NihontoWatch兼常は、和泉守兼定や孫六兼元と並ぶ美濃鍛冶の名流。天正頃に複数の同銘工が活躍している中では、元亀二年に織田信長より鍛冶職安堵の朱印状を賜り関鍛冶総領事と称した助右衛門の次男、佐助(後に太郎助)兼常が殊に名高い。佐助兼常は天文四年美濃国納土の生まれ。父同様に信長に仕え、また後に豊臣秀次の鍛冶となり天正十九年に相模守を受領して政常と改銘、慶長十八年には名古屋城下に移り、後尾張徳川家に抱えられる。慶長十二年に隠居するも、二代目が急死したために再び鎚をとることとなり、以降政常入道と銘して作刀が続けられた(注)。 この短刀は、政常改銘前の天正年間の作。寸法長く元先の身幅も広めにわずかに反り、ふくらもたっぷりとした穏健な造り込み。小板目状に錬り鍛えられた板目鍛えの地鉄は、鍛着が緻密ながら地景によって肌目が綺麗に起ち、淡い関映りが鎬寄りに乱れ掛かり、関物の優秀性を鮮明にしていかにも凄味がある。刃文は三つの山を成す浅い湾れで、物打辺りから棟に寄って地蔵の横姿を想わせる小丸帽子となり、先端の焼を深く残して返る。匂口の引き締まった焼刃は一段と明るく冴え、淡い匂で透明感のある刃中には、刃縁から広がる匂が朝陽を受けた靄のように明るく起ち、ここにも美濃物の優秀性が窺いとれる。檜垣鑢の施された茎には、独特の書体の銘が刻されている。 質朴な鉄地金具で堅牢さを高め、牛図目貫、雲龍図小柄を備えた、武骨な趣の拵が附されている。 注...『美濃刀大鑑』参照。
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Mino-den · Mino · around 1573-1592
Fujishiro Chu-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 49%
2 pieces on the market now
Where Kanetsune 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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Mino-den · Owari
7 pieces on the market now
The line begins with a Mino man. The setsumei record that Sagami no Kami Masatsune (政常) was born at Nōdo in Mino Province, where he first signed Kanetsune (兼常) and is variously said to have been the son or a disciple of Kanetsune of Seki. In Eiroku 10 (1567) he established an independent branch line and moved to Komaki village, likely changing his name to Masatsune about that time; in the fifth month of Tenshō 19 (1591) he received the court title Sagami no Kami, and in Keichō 5 (1600) he followed Matsudaira Tadayoshi to Kiyosu in Owari, where he became a retained smith (kakae-kō) of the Owari Tokugawa house. Several records place him at Kiyosu alongside Hōki no Kami Nobutaka and Hida no Kami Ujifusa, the three later counted as the Owari Sansaku (Three Smiths of Owari). After taking the tonsure and retiring in Keichō 12 (1607), he passed the name to his son; when that second generation died suddenly two years later he resumed forging under the nyūdō signature Masatsune Nyūdō, and is said to have died in Genna 5 (1619) at the age of eighty-four. A separate second generation, Mino no Kami Fujiwara Masatsune, is recorded as the son of Daidō of Gifu, adopted into the line, who carried on its spear and naginata work. A Mino foundation worked toward suguha defines the shared hand. The forging is itame mixed with mokume, frequently flowing into masame toward the mune and shinogi-ji, with the grain standing somewhat (hada-dachi), abundant ji-nie, and chikei; a mizukage-like feature rising from the machi is noted on several tantō and wakizashi.
The temper that the setsumei call his specialty is a chū- to broad suguha in ko-nie-deki, the habuchi worked with hotsure, nijūba, kuichigai-ba, and uchi-noke, with ko-gunome and ko-ashi mixed in, fine kinsuji and sunagashi running through, and a bright nioiguchi. Beside this restrained mode runs a bolder midareba of gunome and ko-notare with togariba, sometimes hakogakari or saka-gakari, where the nie grows coarse and clustered and the nioiguchi turns shizumi (subdued); the notare-ba that the setsumei call the Owari-Seki specialty (尾張関得意の湾れ刃) appears in the wider blades. The bōshi tends to straight with ko-maru and hakikake in the suguha works, midare-komi with a rounded or long return in the midareba works. Carving is plain but crisp: suken, bonji, gomabashi, koshi-hi with soe-hi, and the rarely seen shin no Kurikara in openwork. Among extant works, the setsumei agree, hira-zukuri wakizashi and tantō are the most numerous and of high skill, yari and naginata are comparatively common with the spears often hira-sankaku sasaho form, while katana and shinogi-zukuri wakizashi are extremely few. For kantei this rarity gives weight to the long swords: the 67th Jūyō Kanetsune-signed katana, dated by its sakizori and large kissaki to about Eiroku, anchors the smith's early phase, and the 31st Jūyō Masatsune Nyūdō katana shows the flowing masame, shallow notare, and shizumi nioiguchi read as his own. Named pieces include the Sagami no Kami Masatsune Nyūdō wakizashi held by the Imperial Household Agency and the katana once with Tokugawa Iesato and the Reimeikai Foundation; one wakizashi survives in akikusa-mon koshirae with fittings by Mogarashi Sōten of Hikone. The setsumei note that in his bolder work Masatsune looked to the Sagami masters Sadamune and Nobukuni while keeping the togari and Sanbon-sugi traces of his Mino root, placing his line as the Owari channel through which the Mino-den passed into shintō. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Masatsune政常 | 1567-1619 | 19 |
| Masatsune政常 | 1661-1673 | 0 |
| Masatsune政常 | 1688-1704 | 0 |
| Kanetsune兼常 | 1573-1592 | 1 |
| Masatsune政常 | 1615-1673 | 2 |
Mino in the Momoyama period
Unification closed the mass market, and Seki’s smiths moved to where the new money was: the Mishina line to Kyōto with court titles, Daidō smiths to castle towns across the provinces. Mino became the great technical ancestor of the Shintō age.
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 siteIf, due to our fault, the item differs significantly from its proper condition, the item may be returned. Cooling-off is within one week of the item's arrival.