This wakizashi, attributed to Tametsugu, features a blade with standard dimensions and bo-hi carvings. It exhibits a fine jigane of itame and mokume with abundant ji-nie and chikei, and a nie deki hamon with notare and gunome. The blade comes with a shirasaya, koshirae, and an accompanying kogatana, and is certified as NBTHK Tokubetsu Hozon Token.
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NihontoWatchmumei · Enbun (1356-1361) ND · nagasa 51.1cm · sori 1.1cm
Mino (Hokurikudo Soshu-den, the Norishige line) · Mino · around 1345-1350
2 pieces on the market now
A short tantō signed Nōshū-jū Fujiwara Tametsugu with a date of the Ōan era, certified a Juyo Bijutsuhin in 1935, is the document on which this smith's place and period rest. Tametsugu is transmitted as a son of Gō Yoshihiro and a pupil of Norishige of Gofuku-gō in Etchū, and is said to have moved later to Mino, by one account to the Fuwa district. The later published sources add the evidence of the sword drawings: two pieces signed Echizen no kuni Fujiwara Tametsugu carry dates of Enbun 2 and Ōan 2, while an extant blade signed Nōshū-jū Fujiwara Tametsugu is dated Ōan 7. From these they conclude that he moved from Echizen to Mino between Ōan 2 and Ōan 7[[c:1]]. No example reads as resident in Etchū, the judges noting that "there is none signed Etchū-jū"[[c:2]]. Because his dates fall in the later Nanbokuchō period, the sources hold that the traditional link to Yoshihiro and Norishige "still leaves room for examination in point of chronology"[[c:3]].
His manner is the one the published commentary names outright: "a Norishige-style forging on which is tempered a Mino-style gunome with pointed togariba, displaying a manner of its own"[[c:4]]. The entries repeat a settled description of his hand. The itame stands, ji-nie adheres, and the temper is based on notare mixed with gunome, with sunagashi and kinsuji in the ha and a subdued nioiguchi in nie[[c:5]]. The sunagashi is the most insistent of these features, described again and again as running frequently and conspicuously through the edge. Togariba are folded into the notare, and the sources observe that the signed works carry "a stronger Mino flavor"[[c:6]].
The jigane is the constant of his work. It is itame mixed with mokume and at times a large grain, flowing in places, with thick ji-nie and chikei entering, and the steel tends to a dark tone. Several entries point to the grain rising white in places, "the so-called northern-provinces steel"[[c:7]]. Some blades are said at first sight to recall the great Sōshū smiths, yet "the slightly subdued nioiguchi is where he is to be judged Tametsugu"[[c:8]]. As the common thread of the authenticated unsigned blades the published sources give an itame "that stands and darkens, worked in nie, with a sinking nioiguchi"[[c:9]], and they add that "there is no suguha"[[c:10]] among them. The boshi runs midare-komi and is "vigorously brushed"[[c:11]], turning in a ko-maru or, on shortened naginata, finishing in yakizume.
His record falls into two registers. The great body of it is o-suriage unsigned katana attributed from style, broad Nanbokuchō blades with an extended kissaki. Against these stand the signed works, of which the sources write that "certain signed works by this smith survive in very small numbers, long ones especially few"[[c:12]]. Besides the Ōan tantō they include an Ōan-dated naginata cut down into a katana, its yakizume boshi a result of the alteration, and an ubu tachi signed in five characters Fujiwara Tametsugu saku, its signature close to the Nōshū-jū signatures on his wakizashi. The judges are candid that the signed work is coarser in make, while "among the unsigned attributions there are examples of quite good workmanship"[[c:13]]. Of the Echizen and the Mino works, a note on the tantō records that "in general the latter have the larger pattern in the ha"[[c:14]].
What sets him apart is read from his own blades. His work favors a large notare midare, and on that basis the published sources hold that it "differs from Shizu and Kaneshige"[[c:15]]. Beside his master the difference is one of degree: "his hada stands less than Norishige's and his chikei are fewer"[[c:16]]. One entry describes the whole effect as "exactly a mixture of the northern provinces and the Mino manner"[[c:17]]. His range also reaches beyond that idiom, one shortened katana being judged "workmanship in the Yamato Shikkake manner"[[c:18]].
For the collector Tametsugu is a Nanbokuchō name met almost entirely through attribution. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties. Seventy-six designated works stand on record: seventy-five Juyo blades across many sessions and the single prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin, the Ōan tantō, which was in the collection of Akaboshi Tetsuma when certified and whose inscription the sources call "of high documentary value"[[c:19]]. The five-character signed tachi is recorded at Atsuta Jingu, and most other whereabouts go unrecorded. Unsigned katana attributed to him come to market from time to time among Juyo Sōshū-den blades, and one of them the published commentary calls "a quintessential example of Tametsugu"[[c:20]]. A signed and dated Nōshū-jū Fujiwara Tametsugu is a different matter, the evidence that fixes the name, and a privately held example is among the uncommon encounters of the period.
Where Tametsugu 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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Soshu-den · Sagami
Phase: Sōshū相州· 1288–1385
38 pieces on the market now
Steel "bright and clear," with thick ji-nie and chikei entering frequently, is the constant the NBTHK returns to in nearly every blade of this phase, and it marks the moment the Soshu tradition reached its summit in Sagami. " The sampled blades cluster around the masters who carried this manner forward: Go Yoshihiro of Matsukura-go in Etchu, counted among the Masamune Juttetsu and represented here by numerous ō-suriage katana, and the Sagami smiths Hiromitsu and Akihiro, who stand "next after Sadamune" and extend the phase with dated works running from Enbun 2 (1357) to Shitoku 4 (1387). The window spans late Kamakura proportions through the broad Enbun-Joji forms of the fourteenth century. The phase reads as itame-hada mixed with mokume, often tending toward standing or flowing grain, carrying very fine ji-nie laid thickly with chikei threaded densely throughout; over this the hamon is founded on notare mixed with gunome, ko-gunome, and a chōji flavor, with deep nioi, thick nie, and kinsuji and sunagashi running well, the nioiguchi bright and clear. This is precisely the distance the school traveled from its Awataguchi roots: where that foundation held a tight, restrained suguha, the Go katana break into wide yakihaba, nie-kuzure, and yubashiri (one setsumei records nie that "gathers, thickens, and congeals"), with a bōshi tempered so deeply it becomes ichimai and sweeps in hakikake. Go himself sits one step calmer than Masamune and Norishige, his chikei and kinsuji more reserved but his ji and ha a step brighter, the hada often masame-inclined; one wide-suguha example with ko-midare shows how close the quiet end of his range stays to the Kunimitsu manner.
" Here the classic phase divides from the later Sue-Soshu continuation, whose Muromachi smiths inherited the vocabulary without the depth of nie and clarity of steel recorded in these blades. A collector separates this phase because it holds the recognized masters at full strength. Go achieved the highest designation through the unmistakable brightness of his ji-ha alone, despite no surviving signed works, and the sample carries the weight of that reputation: the meibutsu Nakagawa-Go owned by a retainer of Oda Nobunaga and later the Tokugawa house, the "Kabuto-giri" Go inlaid by Hon'ami appraisal, the Okubo-Go transmitted in the Odawara Okubo family, and blades held by the Uwajima Date and Chikuzen Kuroda houses, with names recorded in the Kyoho Meibutsu-cho. The kantei points are concrete and repeated: Go's active nie-ashi, masame tendency, and ichimai bōshi; Akihiro's dated five-character "Soshu Akihiro" signatures, whose shift from full to abbreviated dating after Eiwa lets a viewer place a blade in time; and the near-indistinguishability of Hiromitsu and Akihiro, parsed only by scale and the prominence of dango-chōji. These are the works that define the Soshu apex, against which both the Awataguchi foundation and the Sue-Soshu aftermath are measured. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Masamune正宗 | 1288-1293 | 87 |
| Sadamune貞宗 | 1329-1331 | 88 |
| Go Yoshihiro義弘 | 1299-1302 | 53 |
| Kunimitsu國光 | 1293-1322 | 69 |
| Akihiro秋廣 | 1346-1370 | 28 |
Sōshū in the Nanbokuchō period
Kamakura fell in 1333, but the school’s greatest era followed: Sadamune working at his teacher’s standard, Hiromitsu and Akihiro spilling hitatsura over the whole blade, and the Sōshū manner spreading with the armies until it became, for a time, a national style.
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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