This wakizashi is attributed to Den Osafune Kagemitsu, a prominent swordsmith of the Osafune school in Bizen Province, active during the late Kamakura to early Nanbokucho period. The blade comes with a shirasaya and a koshirae, featuring a tsuba decorated with a Kamon-chirashi design and fuchi-kashira with Go-san no Kiri and butterfly motifs. It is accompanied by an NBTHK Tokubetsu Hozon Certificate, confirming its authenticity and artistic value.
Certificate reading — 無銘（長船景光）
NihontoWatchmumei · Osafune · Kagen-Kenmu (1303-1336) · nagasa 54.7cm · sori 0.7cm
Osafune (Bizen) · Bizen · around 1303-1336
Fujishiro Sai-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 5%
3 pieces on the market now
Kagemitsu is the third master of the Osafune mainline, the son of Nagamitsu and grandson of Mitsutada. The published sources put the matter plainly: he 'is the son of Nagamitsu and the third generation of Osafune, famed for having completed the kataochi-gunome'[[c:1]]. Where his grandfather set the school's flamboyant standard and his father gave it the round choji, Kagemitsu took the saw-tooth temper that had only budded in his father's tanto and made it the family's last great invention.
Recognize him first by that temper. The kataochi-gunome, a gunome whose shoulders drop away in even steps, runs over a suguha base, its ashi and choji leaning back in the slanting saka-gakari (逆がかり) that is his personal hallmark, the heads of the teeth squared rather than rounded. The published record frames his hand as the quieter one in the family: his style 'has little of his father's flamboyance, being on the whole milder than Nagamitsu, whether a suguha base with gunome mixed in and slanting back, or a temper led by kataochi-gunome'[[c:2]]. On the tanto the hamon is at its most regular, an angular gunome with kataochi-gunome worked in.
His jigane matches that precision. The itame and ko-itame are tight and well worked, the ji-nie fine, chikei present. Quiet though the temper is, the sources reserve their highest note for his forging: 'in the quality of the forging, pieces are seen that in particular surpass even his father, and this is worthy of note'[[c:3]]. Across the ji runs not his father's flowing midare-utsuri alone but, at his best, an orderly bo-utsuri (棒映り) and a banded, stepped reflection that the connoisseurs liken to the Aoe school, where one Tokuju blade is said to 'show the flavour of Aoe dan-utsuri'[[c:4]].
The boshi follows the temper rather than overruling it. On the tanto it is small and runs in midare-komi, returning ko-maru on the omote and pointed in feeling on the ura, the published account reading 'the boshi is small and runs in midare-komi, the tip ko-maru on the omote, turning back with a pointed feeling on the ura'[[c:5]]. On the tachi the same ko-maru recurs out of a shallow notare, sometimes with a touch of hakikake. It is the unforced, contained boshi of a maker whose drama is carried by the body of the hamon.
His output divides cleanly by form. The tanto carry the pure, regular kataochi-gunome and the most elaborate carving in the family, with bonji (梵字), kurikara (倶利迦羅) and sanko-ken (三鈷剣) horimono cut far beyond anything his grandfather or father attempted; the tachi keep a suguha base with kataochi only in part. He is also among the most precisely datable of all Kamakura smiths, his signed and dated chronology running across more than thirty years, and the published sources add that, unlike his father, 'many tanto survive, which is also among his distinctions'[[c:6]].
Kagemitsu completes the three-generation arc that defines Kamakura Bizen, his grandfather Mitsutada founding the school, his father Nagamitsu setting its classical standard, and Kagemitsu bringing both temper and forging to their finished form before handing the manner to his pupil Chikakage, whose work is close enough that some signed Kagemitsu blades are read as Chikakage's daimei. For the collector he is Sai-jo saku in Fujishiro's grading, with three National Treasures, fifteen Important Cultural Properties and eleven Tokubetsu Juyo on record. The most famous of his blades is the Kogaryu Kagemitsu, a National Treasure named for the little dragon of its carved kurikara, carried by tradition by Kusunoki Masashige and in modern times held by the Meiji Emperor; other blades passed through Uesugi Kenshin, the Tokugawa shoguns, and the Date, Maeda and Shimazu houses. Of the three Osafune masters he is the one whose hand can be followed most exactly, signed, dated and carved more fully than either his father or his grandfather.
Where Kagemitsu 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.
Select a lens to see how it's measured.
Years he was demonstrably active, proven by signed-and-dated blades
Bizen-den · Bizen
235 pieces on the market now
No single workshop in the history of Japanese swordmaking grew larger or lasted longer than Osafune, the riverside village in Bizen Province whose name became, across three centuries, a byword for the province's mainline. Its de facto founder was Mitsutada (光忠), working at Osafune in the middle Kamakura period; tradition makes him the son of Chikatada, and the genealogies derive his line from the Ko-Bizen Masatsune group already settled in the village. His blades, bold and imposing with a jigane so refined the sources say it can at a glance suggest Kyoto work, were treasured from old as the swords of commanders, and from his hand the school spread immediately: his sons Nagamitsu (長光) and Sanenaga (眞長), his grandson Kagemitsu (景光), and outward through pupils and collaterals until, by the late Kamakura years, Osafune was less a family than an industry. The line is conventionally read as a three-generation spine, Mitsutada founding it, Nagamitsu setting its classical standard, Kagemitsu bringing both temper and forging to their finished form before handing the manner to his pupil Chikakage (近景), whose echo of the master is so close that signed Kagemitsu blades are sometimes read as Chikakage daimei. What binds the membership is a shared steel before any shared temper. The forging is itame mixed with mokume, tightening on the finest blades into a dense ko-itame; fine ji-nie adheres, chikei enter, and over all of it stands the midare-utsuri that anchors even the most Kyoto-like jigane back to Bizen. On that floor the founding generation tempers a flamboyant choji-midare mixed with gunome: Mitsutada's tadpole-headed kawazuko-choji, Nagamitsu's round-topped plump choji, the deep nioi with ko-nie, the bright nioiguchi. From here the school divides by hand and by era. Sanenaga draws the calm pole, a gentle chu-suguha of tightened nioiguchi; Kagemitsu completes the slanting, square-shouldered kataochi-gunome over a suguha base, the family's last great Kamakura invention, carried on by his close kinsman Kagemasa (景政). The Nanbokucho generation then turns toward Soshu-den: Kanemitsu (兼光), fourth master of the mainline, pioneers a broad notare and is read, with Chogi (長義), as the head of Soden-Bizen, the Bizen wing that worked Soshu nie into a jigane that still throws a Bizen utsuri.
Chogi is called the most un-Bizen of Bizen smiths, his ear-shaped mimigata his tell; around him Nagashige (長重), Yoshikage (義景), Tomomitsu (倫光) and Kanenaga (兼長) press the Soshu side by degrees, while Motoshige (元重), of a separate Hatakeda descent, carries an Aoe-tinged squared, slanting ha. Two generations later the Oei revival returns to Kamakura: Yasumitsu (康光) and Morimitsu (盛光), the twin pillars of Oei-Bizen, revive the tachi shape and the choji temper over a wide-waisted koshibiraki-gunome, both finishing in the pointed rosoku-no-shin (candle-wick) boshi that gives the late date away. For the collector the school is a school of discriminations, and to kantei it is to read those fine partitions. The constant midare-utsuri over a bright ko-itame fixes the province; the boshi then sorts the maker, Mitsutada's pointed midare-komi against Nagamitsu's composed ko-maru Sansaku turn, Kagemitsu's contained return, the candle-wick tongue of Oei. Within a single phase the calls turn on a half-step: Nagamitsu's plump crests against Sanenaga's cooler nioiguchi, Kagemasa's freer play against Kagemitsu's tighter order, Nagashige read out of Chogi by a nie that surpasses his brother's. The standing of the best is matched by their patrimony. Mitsutada, Nagamitsu and Kagemitsu each hold National Treasures and stand at the head of Fujishiro's Sai-jo saku; their named blades, the Daihannya Nagamitsu, the Kogaryu Kagemitsu, the O-Kanemitsu, passed through Nobunaga, Ieyasu, Uesugi Kenshin and the great daimyo houses. Because Nagamitsu and the Nanbokucho masters signed and survived in number, Osafune offers what most peerage names cannot, a deep field of Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo work that a patient collector may still realistically hold. Through every register the same hand declares itself: the bright steel, the vivid reflection, and a temper that runs, across three centuries, as the spine of Bizen. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Mitsutada光忠 | 1238-1239 | 60 |
| Nagamitsu長光 | 1274-1304 | 244 |
| Kagemitsu景光 | 1303-1336 | 143 |
| Kanemitsu兼光 | 1323-1370 | 231 |
| Sanenaga眞長 | 1299-1309 | 64 |
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 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.
NBTHK official siteReturns/exchanges limited to defects caused by shipping (except willful misconduct or gross negligence by the company); customers must contact within 72 hours of receiving the product.
$20,730
This wakizashi is attributed to Den Osafune Kagemitsu, a prominent swordsmith of the Osafune school in Bizen Province, active during the late Kamakura to early Nanbokucho period. The blade comes with a shirasaya and a koshirae, featuring a tsuba decorated with a Kamon-chirashi design and fuchi-kashira with Go-san no Kiri and butterfly motifs. It is accompanied by an NBTHK Tokubetsu Hozon Certificate, confirming its authenticity and artistic value.
Certificate reading — 無銘（長船景光）
NihontoWatchmumei · Osafune · Kagen-Kenmu (1303-1336) · nagasa 54.7cm · sori 0.7cm
Osafune (Bizen) · Bizen · around 1303-1336
Fujishiro Sai-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 5%
3 pieces on the market now
Kagemitsu is the third master of the Osafune mainline, the son of Nagamitsu and grandson of Mitsutada. The published sources put the matter plainly: he 'is the son of Nagamitsu and the third generation of Osafune, famed for having completed the kataochi-gunome'[[c:1]]. Where his grandfather set the school's flamboyant standard and his father gave it the round choji, Kagemitsu took the saw-tooth temper that had only budded in his father's tanto and made it the family's last great invention.
Recognize him first by that temper. The kataochi-gunome, a gunome whose shoulders drop away in even steps, runs over a suguha base, its ashi and choji leaning back in the slanting saka-gakari (逆がかり) that is his personal hallmark, the heads of the teeth squared rather than rounded. The published record frames his hand as the quieter one in the family: his style 'has little of his father's flamboyance, being on the whole milder than Nagamitsu, whether a suguha base with gunome mixed in and slanting back, or a temper led by kataochi-gunome'[[c:2]]. On the tanto the hamon is at its most regular, an angular gunome with kataochi-gunome worked in.
His jigane matches that precision. The itame and ko-itame are tight and well worked, the ji-nie fine, chikei present. Quiet though the temper is, the sources reserve their highest note for his forging: 'in the quality of the forging, pieces are seen that in particular surpass even his father, and this is worthy of note'[[c:3]]. Across the ji runs not his father's flowing midare-utsuri alone but, at his best, an orderly bo-utsuri (棒映り) and a banded, stepped reflection that the connoisseurs liken to the Aoe school, where one Tokuju blade is said to 'show the flavour of Aoe dan-utsuri'[[c:4]].
The boshi follows the temper rather than overruling it. On the tanto it is small and runs in midare-komi, returning ko-maru on the omote and pointed in feeling on the ura, the published account reading 'the boshi is small and runs in midare-komi, the tip ko-maru on the omote, turning back with a pointed feeling on the ura'[[c:5]]. On the tachi the same ko-maru recurs out of a shallow notare, sometimes with a touch of hakikake. It is the unforced, contained boshi of a maker whose drama is carried by the body of the hamon.
His output divides cleanly by form. The tanto carry the pure, regular kataochi-gunome and the most elaborate carving in the family, with bonji (梵字), kurikara (倶利迦羅) and sanko-ken (三鈷剣) horimono cut far beyond anything his grandfather or father attempted; the tachi keep a suguha base with kataochi only in part. He is also among the most precisely datable of all Kamakura smiths, his signed and dated chronology running across more than thirty years, and the published sources add that, unlike his father, 'many tanto survive, which is also among his distinctions'[[c:6]].
Kagemitsu completes the three-generation arc that defines Kamakura Bizen, his grandfather Mitsutada founding the school, his father Nagamitsu setting its classical standard, and Kagemitsu bringing both temper and forging to their finished form before handing the manner to his pupil Chikakage, whose work is close enough that some signed Kagemitsu blades are read as Chikakage's daimei. For the collector he is Sai-jo saku in Fujishiro's grading, with three National Treasures, fifteen Important Cultural Properties and eleven Tokubetsu Juyo on record. The most famous of his blades is the Kogaryu Kagemitsu, a National Treasure named for the little dragon of its carved kurikara, carried by tradition by Kusunoki Masashige and in modern times held by the Meiji Emperor; other blades passed through Uesugi Kenshin, the Tokugawa shoguns, and the Date, Maeda and Shimazu houses. Of the three Osafune masters he is the one whose hand can be followed most exactly, signed, dated and carved more fully than either his father or his grandfather.
Where Kagemitsu 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.
Select a lens to see how it's measured.
Years he was demonstrably active, proven by signed-and-dated blades
Bizen-den · Bizen
235 pieces on the market now
No single workshop in the history of Japanese swordmaking grew larger or lasted longer than Osafune, the riverside village in Bizen Province whose name became, across three centuries, a byword for the province's mainline. Its de facto founder was Mitsutada (光忠), working at Osafune in the middle Kamakura period; tradition makes him the son of Chikatada, and the genealogies derive his line from the Ko-Bizen Masatsune group already settled in the village. His blades, bold and imposing with a jigane so refined the sources say it can at a glance suggest Kyoto work, were treasured from old as the swords of commanders, and from his hand the school spread immediately: his sons Nagamitsu (長光) and Sanenaga (眞長), his grandson Kagemitsu (景光), and outward through pupils and collaterals until, by the late Kamakura years, Osafune was less a family than an industry. The line is conventionally read as a three-generation spine, Mitsutada founding it, Nagamitsu setting its classical standard, Kagemitsu bringing both temper and forging to their finished form before handing the manner to his pupil Chikakage (近景), whose echo of the master is so close that signed Kagemitsu blades are sometimes read as Chikakage daimei. What binds the membership is a shared steel before any shared temper. The forging is itame mixed with mokume, tightening on the finest blades into a dense ko-itame; fine ji-nie adheres, chikei enter, and over all of it stands the midare-utsuri that anchors even the most Kyoto-like jigane back to Bizen. On that floor the founding generation tempers a flamboyant choji-midare mixed with gunome: Mitsutada's tadpole-headed kawazuko-choji, Nagamitsu's round-topped plump choji, the deep nioi with ko-nie, the bright nioiguchi. From here the school divides by hand and by era. Sanenaga draws the calm pole, a gentle chu-suguha of tightened nioiguchi; Kagemitsu completes the slanting, square-shouldered kataochi-gunome over a suguha base, the family's last great Kamakura invention, carried on by his close kinsman Kagemasa (景政). The Nanbokucho generation then turns toward Soshu-den: Kanemitsu (兼光), fourth master of the mainline, pioneers a broad notare and is read, with Chogi (長義), as the head of Soden-Bizen, the Bizen wing that worked Soshu nie into a jigane that still throws a Bizen utsuri.
Chogi is called the most un-Bizen of Bizen smiths, his ear-shaped mimigata his tell; around him Nagashige (長重), Yoshikage (義景), Tomomitsu (倫光) and Kanenaga (兼長) press the Soshu side by degrees, while Motoshige (元重), of a separate Hatakeda descent, carries an Aoe-tinged squared, slanting ha. Two generations later the Oei revival returns to Kamakura: Yasumitsu (康光) and Morimitsu (盛光), the twin pillars of Oei-Bizen, revive the tachi shape and the choji temper over a wide-waisted koshibiraki-gunome, both finishing in the pointed rosoku-no-shin (candle-wick) boshi that gives the late date away. For the collector the school is a school of discriminations, and to kantei it is to read those fine partitions. The constant midare-utsuri over a bright ko-itame fixes the province; the boshi then sorts the maker, Mitsutada's pointed midare-komi against Nagamitsu's composed ko-maru Sansaku turn, Kagemitsu's contained return, the candle-wick tongue of Oei. Within a single phase the calls turn on a half-step: Nagamitsu's plump crests against Sanenaga's cooler nioiguchi, Kagemasa's freer play against Kagemitsu's tighter order, Nagashige read out of Chogi by a nie that surpasses his brother's. The standing of the best is matched by their patrimony. Mitsutada, Nagamitsu and Kagemitsu each hold National Treasures and stand at the head of Fujishiro's Sai-jo saku; their named blades, the Daihannya Nagamitsu, the Kogaryu Kagemitsu, the O-Kanemitsu, passed through Nobunaga, Ieyasu, Uesugi Kenshin and the great daimyo houses. Because Nagamitsu and the Nanbokucho masters signed and survived in number, Osafune offers what most peerage names cannot, a deep field of Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo work that a patient collector may still realistically hold. Through every register the same hand declares itself: the bright steel, the vivid reflection, and a temper that runs, across three centuries, as the spine of Bizen. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Mitsutada光忠 | 1238-1239 | 60 |
| Nagamitsu長光 | 1274-1304 | 244 |
| Kagemitsu景光 | 1303-1336 | 143 |
| Kanemitsu兼光 | 1323-1370 | 231 |
| Sanenaga眞長 | 1299-1309 | 64 |
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 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.
NBTHK official siteReturns/exchanges limited to defects caused by shipping (except willful misconduct or gross negligence by the company); customers must contact within 72 hours of receiving the product.
$20,730
