NihontoWatchThis is a beautiful and rare tanto by the Bizen smith Norimitsu, active during the Muromachi period. It features an incredible jigane with a blend of itame and mokume, much masame, and a very active hitatsura hamon. The blade is accompanied by a high-grade aikuchi style koshirae with matching Hosono Sōzaemon Masanori fittings and a shirasaya with sayagaki by Tanobe, and is certified Hozon by the NBTHK.
Certificate reading — 銘 備州長船則光 永禄三年八月日
NihontoWatchOffered by Nihonto Antiques
Bizen-den · Bizen · around 1303-1306
Fujishiro Jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 11%
1 piece on the market now
The first Norimitsu of Osafune is anchored by a single dated work, a hira-zukuri tanto signed Bizen no Kuni Osafune jū Norimitsu and dated the twelfth month of Kagen 3 (1305), designated Juyo Token at the eighth session. The published sources record that 「初代則光は長光の門人と伝え」 (the first Norimitsu is traditionally said to have been a student of Nagamitsu), and they note that besides this tanto there survive tachi with two-character signatures of the kind seen on Nagamitsu and Kagemitsu, and tachi with a long Bizen no Kuni Osafune jū signature. Of the date itself they write 「この短刀に見るごとき嘉元の年紀は貴珍であり, 他には例を見ない」 (a Kagen date such as this tanto bears is a rare treasure, and no other example is known). He is distinct from the far better known Norimitsu of the mid-Muromachi period, the smith of so-called Eikyo-Bizen celebrated as Kansho Norimitsu, whom the sources name only to set the earlier master apart.
The Kagen tanto is a standard uchi-zori blade with a somewhat thick kasane, recalling a yoroi-doshi. Its jigane is itame with a tendency to nagare, and midare-utsuri stands out. The hamon is gunome mixed with angular, kataochi-like gunome, with sunagashi strongly visible, in nioi-deki with a bright nioiguchi; the boshi runs midare-komi and turns back in ko-maru with a long return. The sources observe that 「一見地刃の出来が景光を思わせるものがあり」 (at a glance the workmanship of the jigane and temper has something that recalls Kagemitsu). The bonji below the suken on the omote is a later carving.
Two unsigned katana have been given to him on the strength of that manner. One, o-suriage and slender with deep curvature, a high shinogi and a small kissaki, has a tightly packed itame with ji-nie and midare-utsuri, and a temper in a suguha tone mixed with small gunome, small choji and somewhat angular elements in ko-nie, with fine sunagashi and kinsuji. The sources judge these features 「鎌倉末期の備前物の中でも則光にもっとも擬せられるものであり, 古則光の所伝は首肯し得る」 (among late Kamakura Bizen works, the ones most readily likened to Norimitsu, so that the traditional attribution to Ko-Norimitsu may be accepted). The other carries a gold-inlaid attribution to Norimitsu with the kiwame of Hon'ami Kokan, eighteenth head of the Hon'ami house. Its ko-itame is mixed with mokume and densely forged, with fine ji-nie, fine chikei and midare-utsuri; the hamon is a florid midare of round-headed choji with gunome and togariba, ashi and yo entering well, nioi-dominant with ko-nie. For the sources this evokes the main Osafune line of the late Kamakura period, calling to mind 「長光あたりを髣髴とさせるものがある」 (something reminiscent of Nagamitsu and his circle), and they find Kokan's appraisal fully appropriate.
The record of the first Norimitsu therefore rests on three Juyo works: one signed and dated tanto in the angular gunome manner of Kagemitsu, and two attributed katana that show midare-utsuri throughout and a temper ranging from a restrained suguha-based ko-midare to the full choji of Nagamitsu's school.
Where Norimitsu 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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Years he was demonstrably active, proven by signed-and-dated blades
Bizen-den · Bizen
Phase: Ko-Osafune古長船· 1238–1335
186 pieces on the market now
Three smiths working at the village of Osafune across the second half of the thirteenth century set the terms for every Bizen blade that followed: Mitsutada the founder, his son Nagamitsu, and the closely related Sanenaga, the Sansaku triumvirate whose work opens this phase. Their window runs from the mid-Kamakura period into the early fourteenth century, when leadership passed to Nagamitsu's son Kagemitsu, the third-generation head whose dated tachi, naginata, and tanto carry the phase to its close around the Kenmu years. The setsumei repeatedly fix Kagemitsu by genealogy and date, citing pieces inscribed from Gen'o 1 (1319) and Genko 1 (1321) through Shochu and Kenmu (1325 to 1334); these ubu or lightly shortened, date-bearing blades are what give the founding chapter its firm chronological spine and separate it from the workshop-broad output of the later Nanbokucho and Oei generations. This is the orthodox mainline before the school fanned out: the generation that built the standard, not the ones that later reinterpreted it. The constructional signature of the phase is a tightly packed ko-itame, at times mixed with mokume, carrying fine ji-nie in dense particles, fine chikei, and a vivid midare-utsuri that the examiners single out again and again; one Kagemitsu tachi even pushes the utsuri toward a striped, Aoe-like dan-utsuri with reverse-slanting dark bands. Against the Ko-Bizen root, with its standing jifu-utsuri and thicker ha-nie, this phase reads as more refined and more tightly controlled in the ji. The temper marks the phase's internal turn.
Where Nagamitsu and Mitsutada favored flamboyant choji-midare, Kagemitsu pulls the hand inward to a suguha-based temper carrying ko-gunome, ko-choji, and angular elements, often with a reverse (saka-gakari) tendency, in a nioi-dominant, bright nioiguchi; the setsumei credit him specifically with perfecting kata-ochi gunome, the dropped-shoulder pattern repeatedly named as his completion. The boshi is the gentle sansaku-boshi, a shallow midare-komi or notare turning back in ko-maru. None of this is the powerful nie, scattered tobiyaki, and Soshu-den drama of the later Soden-Bizen, nor the open gunome and pointed candlewick boshi of the Oei revival; it is calmer, nioi-bound, and date-anchored. A collector separates this phase by its named masters and the kantei points the setsumei make explicit: kata-ochi gunome and the sansaku-boshi read Kagemitsu, while reverse-slanting jihan-utsuri and certain boshi forms let the examiners assign proxy daimei hands such as Chikakage and the collaborator Kagemasa, the latter named in a Shochu 2 (1325) joint tachi dedicated to Chichibu Shrine. Tanto are a discriminator in their own right, surviving in number for Kagemitsu where they are scarce for Nagamitsu, including the kanmuri-otoshi and hira-zukuri pieces with devotional bonji and kurikara carvings. Provenance present in the sample carries weight: a Kagemitsu tachi transmitted in the Chikuzen Kuroda family with its old scabbard, an orikaeshi-mei katana recorded in the Shimazu line, and tanto and tachi recorded in Honma's inventory of the Imperial collection, where Kagemitsu is ranked beside Yoshimitsu, Shintogo Kunishige, and Samonji. These are the works that define the founding core against everything Osafune later became. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Mitsutada光忠 | 1238-1239 | 60 |
| Nagamitsu長光 | 1274-1304 | 254 |
| Kagemitsu景光 | 1303-1336 | 142 |
| Sanenaga眞長 | 1299-1309 | 68 |
| Kanemitsu兼光 | 1323-1370 | 235 |
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.
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.
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$5,800