Sengoku Seki was an industry: smiths organized under their tutelary Kasuga shrine, arming the war bands of central Japan. Magoroku Kanemoto’s sanbonsugi and the finest Kanesada work prove quality survived inside mass production.
It has appeared! A famous wakizashi passed down through generations in an old family as Magoroku Kanemoto has emerged. The world-renowned Magoroku Kanemoto is an object of envy for sword enthusiasts. To possess a work by Kanemoto within one's lifetime is proof of the ultimate ambition of a Japanese man. The Kanemoto family used the name Magoroku for generations, and their works are famous throughout the realm. While this Kanemoto is a wakizashi passed down as Magoroku Kanemoto, based on the mei, it is likely a wakizashi by the third generation Kanemoto, the son of Magoroku Kanemoto, from around the Tenbun era of the Muromachi period (1543) (483 years ago). Since the Sengoku period, Kanemoto has been excessively famous as an owazamono with a reputation for cutting extremely well. The "Ni-Nenbutsu Kanemoto" is a famous sword named for its sharpness, said to be so superb that the victim did not realize they had been cut until they had finished reciting a Buddhist prayer (nenbutsu) twice. This wakizashi exhibits a healthy and excellent wakizashi-sugata with a wide moto-mihaba and a distinct difference from the saki-mihaba. The jigane is well-forged in itame-hada with ji-nie attached. The hamon is in nioi-deki with ko-nie, featuring the family's traditional sanbonsugi gunome-togari-ba, a hamon that looks truly capable of cutting anything. The Edo-period koshirae, which could only be owned by high-ranking samurai, features a magnificent and luxurious set of fittings where the fuchi-kashira, menuki, kozuka, and wari-kogai (excluding the tsuba) are a matching set (issaku) featuring dragons. This adds further splendor to the wakizashi and reflects the high status of its owner. This time, we received this wakizashi from an old family who has cherished it as a Magoroku Kanemoto for generations; because they have grown old, they asked us to pass it on at a low price to someone who will treasure it. As it has appeared in the world for the first time, there is some lack of maintenance (oteire-busoku), so we are offering it at a special bargain price considered to be about half the market value. Please enjoy this powerful wakizashi by the admired Kanemoto.
NihontoWatch
Mino-den · Mino
27 pieces on the market now
Kanemoto (兼元) worked at Akasaka in Mino Province, and the line takes its place among the smiths of the late Muromachi period whom the NBTHK registers under the Mino-den tradition centered on Seki. The setsumei place the family within the Sue-Seki (Sue-Mino) milieu, naming Kanemoto alongside Kanesada as the two leading figures of the province in this era; one tantō note instead pairs the name with Kaneshiba, and another with Izumi no Kami Kaneshige, marking the company the line kept. The name passed through successive generations, and the records repeatedly state that distinguishing each generation has not been definitively settled. Dated long signatures reading "Nōshū Akasaka-jū Kanemoto" survive from the Meiō, Bunki, Daiei, Kyōroku, and Eishō eras, while two-character signatures bear no date. The first generation is documented through pieces dated Meiō 6, 8, 9, and 10, all giving the Akasaka residence; the most accomplished hand, and the one the world singles out under the sobriquet "Magoroku Kanemoto," is the second generation. The shared vocabulary of the line is the sanbonsugi (three-cedar) gunome, a sequence of linked pointed crests that rise and fall in groups. The ground is Mino-den through and through: itame-hada mixed with mokume and flowing masame, tending toward standing grain (hada-dachi), with fine ji-nie, chikei, and a whitish shirake-utsuri that the setsumei call out again and again. The temper mixes togariba (pointed elements) and gunome, is nioi-dominant with ko-nie, and runs sunagashi, kinsuji, and occasional tobiyaki; the bōshi is typically midare-komi turning in ko-maru, often described as Jizō-like with hakikake or a falling kaeri. The chief means of separating the second generation from the later line is regularity: as the generations descend, the pointed crests grow sharply angular and standardized, whereas Magoroku's sanbonsugi is deliberately uneven, the gunome heads rounded in places, and the pattern shifts freely into nihonsugi, yonsugi, and gosugi groupings of two, four, and five. The records describe this as a gyōsō (cursive, free) manner.
The first generation, by contrast, does not emphasize sanbonsugi at all, favoring gunome mixed with gunome-chōji and at times yubashiri and tobiyaki; both generations also made suguha, and one tantō is an uncommon Rai-utsushi in elegant straight temper that evokes Kaneyuki. For kantei, the line is read through the standing Mino grain, the shirake-utsuri, and above all the irregular sanbonsugi, with the leaning bōshi a noted point: the records observe that the honka model and these blades share a bōshi that falls over. Named and documented works recur across the register. A naginata dated Kyōroku 1 (1528) carries the full Akasaka signature and is valued as documentary source material, dated two-character pieces being scarce. A katana bearing a kinzōgan inscription on the reverse is known as "Sasatsuyu Kanemoto" and is recorded in the hands of Makishima Kenmotsu Akishige, of the same clan as Furuta Kosukezaemon. The "Aoki Kanemoto," a second-generation work, is said to be the sword with which Aoki Ichishige, a retainer of Tokugawa Ieyasu, killed Magara Masataka of the Asakura side at the Battle of Anegawa in Genki 1 (1570). A further katana carries a Genna 1 (1615) kinzōgan cutting-test inscription by Nakagawa Saheita reading "two bodies," and one suguha katana descended in the Echizen Matsudaira family. Two katana signed Kanemoto sit in the Imperial Collection (Gyobutsu). Across these works the line is registered as the cutting-edged representative of Sue-Seki, its hand recognized wherever the three-cedar temper runs uneven over standing Mino steel. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Kanemoto兼元 | 1521-1528 | 30 |
| Kanemoto兼元 | 1532-1555 | 0 |
| Kanemoto兼元 | 1573-1592 | 0 |
| Kanemoto兼元 | 1592-1596 | 0 |
| Kanemoto兼元 | 1818-1830 | 0 |
Sengoku Seki was an industry: smiths organized under their tutelary Kasuga shrine, arming the war bands of central Japan. Magoroku Kanemoto’s sanbonsugi and the finest Kanesada work prove quality survived inside mass production.
Certifies a genuine blade worth preserving: a signature confirmed correct, or, if unsigned, an era, province, and school that the NBTHK can reliably identify.
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 siteFor returns due to customer circumstances, the cost is the customer's responsibility. For returns due to our mis-shipment or a defective item, we bear the cost.
It has appeared! A famous wakizashi passed down through generations in an old family as Magoroku Kanemoto has emerged. The world-renowned Magoroku Kanemoto is an object of envy for sword enthusiasts. To possess a work by Kanemoto within one's lifetime is proof of the ultimate ambition of a Japanese man. The Kanemoto family used the name Magoroku for generations, and their works are famous throughout the realm. While this Kanemoto is a wakizashi passed down as Magoroku Kanemoto, based on the mei, it is likely a wakizashi by the third generation Kanemoto, the son of Magoroku Kanemoto, from around the Tenbun era of the Muromachi period (1543) (483 years ago). Since the Sengoku period, Kanemoto has been excessively famous as an owazamono with a reputation for cutting extremely well. The "Ni-Nenbutsu Kanemoto" is a famous sword named for its sharpness, said to be so superb that the victim did not realize they had been cut until they had finished reciting a Buddhist prayer (nenbutsu) twice. This wakizashi exhibits a healthy and excellent wakizashi-sugata with a wide moto-mihaba and a distinct difference from the saki-mihaba. The jigane is well-forged in itame-hada with ji-nie attached. The hamon is in nioi-deki with ko-nie, featuring the family's traditional sanbonsugi gunome-togari-ba, a hamon that looks truly capable of cutting anything. The Edo-period koshirae, which could only be owned by high-ranking samurai, features a magnificent and luxurious set of fittings where the fuchi-kashira, menuki, kozuka, and wari-kogai (excluding the tsuba) are a matching set (issaku) featuring dragons. This adds further splendor to the wakizashi and reflects the high status of its owner. This time, we received this wakizashi from an old family who has cherished it as a Magoroku Kanemoto for generations; because they have grown old, they asked us to pass it on at a low price to someone who will treasure it. As it has appeared in the world for the first time, there is some lack of maintenance (oteire-busoku), so we are offering it at a special bargain price considered to be about half the market value. Please enjoy this powerful wakizashi by the admired Kanemoto.
NihontoWatchMino-den · Mino
27 pieces on the market now
Kanemoto (兼元) worked at Akasaka in Mino Province, and the line takes its place among the smiths of the late Muromachi period whom the NBTHK registers under the Mino-den tradition centered on Seki. The setsumei place the family within the Sue-Seki (Sue-Mino) milieu, naming Kanemoto alongside Kanesada as the two leading figures of the province in this era; one tantō note instead pairs the name with Kaneshiba, and another with Izumi no Kami Kaneshige, marking the company the line kept. The name passed through successive generations, and the records repeatedly state that distinguishing each generation has not been definitively settled. Dated long signatures reading "Nōshū Akasaka-jū Kanemoto" survive from the Meiō, Bunki, Daiei, Kyōroku, and Eishō eras, while two-character signatures bear no date. The first generation is documented through pieces dated Meiō 6, 8, 9, and 10, all giving the Akasaka residence; the most accomplished hand, and the one the world singles out under the sobriquet "Magoroku Kanemoto," is the second generation. The shared vocabulary of the line is the sanbonsugi (three-cedar) gunome, a sequence of linked pointed crests that rise and fall in groups. The ground is Mino-den through and through: itame-hada mixed with mokume and flowing masame, tending toward standing grain (hada-dachi), with fine ji-nie, chikei, and a whitish shirake-utsuri that the setsumei call out again and again. The temper mixes togariba (pointed elements) and gunome, is nioi-dominant with ko-nie, and runs sunagashi, kinsuji, and occasional tobiyaki; the bōshi is typically midare-komi turning in ko-maru, often described as Jizō-like with hakikake or a falling kaeri. The chief means of separating the second generation from the later line is regularity: as the generations descend, the pointed crests grow sharply angular and standardized, whereas Magoroku's sanbonsugi is deliberately uneven, the gunome heads rounded in places, and the pattern shifts freely into nihonsugi, yonsugi, and gosugi groupings of two, four, and five. The records describe this as a gyōsō (cursive, free) manner.
The first generation, by contrast, does not emphasize sanbonsugi at all, favoring gunome mixed with gunome-chōji and at times yubashiri and tobiyaki; both generations also made suguha, and one tantō is an uncommon Rai-utsushi in elegant straight temper that evokes Kaneyuki. For kantei, the line is read through the standing Mino grain, the shirake-utsuri, and above all the irregular sanbonsugi, with the leaning bōshi a noted point: the records observe that the honka model and these blades share a bōshi that falls over. Named and documented works recur across the register. A naginata dated Kyōroku 1 (1528) carries the full Akasaka signature and is valued as documentary source material, dated two-character pieces being scarce. A katana bearing a kinzōgan inscription on the reverse is known as "Sasatsuyu Kanemoto" and is recorded in the hands of Makishima Kenmotsu Akishige, of the same clan as Furuta Kosukezaemon. The "Aoki Kanemoto," a second-generation work, is said to be the sword with which Aoki Ichishige, a retainer of Tokugawa Ieyasu, killed Magara Masataka of the Asakura side at the Battle of Anegawa in Genki 1 (1570). A further katana carries a Genna 1 (1615) kinzōgan cutting-test inscription by Nakagawa Saheita reading "two bodies," and one suguha katana descended in the Echizen Matsudaira family. Two katana signed Kanemoto sit in the Imperial Collection (Gyobutsu). Across these works the line is registered as the cutting-edged representative of Sue-Seki, its hand recognized wherever the three-cedar temper runs uneven over standing Mino steel. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Kanemoto兼元 | 1521-1528 | 30 |
| Kanemoto兼元 | 1532-1555 | 0 |
| Kanemoto兼元 | 1573-1592 | 0 |
| Kanemoto兼元 | 1592-1596 | 0 |
| Kanemoto兼元 | 1818-1830 | 0 |
Sengoku Seki was an industry: smiths organized under their tutelary Kasuga shrine, arming the war bands of central Japan. Magoroku Kanemoto’s sanbonsugi and the finest Kanesada work prove quality survived inside mass production.
Certifies a genuine blade worth preserving: a signature confirmed correct, or, if unsigned, an era, province, and school that the NBTHK can reliably identify.
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 siteFor returns due to customer circumstances, the cost is the customer's responsibility. For returns due to our mis-shipment or a defective item, we bear the cost.
