Jūyō. The NBTHK descriptions repeatedly note that the Senoo forge still awaits fuller study, making each of these signed blades primary research material for the school.
Moritsune (守恒) — Mainline · 1233-1234. Jūbi, Jūyō. Smith of the Bitchū Senoo School.
Noritaka (則高) — Mainline · 1184-1185. Jūbi, Jūyō. Smith of the Bitchū Senoo School.
Munesada (宗貞) — Mainline · 1240-1243. Tokujū. Smith of the Bitchū Senoo School.
Noritsune (則恒) — Mainline · 1260-1261. Tokujū. Smith of the Bitchū Senoo School.
Tsuneto (常遠) — Mainline · 1247-1249. Tokujū. Smith of the Bitchū Senoo School.
Other smiths
Kaneyasu (包安) — Mainline · 1261-1264. Smith of the Bitchū Senoo School.
Munetada (宗忠) — Mainline · 1306-1308. Smith of the Bitchū Senoo School.
Noritsune (則常) — Mainline · 1235-1238. Smith of the Bitchū Senoo School.
Tokizane (時眞) — Mainline · 1240-1243. Smith of the Bitchū Senoo School.
Yasuie (安家) — Mainline · 1312-1318. Smith of the Bitchū Senoo School.
Yasumitsu (安光) — Mainline · 1319-1326. Smith of the Bitchū Senoo School.
Yukikuni (行國) — Mainline · 1329-1331. Smith of the Bitchū Senoo School.
Masatsune (正恒) — Mainline · 1184-1185. The published sources open his record with the old Muromachi texts: the Genki Mekikisho and the Kokon Meizukushi divide the swordsmiths of Bitchu into the Aoe smiths and the Senoo smiths, and where the Aoe line customarily carries the character tsugu (次) in its signatures, the Senoo line, derived from the founder Noritaka, does not use it. Masatsune is the representative smith of this Senoo group, active from the end of the Heian period into the early Kamakura period. The forge stood on the lower reaches of the Takahashi river, east of the Aoe site and toward Bizen, a place one paper records as opened by the Taira retainer Senoo Taro Kaneyasu, and the NBTHK cites this geography, together with the likeness of the work itself, to explain the Bizen cast of his manner. The smiths around him, Koreshige, Yasuie, Hirotsune, Tsunezane, Moritsune and Yukizane, survive almost nowhere, so the Senoo school is known today essentially through his blades; of those, the same sources note, the surviving examples "are not particularly few"[[c:1]]. The older Juyo papers filed the very same man as the Ko-Aoe Masatsune, and only the more recent designations title him Bitchu Senoo, a shift in filing that is itself part of his scholarship.
His tachi keep the grace of their era. Blade after blade is described as slender, deeply curved at the koshi and closing in a small kissaki, "a classical and elegant tachi sugata that does not descend below the early Kamakura period"[[c:2]]. Over this form runs a chu-suguha in shallow notare, mixing ko-midare, ko-gunome and ko-choji. Ashi and yo enter well, and fine ko-nie attaches overall. In places the edge frays into hotsure, with kinsuji and sunagashi working through. The boshi continues sugu into a ko-maru, or finishes near yakizume, lightly brushed with hakikake. He signs only the large two character mei, cut with a thickish chisel, and the published record notes as a peculiarity of the name that examples exist with the characters on the haki-omote and on the haki-ura both ways. Twelve signed blades stand on his record, and the published sources repeatedly mark the signed state itself as "precious as research material"[[c:3]].
The jigane is where his province declares itself. The forging is ko-itame to itame with mokume mixed in, thick in ji-nie, with fine chikei entering; jifu appears, and at its fullest the jigane takes on the crepe-like quality the sources call chirimen-hada, over which a faint jifu-utsuri can stand. The NBTHK states the marks of his country as a formula: "the jigane presents a chirimen-hada texture, jifu appears, and the yasurime become o-sujikai, and in these points the kantei marks of the Bitchu smiths are shown"[[c:4]]. The temper of the whole nevertheless leans east. The old transmission texts already record of the Senoo work that it "resembles Bizen things"[[c:5]], more Bizen in spirit than the Aoe mainline, and the Juyo Bijutsuhin compiler, before a deep ko-nie suguha with ko-midare, finds the man himself in the crowding of the temper: "the nie-ashi enter thickly, showing this smith's character well"[[c:6]].
The scholarship around the name is layered. The signatures vary enough that, the published sources repeat, the name does not appear "limited to a single smith"[[c:7]], and some connection with the Masatsune of neighboring Ko-Bizen is suspected from geography and style alike, a question the NBTHK expressly leaves open for further study. The filing itself has moved with the scholarship: the Juyo designations of the 1960s through the 1980s title his blades Ko-Aoe, those from the 1990s onward Bitchu and then Bitchu Senoo, as the school's separate identity firmed. One case shows the old connoisseurship crossing the line between the two names. To a tachi of his, "in Genbun 5 Hon'ami Koyu appended an origami attributing it to Bizen Masatsune"[[c:8]]; examined today, the NBTHK writes, the jigane is "a state close to the so-called chirimen-hada, with jifu mixed in"[[c:9]] and the original yasurime are clearly o-sujikai, so that "it is appropriate to judge it as the Masatsune of the Bitchu Senoo line"[[c:10]]. A horimono, for the rest, is an exception in his work: the Juyo Bijutsuhin text remarks of the single tachi carrying a hi that this is "rare for Masatsune"[[c:11]].
The heart of his connoisseurship is the namesake problem, two smiths called Masatsune working at almost the same time in adjoining provinces. The published sources state it without evasion. Blade after blade is introduced as showing "at first sight a workmanship closely approaching Ko-Bizen Masatsune"[[c:12]]; next to the contemporary Ko-Bizen pieces, they concede, many of his works carry "a somewhat more austere flavor"[[c:13]], while "among them are examples that leave almost nothing to choose"[[c:14]]. Style alone, in other words, does not decide between the two, and the decision rests on his own marks. The Tokubetsu Juyo texts give the rule plainly: "compared with Ko-Bizen, most show a nioiguchi slightly subdued, and a hada that stands somewhat is general"[[c:15]], and there, they write, the slight individuality of Bitchu work shows. To this the ji adds the jifu-laden, chirimen-like quality of his jigane, and the nakago adds the decisive mark, an original yasurime unmistakably o-sujikai, the very point on which the NBTHK set aside the old Honami origami.
Fourteen designated works stand on record, among them three Tokubetsu Juyo and five Juyo blades together with five Juyo Bijutsuhin. Fujishiro rates him Sai-jo saku, and the Toko Taikan sets his value at 2,500. Seven of his blades carry recorded provenance. One Tokubetsu Juyo tachi is recorded as the sword worn by the Sengoku general Satake Yoshishige, passing in the later Edo period to the Kikkawa, a bakufu retainer house, and a katana with folded back signature descended in the Date house of Sendai. His designated blades sit in the Tokubetsu Juyo, Juyo and Juyo Bijutsuhin tiers, so the record is not closed to private hands, and of recorded whereabouts his blades rest almost entirely in private collections; even so, one comes to market only rarely. What a collector may realistically encounter is a signed two character mei tachi of the end of Heian or the opening of Kamakura, of the kind the NBTHK judged "an unmistakably archaic piece, its ji and ha carrying a moist quality, of high dignity"[[c:16]], and the appearance of one is an uncommon event.