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.
This is a tanto by Ujifusa from the Muromachi era. The blade features an itame hada and a choji and gunome-midare hamon. It comes with an Edo period aikuchi koshirae, shirasaya, and a silver habaki, and has been certified as Hozon Token by the NBTHK.
NihontoWatchmei · Muromachi · nagasa 24.8cm · sori 0.3cm
Seki (late-Mino Sue-Seki; Wakasa no Kami line, son of Kanefusa) · Mino · around 1571-1592
4 pieces on the market now
Wakasa no Kami Ujifusa worked at Seki in Mino through the Genki and Tensho years of the late sixteenth century, and the published sources count him among the representative smiths of Sue-Seki, the last and largest body of the Mino tradition. He was the son of Seki Kanefusa, and the published record preserves a telling detail of his name: he at first succeeded to his father's name Kanefusa, and only later changed to Ujifusa, the character Uji said to have been granted to him by Imagawa Ujizane. He received the title Wakasa no Kami in Eiroku 13, and a Reiwa-designated katana still carries the residence inscription Bishu Kiyosu ju, the record of his removal in old age from Seki to Kiyosu in Owari. That move matters beyond his own work, for his son became Hida no Kami Ujifusa, the founder of the Owari Ujifusa line and one of the three founding masters of Owari shinto, so the father stands at the hinge where the old Mino tradition passes into the new Owari work.
His representative work is the broad katana, and a Genki-dated blade is the type: shinogi-zukuri with iori-mune, generous in mihaba with a chu- or large kissaki, several extended and a few slightly shortened, the build the published sources read as evidence that by the Genki years the uchigatana had grown long in place of the tachi and was carried in both hands. Over this body he tempers a notare or a broad large-gunome into which the pointed togariba of Mino enter, with ashi and yo, the nioiguchi running from tight and subdued to bright, ko-nie attached with sunagashi and patches of tobiyaki. The togariba mixed into the undulating temper is the Mino tell of his ordinary katana, the feature that places him squarely in the Seki body rather than to one side of it. The published record calls one such blade his representative work, a piece of imposing construction with a grand and open temper, a quiet superlative the institution rarely spends[[c:1]].
The jigane carries the same Seki character. His itame stands rather than tightening, flowing in places to nagare-hada with the masame gathering at the shinogi-ji, and ji-nie adheres over it, with chikei entering on his more vigorous blades. This standing, flowing jigane is the late-Mino surface, and it is the bed on which his nie and his tobiyaki sit; on a recent katana the published sources read a strong Genki-Tensho build with a robust open midare, the nioiguchi bright and the nie well gathered, the jigane and hamon alike well preserved. The boshi answers the temper below it, running midare-komi to a ko-maru on most of his katana and pointed and brushed in hakikake on others, while on a number of his blades the temper carries fully over the point in an ichimai face[[c:2]], the published sources reading one Reiwa-designated katana as an outright ichimai with the kaeri tempered long down the back and a Showa-designated blade as a midare-komi almost in the manner of ichimai turning back in ko-maru[[c:3]]; a plain bo-hi is carried through the blade. These are not the cool, regular Seki blades of the workshop average but the bolder, freer end of the tradition, and they are why the published sources hold work of this quality from his hand uncommon.
Against this broad katana manner stands a second and rarer face, seen on his tanto: a Yamashiro copy. A Tensho-dated hira-zukuri tanto is the surviving example, slightly wide for its length with a thick kasane and inner curvature, and over a ko-itame flowing overall, the masame especially strong on the omote, the ji-nie gathers finely and a whitish shirake-utsuri rises in the jigane. The temper is a narrow hoso-suguha, nioi-prevalent with a tight, controlled nioiguchi and ko-nie, the boshi running straight to a quiet ko-maru, the carving a gomabashi on the face and a koshi-bi at the base of the back. Of this register the published sources observe that the Seki work of the Genki-Tensho period often shows such Yamashiro-mono copies[[c:4]], and they rank this one as well composed and of fine quality, among Ujifusa's superior pieces[[c:5]]. The carving program reads off the form: where his katana carry the plain bo-hi, the devotional gomabashi and the short koshi-bi belong to the hira-zukuri tanto.
His place in the school is best taken from his own attested traits rather than borrowed comparison. He is a Sue-Seki smith whose hand is recognized in the standing itame, the togariba folded into a broad notare or large-gunome, and the occasional turn to a refined Yamashiro-copy suguha; the bright open midare and the bo-hi katana are the spine of his work, the quiet shirake-utsuri tanto its grace note. The lineage runs cleanly through him. He took the Mino body from his father Kanefusa and carried it, with the move to Kiyosu, to the threshold of Owari, where his son Hida no Kami Ujifusa would refine the broad notare into a settled Owari shinto manner and be numbered with Masatsune and Nobutaka as one of the three founders of that school. The published sources note that several generations continued under the name, and the father is the root of that descent.
Ujifusa is preserved entirely at the Juyo level, with no National Treasures or Important Cultural Properties on record, so his work belongs to the more attainable end of the connoisseur's field rather than to the museum population. The published designation record holds nine signed katana and a signed tanto among his designated works, all of them signed pieces rather than attributions, several carrying Genki and Tensho dates and one the Bishu Kiyosu ju residence inscription that the sources prize as material for the study of his late Owari years. No daimyo provenance or institutional holder is recorded for these blades, and the published sources are candid that his surviving work, his katana in particular, is comparatively few and that pieces of real quality are rarer still. A signed, dated Wakasa no Kami Ujifusa katana of the broad Genki-Tensho type is therefore an uncommon thing to encounter, and a collector meets one only from time to time and with patience, the strongest of them at the top of what the late-Mino field offers. The published sources sum the best of them plainly, calling one his representative work of imposing construction and grand temper, another a typical and representative Seki blade of the late Muromachi[[c:6]], and the fine suguha tanto one of his superior pieces.
Where Ujifusa 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
Mino-den · Mino
154 pieces on the market now
Seki (関), in Mino Province, grew from two roots set down in the Nanbokuchō period and rose to become the great center of mass sword production in the late medieval age. The published sources trace the wellspring of Mino swordmaking to Kinju (whose name the commentary also reads Kaneshige), counted since antiquity among the Masamune Jittetsu, the ten disciples of Sōshū Masamune, and to Kaneuji of the Shizu line; the Kokon Meizukushi records Kinju as a native of Tsuruga in Echizen who "crossed over to Seki and resided there," carrying the Sōshū-den manner east. Beneath that Sagami inheritance lay a Yamato foundation, legible in the Tegai descent of the Seki Zensada line through Kaneyoshi, so that the Mino-den the Seki workshops forged stands as a fusion of Yamato grain and Sōshū activity in nie. From this Nanbokuchō founding the name multiplied across the Muromachi period into Sue-Seki, the last and largest body of the tradition; its representative masters at the close of the old-sword age were Magoroku Kanemoto, famed for the sanbonsugi, and Izumi no Kami Kanesada, the smith called Nosada, while the Kanefusa, Ujifusa and Daidō hands worked beside them and the move of Wakasa no Kami Ujifusa to Kiyosu carried the Mino body to the threshold of Owari shintō. A common Mino vocabulary binds the Seki body, however widely its members range. The forging is an itame that stands and runs to masame, often mixed with mokume and nagare, over which rises the cool whitish shirake-utsuri of Mino steel rather than the bright midare-utsuri of Bizen; this pale, standing jigane is the constant tell the judges read first, present alike on Kinju's Nanbokuchō katana, Kaneyoshi's Ōei tachi and Nosada's late-Muromachi blades. Over it the smiths temper gunome into which the pointed togariba of Mino enters, with ko-nie clinging to a tight nioiguchi, ashi and yō, and sunagashi streaming through; the bōshi answers in midare-komi turning to a pointed or jizō-cast ko-maru swept with hakikake. From this shared grammar the individual hands diverge.
Kanemoto fixed the regular three-cedar sanbonsugi of pointed teeth; Kanefusa devised the rounded-head, constricted-waist "Kanefusa midare"; Kinju and the early founders held a calmer, rounder gunome away from the restless Shizu line, their work laid with thicker ji-nie and dry, standing grain. The late masters carried the manner to a higher finish: Nosada wove togariba among rounder forms for a broader temper than Kanemoto's one-sided file, and turned at times to a slender Rai-styled suguha with a hidden gunome; Kaneyoshi held instead to a cool ito-suguha, the disciplined Yamato face of late Seki, lightly broken with ko-gunome. A collector seeks Seki because it is the connoisseur's ground for reading Mino-den across a vast body of signed and attributed work. The kantei runs through the jigane first: the standing, masame-leaning itame and the whitish shirake separate a Seki blade from Bizen and Yamashiro, after which the pointed togariba, the dry nie, and the pointed or jizō bōshi confirm the province; the discriminations the judges draw, Kinju held apart from Shizu by his rounder gunome, Nosada parted from Kanemoto by his breadth, give the eye its anchors. Within the school the standing of the best members is settled: Magoroku Kanemoto for the sanbonsugi, Nosada whom the swordbooks call simply "an excellent master" and the most accomplished of the several Kanesada hands, and the early Kinju as a rare and precious founding name, his record running through the Jūyō tier with the signed pieces few and the long blades attributed den. Signature works carry real provenance: a Kinju tantō presented to the Tokugawa shogunal house in 1679, a Nosada katana borne by a chief retainer of the Kii Tokugawa and a tachi forged for the father of Takeda Shingen, a Kaneyoshi tachi transmitted in the Chikuzen Kuroda family. Beyond connoisseurship, Seki's blades earned a battlefield reputation for cutting; the full hiraniku and stout build of the Sue-Seki katana, made to sever, set the wazamono standing that made Mino the working sword of its age. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Kinju金重 | 1340-1346 | 45 |
| Ujifusa氏房 | 1596-1615 | 16 |
| Kaneyuki金行 | 1350-1352 | 10 |
| Ujifusa氏房 | 1571-1592 | 9 |
| Kanekore兼之 | 1504-1555 | 7 |
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 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).
This is a tanto by Ujifusa from the Muromachi era. The blade features an itame hada and a choji and gunome-midare hamon. It comes with an Edo period aikuchi koshirae, shirasaya, and a silver habaki, and has been certified as Hozon Token by the NBTHK.
NihontoWatchmei · Muromachi · nagasa 24.8cm · sori 0.3cm
Seki (late-Mino Sue-Seki; Wakasa no Kami line, son of Kanefusa) · Mino · around 1571-1592
4 pieces on the market now
Wakasa no Kami Ujifusa worked at Seki in Mino through the Genki and Tensho years of the late sixteenth century, and the published sources count him among the representative smiths of Sue-Seki, the last and largest body of the Mino tradition. He was the son of Seki Kanefusa, and the published record preserves a telling detail of his name: he at first succeeded to his father's name Kanefusa, and only later changed to Ujifusa, the character Uji said to have been granted to him by Imagawa Ujizane. He received the title Wakasa no Kami in Eiroku 13, and a Reiwa-designated katana still carries the residence inscription Bishu Kiyosu ju, the record of his removal in old age from Seki to Kiyosu in Owari. That move matters beyond his own work, for his son became Hida no Kami Ujifusa, the founder of the Owari Ujifusa line and one of the three founding masters of Owari shinto, so the father stands at the hinge where the old Mino tradition passes into the new Owari work.
His representative work is the broad katana, and a Genki-dated blade is the type: shinogi-zukuri with iori-mune, generous in mihaba with a chu- or large kissaki, several extended and a few slightly shortened, the build the published sources read as evidence that by the Genki years the uchigatana had grown long in place of the tachi and was carried in both hands. Over this body he tempers a notare or a broad large-gunome into which the pointed togariba of Mino enter, with ashi and yo, the nioiguchi running from tight and subdued to bright, ko-nie attached with sunagashi and patches of tobiyaki. The togariba mixed into the undulating temper is the Mino tell of his ordinary katana, the feature that places him squarely in the Seki body rather than to one side of it. The published record calls one such blade his representative work, a piece of imposing construction with a grand and open temper, a quiet superlative the institution rarely spends[[c:1]].
The jigane carries the same Seki character. His itame stands rather than tightening, flowing in places to nagare-hada with the masame gathering at the shinogi-ji, and ji-nie adheres over it, with chikei entering on his more vigorous blades. This standing, flowing jigane is the late-Mino surface, and it is the bed on which his nie and his tobiyaki sit; on a recent katana the published sources read a strong Genki-Tensho build with a robust open midare, the nioiguchi bright and the nie well gathered, the jigane and hamon alike well preserved. The boshi answers the temper below it, running midare-komi to a ko-maru on most of his katana and pointed and brushed in hakikake on others, while on a number of his blades the temper carries fully over the point in an ichimai face[[c:2]], the published sources reading one Reiwa-designated katana as an outright ichimai with the kaeri tempered long down the back and a Showa-designated blade as a midare-komi almost in the manner of ichimai turning back in ko-maru[[c:3]]; a plain bo-hi is carried through the blade. These are not the cool, regular Seki blades of the workshop average but the bolder, freer end of the tradition, and they are why the published sources hold work of this quality from his hand uncommon.
Against this broad katana manner stands a second and rarer face, seen on his tanto: a Yamashiro copy. A Tensho-dated hira-zukuri tanto is the surviving example, slightly wide for its length with a thick kasane and inner curvature, and over a ko-itame flowing overall, the masame especially strong on the omote, the ji-nie gathers finely and a whitish shirake-utsuri rises in the jigane. The temper is a narrow hoso-suguha, nioi-prevalent with a tight, controlled nioiguchi and ko-nie, the boshi running straight to a quiet ko-maru, the carving a gomabashi on the face and a koshi-bi at the base of the back. Of this register the published sources observe that the Seki work of the Genki-Tensho period often shows such Yamashiro-mono copies[[c:4]], and they rank this one as well composed and of fine quality, among Ujifusa's superior pieces[[c:5]]. The carving program reads off the form: where his katana carry the plain bo-hi, the devotional gomabashi and the short koshi-bi belong to the hira-zukuri tanto.
His place in the school is best taken from his own attested traits rather than borrowed comparison. He is a Sue-Seki smith whose hand is recognized in the standing itame, the togariba folded into a broad notare or large-gunome, and the occasional turn to a refined Yamashiro-copy suguha; the bright open midare and the bo-hi katana are the spine of his work, the quiet shirake-utsuri tanto its grace note. The lineage runs cleanly through him. He took the Mino body from his father Kanefusa and carried it, with the move to Kiyosu, to the threshold of Owari, where his son Hida no Kami Ujifusa would refine the broad notare into a settled Owari shinto manner and be numbered with Masatsune and Nobutaka as one of the three founders of that school. The published sources note that several generations continued under the name, and the father is the root of that descent.
Ujifusa is preserved entirely at the Juyo level, with no National Treasures or Important Cultural Properties on record, so his work belongs to the more attainable end of the connoisseur's field rather than to the museum population. The published designation record holds nine signed katana and a signed tanto among his designated works, all of them signed pieces rather than attributions, several carrying Genki and Tensho dates and one the Bishu Kiyosu ju residence inscription that the sources prize as material for the study of his late Owari years. No daimyo provenance or institutional holder is recorded for these blades, and the published sources are candid that his surviving work, his katana in particular, is comparatively few and that pieces of real quality are rarer still. A signed, dated Wakasa no Kami Ujifusa katana of the broad Genki-Tensho type is therefore an uncommon thing to encounter, and a collector meets one only from time to time and with patience, the strongest of them at the top of what the late-Mino field offers. The published sources sum the best of them plainly, calling one his representative work of imposing construction and grand temper, another a typical and representative Seki blade of the late Muromachi[[c:6]], and the fine suguha tanto one of his superior pieces.
Where Ujifusa 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
Mino-den · Mino
154 pieces on the market now
Seki (関), in Mino Province, grew from two roots set down in the Nanbokuchō period and rose to become the great center of mass sword production in the late medieval age. The published sources trace the wellspring of Mino swordmaking to Kinju (whose name the commentary also reads Kaneshige), counted since antiquity among the Masamune Jittetsu, the ten disciples of Sōshū Masamune, and to Kaneuji of the Shizu line; the Kokon Meizukushi records Kinju as a native of Tsuruga in Echizen who "crossed over to Seki and resided there," carrying the Sōshū-den manner east. Beneath that Sagami inheritance lay a Yamato foundation, legible in the Tegai descent of the Seki Zensada line through Kaneyoshi, so that the Mino-den the Seki workshops forged stands as a fusion of Yamato grain and Sōshū activity in nie. From this Nanbokuchō founding the name multiplied across the Muromachi period into Sue-Seki, the last and largest body of the tradition; its representative masters at the close of the old-sword age were Magoroku Kanemoto, famed for the sanbonsugi, and Izumi no Kami Kanesada, the smith called Nosada, while the Kanefusa, Ujifusa and Daidō hands worked beside them and the move of Wakasa no Kami Ujifusa to Kiyosu carried the Mino body to the threshold of Owari shintō. A common Mino vocabulary binds the Seki body, however widely its members range. The forging is an itame that stands and runs to masame, often mixed with mokume and nagare, over which rises the cool whitish shirake-utsuri of Mino steel rather than the bright midare-utsuri of Bizen; this pale, standing jigane is the constant tell the judges read first, present alike on Kinju's Nanbokuchō katana, Kaneyoshi's Ōei tachi and Nosada's late-Muromachi blades. Over it the smiths temper gunome into which the pointed togariba of Mino enters, with ko-nie clinging to a tight nioiguchi, ashi and yō, and sunagashi streaming through; the bōshi answers in midare-komi turning to a pointed or jizō-cast ko-maru swept with hakikake. From this shared grammar the individual hands diverge.
Kanemoto fixed the regular three-cedar sanbonsugi of pointed teeth; Kanefusa devised the rounded-head, constricted-waist "Kanefusa midare"; Kinju and the early founders held a calmer, rounder gunome away from the restless Shizu line, their work laid with thicker ji-nie and dry, standing grain. The late masters carried the manner to a higher finish: Nosada wove togariba among rounder forms for a broader temper than Kanemoto's one-sided file, and turned at times to a slender Rai-styled suguha with a hidden gunome; Kaneyoshi held instead to a cool ito-suguha, the disciplined Yamato face of late Seki, lightly broken with ko-gunome. A collector seeks Seki because it is the connoisseur's ground for reading Mino-den across a vast body of signed and attributed work. The kantei runs through the jigane first: the standing, masame-leaning itame and the whitish shirake separate a Seki blade from Bizen and Yamashiro, after which the pointed togariba, the dry nie, and the pointed or jizō bōshi confirm the province; the discriminations the judges draw, Kinju held apart from Shizu by his rounder gunome, Nosada parted from Kanemoto by his breadth, give the eye its anchors. Within the school the standing of the best members is settled: Magoroku Kanemoto for the sanbonsugi, Nosada whom the swordbooks call simply "an excellent master" and the most accomplished of the several Kanesada hands, and the early Kinju as a rare and precious founding name, his record running through the Jūyō tier with the signed pieces few and the long blades attributed den. Signature works carry real provenance: a Kinju tantō presented to the Tokugawa shogunal house in 1679, a Nosada katana borne by a chief retainer of the Kii Tokugawa and a tachi forged for the father of Takeda Shingen, a Kaneyoshi tachi transmitted in the Chikuzen Kuroda family. Beyond connoisseurship, Seki's blades earned a battlefield reputation for cutting; the full hiraniku and stout build of the Sue-Seki katana, made to sever, set the wazamono standing that made Mino the working sword of its age. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Kinju金重 | 1340-1346 | 45 |
| Ujifusa氏房 | 1596-1615 | 16 |
| Kaneyuki金行 | 1350-1352 | 10 |
| Ujifusa氏房 | 1571-1592 | 9 |
| Kanekore兼之 | 1504-1555 | 7 |
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 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).
