The Shintō era was largely invented in Kyōto: Umetada Myōju’s workshop trained the movement, Horikawa Kunihiro raised a generation, and the Hon’ami appraisers, who held no forge, governed the meaning of famous blades.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatchStock No:KA-081025Paper(Certificate): [N.B.T.H.K] Tokubetsu Hozon ToukenCountry(Kuni)/Period(Jidai): Yamashiro(Kyoto)・Middle Edo period about 1661~Blade length(Cutting edge): 68.6 cmCurve(SORI): — cmWidth at the hamachi(Moto-Haba): 3.0 cmThickness at the Moto-Kasane: 0.70 cmWide at the Kissaki(Saki-Haba): 2.20 cmThickness at the Saki-Kasane: 0.45 cmHabaki: One part, gold foil HabakiSword tang(Nakago): Unaltered,Sujikai file patternRivet Holes(Mekugiana): 1Length of Koshirae : about 97.0cmShape(Taihai): Chu-kissaki, Shinogizukuri, IorimuneJigane(Hada): ItameTemper patterns(Hamon): Sugu and Notare with Gunome-ashiTemper patterns in the point(Bohshi): Sugu then komaru round tipRegistration Card: Osaka【Additional Information】室町末期、濃州関兼道(大道)の子 長男 伊賀守金道は、兄弟(次男 来金道、三男 丹波守吉道、四男 越中守正俊)と共に山城国に移住します。他説を有しますが、父兼道または近江守久道を加えて、四兄弟は京五鍛冶とも称されます。彼らは江戸期において一大派閥である三品一門の源流と云われます。本作は兼道三男、丹波守吉道より始まった丹波守吉道一門京三代の作品です。刻銘は丹波守吉道と菊紋を切ります。三品徳左衛門と称し、寛文二年に丹波守を受領します。京二代の作風をよく継承するも、早世のため、現存作を稀であります。本作は、刃長が二尺二寸六分強。身幅重ね尋常に反りが適度に利いて、中切っ先となる刀姿です。地鉄は板目肌良く詰んで、刃寄り流れごころに地沸が付きます。刃文は直ぐ調子、湾れて互の目足等が繁く入り、中程から細かな飛び焼きが断続して簾刃ごころとなります。匂口深く、小沸よく付き明るく冴えます。帽子は直ぐで先小丸に返ります。茎は生ぶ、筋違鑢目で菊紋と刀工銘を切ります。本品は三品一派 京三代丹波守吉道の希少な御刀です。同工過渡期の一作にみえ、本工と同一門を研究する上で欠かせない資料としてご紹介いたします。白鞘、金着一重ハバキ、棕櫚毛青貝微塵塗鞘半太刀拵、特別保存刀剣鑑定書。
NihontoWatchOffered by World Seiyudo
Shinto · Yamashiro · around 1661-1673
Tōken Taikan top 76%
1 piece on the market now
Where Yoshimichi 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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Shinto · Yamashiro
52 pieces on the market now
The Mishina school (三品), one of the two dominant smithing groups of early Edo Kyoto beside the Horikawa, grew from the late-Mino workshop of Kanemichi of Seki, whose dated blades run through the Tenbun, Eiroku, and Tenshō eras. During the closing decades of the sixteenth century Kanemichi came up to the capital with his four sons and settled at Nishinotōin Ebisugawa, where the eldest, Iga no Kami Kinmichi, is recorded as having greatly raised the name of the line. The brothers, Kinmichi together with Izumi no Kami Rai Kinmichi, Tanba no Kami Yoshimichi, and Etchū no Kami Masatoshi, became known collectively as the Sanpin (三品) makers, and the published sources count Kinmichi head of the Kyō go-kaji, the five Kyoto smiths. From the second generation the house held a hereditary right to recommend smiths to the court for their titles and added that by-line to its signatures. The name continued under the same appellation to the end of the Tokugawa period, throwing off branches that included the Tango no Kami line working at Ōsaka into the Genroku years, though the published record consistently holds the founding generation the most outstanding of the line. Beneath every branch lies a shared vocabulary carried up from Mino-Seki. The jigane is the constant: an itame mixed with mokume that flows into nagare-hada and tends toward masame near the mune, the grain standing, with thick fine ji-nie and frequent chikei. Over it the Mino-derived gunome and togariba are refined toward a Kyoto manner, the nie strong and at times coarse, gathering unevenly, kinsuji and vigorous striped sunagashi running throughout. Two tells bind the house. The first is the Mishina bōshi, a notare or midare run-in pointed at the tip and swept with vigorous hakikake, the form Masatoshi shows at its clearest, described as if drawn from a picture. The second is sudareba, the bamboo-blind temper in which layered sunagashi and yubashiri stripe into parallel bands; Tanba no Kami Yoshimichi devised it, and the first-generation hand keeps it a free, semi-cursive disorder where his heirs would regularize it into a fixed lattice.
The lines diverge from that common ground. Kinmichi and his younger brother Masatoshi both excelled in a Shizu manner, the large midare of Mino grafted onto Sōshū nie, with Masatoshi the most versatile, ranging across Shizu, Mino sanbon-sugi, Yamato suguha, and Sōshū hitatsura. The later Ōsaka Tanba branch held to the sudareba alone, opening from a straight yakidashi, while the second Tango no Kami Kanemichi cast off the family chōji for a flamboyant tōran-style large gunome in alternating two-joined and three-joined groups, and a deep-nioi suguha read in the manner of Inoue Shinkai. To kantei Mishina is to read these two house marks first. The pointed, hakikake-swept bōshi and the striped sudareba, set over a standing itame that flows to masame, place a blade within the line before any signature is weighed; the sunagashi, far heavier than on a Bizen ji, is the very material from which the temper is built. Within the house the founding generation sets the standard. Fujishiro grades Kinmichi and Masatoshi Jō-jō saku, the Ōsaka Tanba shodai Jō-saku, and the second Tango no Kami Chū-jō saku, the sources judging the later Kyoto and Ōsaka generations markedly inferior to the founders as the manner thinned toward a single uniform pattern. Provenance on record runs through samurai and collector hands rather than great museums: a Kinmichi katana among the cherished swords of Tani Tateki, a Yoshimichi katana made for Naitō Kuroemon and another now in the Kyoto National Museum, Masatoshi blades passing through Oda Urakusai and the Imperial household, and a second Tango no Kami katana descending from the Aoyama wardens of Ōsaka castle. The brothers' blades are signed and knowable, dated examples rare, so the manner of the mei joins the workmanship in placing them; for the Ōsaka and Kyoto branches the cut of the character 守 separates one hand from the next. Most designated work is held rather than traded, so a signed founding-generation Mishina blade comes to light only from time to time, and with it the temper in which one of the most recognizable hamon of the Shintō era was first being worked out. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Kinmichi金道 | 1596-1615 | 25 |
| Yoshimichi吉道 | 1596-1615 | 36 |
| Masatoshi正俊 | 1596-1615 | 29 |
| Kanemichi兼道 | 1681-1704 | 5 |
| Eisen来栄泉 | 1673-1688 | 3 |
Kyōto: the revival workshop
The Shintō era was largely invented in Kyōto: Umetada Myōju’s workshop trained the movement, Horikawa Kunihiro raised a generation, and the Hon’ami appraisers, who held no forge, governed the meaning of famous 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 siteNo cooling-off period or returns; refund only if the purchased sword is proven fake, capped at purchase price (excludes commission sales, accessories, auction items).