NihontoWatchThis is a Tachi by Sanetoshi of the Fukuoka Ichimonji school, active during the mid-Kamakura period. It features a vibrant Choji-midare hamon with abundant activities and a well-forged Itame-mokume jigane. The sword is accompanied by a luxurious koshirae with gold maki-e dragon motifs and an NBTHK Juyo Token certificate from the 16th session.
銘鑑によれば真利は一文字則房の門人で後に備中片山に移住したと云い、その二代は備前長船で時代は文永とあ この太刀は同じ銘振のものが他にあって、それには「備前国長船」とあるところから長船の真利であることがわかる。 出来はこの工にしてはやや穏やかな出来である。
NihontoWatchOffered by Tsuruginoya
Fukuoka Ichimonji / Ko-Ichimonji (Bizen) · Bizen · around 1185-1220
Fujishiro Jo-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 10%
1 piece on the market now
Sanetoshi, the name read Mari and cut as the two characters 真利, is a Bizen swordsmith of the early Kamakura period, placed by the published sources among the Ko-Ichimonji, the founding generation of the Fukuoka Ichimonji that the school's progenitor Norimune leads. The Tokubetsu Jūyō tachi that is the centre of his record carries that two-character signature on an almost untouched tang, cut with a somewhat thick chisel above the original mekugi hole, and the judges read it from form and steel as a Ko-Ichimonji work of the period's first decades. The published commentary describes these earliest Ichimonji hands as standing apart from the school's later splendour, holding instead 'an old Bizen character strongly preserved' in both shape and the workmanship of ji and ha. Sanetoshi belongs at that root, before the great flowering of the school at Fukuoka.
The characteristic hand sits deliberately between two poles. Over an itame mixed with mokume, the grain standing a little toward hada-dachi, he lays a temper that is no longer the plain ko-midare of old Bizen yet not the high clove-flower of the mid-Kamakura school: a chōji and a suguha-toned ko-midare into which he mixes ko-chōji and ko-gunome, ashi and yō entering well, ko-nie adhering, with fine kinsuji and sunagashi threading through. The published sources name this balance exactly. Set beside Ko-Bizen, they write, 'the chōji stands out more and shows a slight air of technical sophistication'[[c:1]]; set beside the mid-Kamakura Ichimonji, the same work 'is calmer, presenting an archaic and elegant taste'[[c:2]]. The conspicuous ko-chōji on a quiet base is the tell of the hand.
The jigane is the constant beneath that temper. On the signed tachi the itame and mokume carry fine ji-nie and chikei, and a midare-utsuri stands out clearly across the ji; on the kodachi the ji-nie gathers dust-fine and thick and the utsuri rises a little fainter. The reflection of old Bizen steel is the feature he keeps on both blades, the Fukuoka jigane he shares with the school. The bōshi runs nearly straight to a ko-maru, on the kodachi finishing as a yakizume with hakikake on one face, a quiet ending that suits the archaic register.
His surviving work divides into two manners that the judges read as one hand's range rather than two careers. The prime is the ubu, two-character signed tachi, dignified and rather wide, the chōji at its most pronounced over the standing itame; the Tokubetsu Jūyō piece, its signature clear and its ji and ha sound, the commentary calls 'a fine work, rich in points of appreciation'[[c:3]]. The other manner is the quieter work of the slender, suriage kodachi, fundamentally a chū-suguha with ko-chōji, ko-midare and ko-gunome and frequent ashi and yō, archaic in taste, yet with the ko-chōji conspicuous enough to show a degree of technical artifice. That kodachi the judges find 'appropriate to appraise as the work of Mari of Ko-Ichimonji', a particularly distinguished piece for the strength of its nie and the variety of its activity.
The central scholarly question is the name itself. The Meikan records 真利 across four groups, Ko-Bizen, Fukuoka Ichimonji, Katayama Ichimonji and the Osafune line, and a comparatively substantial number of works survive, yet the published sources caution that 'it is difficult to distinguish these clearly on the basis of signature style alone'[[c:4]]. Signed Mari blades whose own published texts place them with Ko-Bizen or with the Osafune hand are kept under those smiths, and his Ko-Ichimonji attributions therefore rest on era and school manner, on the sugata and the ji-ha, not on the shared mei. The judges set him apart from the later school by exactly the words they use of the early generation, that their work, 'unlike the splendid style of the mid-Kamakura period'[[c:5]], keeps 'an old Bizen character strongly preserved'[[c:6]]; and apart from the plainer Ko-Bizen smiths by the brightness of his midare-utsuri and the gathering of chōji on his edge.
For the collector he is a rare early Bizen name. Fujishiro grades him Jō-jō saku, and the Tōkō Taikan value of 900 places him among the well-regarded Ko-Ichimonji hands. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties. Two designated works are on record, both in the Tokubetsu Jūyō and Jūyō tiers: the ubu signed tachi, designated Jūyō in 1992 and raised to Tokubetsu Jūyō in 1994, and the signed kodachi, designated Jūyō in 2006. His provenance reaches into the great northern daimyō house, for the Tokubetsu Jūyō tachi descends from a branch family of the Yonezawa Uesugi count household. No current institutional holder is on record. A signed Ko-Ichimonji Mari comes to light only seldom, and most of what survives is held rather than traded; a privately held example is a notable thing for a collector to encounter, a document of how the Ichimonji began.
Where Sanetoshi 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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Bizen-den · Bizen
Phase: Fukuoka Ichimonji福岡一文字· 1207–1288
6 pieces on the market now
Centered at Fukuoka in Bizen across the middle Kamakura decades, this window is the loud heart of the Ichimonji school, the moment when the ichi-mark workshops pushed their chōji tempering to its showiest extreme. The setsumei repeatedly name the same triad as its representative hands: Norifusa, Sukezane, and Yoshifusa, a grouping cited again and again as the smiths who forged the most flamboyant chōji-midare of the period. Around them work Sukefusa, recorded as a two-character-signature smith from whom Yoshifusa, Norifusa, and Sukezane are transmitted as sons, together with Sukemori, Sukehide, Hirotoshi, Narichika, and a Fukuoka Yoshiie whose two-character blades are at times hard to separate from the Sanjō line. Norifusa, son of Sukefusa, later relocated to a place called Katayama and so came to be styled Katayama Ichimonji, a branch reading often left an open question between Bitchū and a Katayama near Fukuoka itself. Where the earlier Ko-Ichimonji generations still carried a Ko-Bizen character, with ko-midare more prominent than chōji, this phase resolves that older quietness into full, deliberate spectacle as Bizen rose to supply the Kamakura warrior demand. The defining temper here is chōji-midare worked at large scale: ō-chōji, layered jūka-chōji, and tadpole-shaped kawazu-ko chōji that climb and drop in tall waists across the ha. The blades named Norifusa show wide mihaba, high deep koshizori, retained funbari, and a generous chū-kissaki, the broad mid-Kamakura sugata that carries such a busy temper. The ground is a well-packed ko-itame, sometimes standing into hada-dachi with mixed mokume, carrying densely applied ji-nie, fine chikei, and a vivid midare-utsuri that rises clearly against the steel; the jigane reads bright and clear.
Ashi and yō enter in profusion, the nioiguchi runs soft and nioi-dominant with ko-nie, and kinsuji and sunagashi play through the hardening. This separates the phase on both sides. Against the calmer Ko-Ichimonji ko-midare, the Fukuoka work is taller and more exuberant; against the later Yoshioka Ichimonji, whose temper narrows into smaller-motif chōji-midare with conspicuous gunome and a frequent saka-gakari lean, the Fukuoka temper is broader, deeper, and less regular. The Katayama-attributed blades within this phase already foreshadow that reverse tendency, hardening flamboyant but reverse-inclined chōji. For kantei, the combination to read is wide mid-Kamakura sugata, large undulating chōji-midare with jūka and kawazu-ko mixed in, a soft nioi-dominant nioiguchi, and standing midare-utsuri over bright ko-itame. Two-character signatures cut boldly with a thick chisel recur across Norifusa, Sukemori, Sukehide, and Norinawa, and many surviving blades are suriage or ō-suriage tachi. The named masters carry weight beyond style: a Narichika tachi descends through the Date family of Sendai, a Norifusa passed through the Yanagisawa family, and Hon'ami appraisals by Kōtsune and Kōchū accompany Sukemori and Norifusa works. One den Norifusa katana bears a kinpun-mei reading Tenka Daiichi, "Best Under Heaven," a measure of how the connoisseurs of later centuries ranked this Fukuoka peak among Bizen production. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Sukezane助眞 | 1264-1275 | 44 |
| Yoshifusa吉房 | 1247-1249 | 44 |
| Norimune則宗 | 1184-1185 | 8 |
| Yoshihira吉平 | 1243-1247 | 17 |
| Sukekane助包 | 1232-1233 | 7 |
Bizen in the Kamakura period
Kamakura was Bizen’s summit. Tradition places Ichimonji smiths among Go-Toba’s goban kaji, Mitsutada founded the Osafune line at mid-century, and orders flowed from the court and the warrior government alike. No province holds more National Treasure blades.
A blade of top-grade workmanship and condition, formally judged to rank with a nationally recognized Important Art Object (Jūyō Bijutsuhin). Awarded only at the NBTHK’s competitive annual examination.
Of Japan’s roughly 2.5 million registered swords, only 12,354 (about 1 in 202) have ever attained Jūyō.
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.
NBTHK official siteReturns accepted within 8 days of receipt (cooling-off). Excludes items with alterations, exhibitions, or photography; return shipping is customer's responsibility. No returns/refunds for overseas deliveries.
¥15,000,000