Perry’s arrival in 1853 unraveled the Tokugawa peace and created the first mass demand for working swords in two centuries. Kiyomaro, called the Masamune of Yotsuya, died on its eve; Munetsugu and Yukihide carried the boom to the end.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatch固山宗次は、享和三年奥州白河に生まれました。俗名を宗兵衛(惣兵衛)といい、兄に宗平・宗俊がいます。彼は初め白河松平家の抱え工でしたが、後に出府して加藤綱英の門人となり桑名藩工として江戸麻布永坂四谷左門町にて鍛刀しました。精良斎、一専斎とも号しています。弘化二年に備前介を受領し、明治五年頃まで生存しました。茎鑢目は安政七年より切に改めています。作風は一貫 して備前伝を得意とするたいへん人気が高い刀匠です。本作も板目肌がよく詰んだ精良な鍛えに、互の目が三本杉になって見事な刃紋に仕上がりで、表裏の刃紋が対称で丁寧に焼かれています。鋩子は素直、先小丸に返っています。茎は生ぶで化粧筋違い鑢で銘もピンピンとしており健全そのものです。申し分ない短刀です。拵も刀身に相応しい良拵がついています。素銅一作金具で鞘塗りも上等です。柄糸もただ者の巻きでは無く、隅々までシッカリしたもので感嘆させられます。内外揃ったお奨めの一振りです。 金着せ二重はばき。特別保存刀剣。
NihontoWatchOffered by World Seiyudo
Shinshinto · Musashi
17 pieces on the market now
Born in Kyōwa 3 (1803) at Shirakawa in Ōshū, Koyama Munetsugu (固山宗次) carried a smith's name read variously in the setsumei as Munobei or Sōbei, working under the art-names Issensai and Seiryōsai. He came up alongside elder brothers Munehira and Munetoshi, and although his teacher is traditionally given as Katō Tsunahide, the NBTHK readers repeatedly note that the hand of Katō Tsunatoshi shows through his work more plainly. He first served the Matsudaira house of Shirakawa as a retained smith; when that domain was transferred to Kuwana in Ise, he settled in Edo at Azabu Nagasaka and forged as a Kuwana domain smith. In Kōka 2 (1845) he received the court title Bizen no Suke, the signature Bizen no Suke Fujiwara Munetsugu recurring on the dated katana from that point. His production runs from the latter half of Bunsei into the early Meiji years, and the program it serves is the Bakumatsu fukko revival of Bizen-den: a deliberate return, from an Edo workshop, to the chōji tempering of the old Bizen masters. The shared idiom is consistent across the line. Construction tends to a wide mihaba, thick kasane, shallow sori and an extended chū-kissaki or ō-kissaki, giving the heavy-in-hand shinshintō bearing the readers call taihai. The ground is a tightly packed ko-itame, sometimes flowing toward nagare or masame, carrying extremely fine mijin-grade ji-nie and frequent chikei; faint utsuri rises on a number of blades.
The temper is the heart of the recognition: a nioi-dominant chōji-midare or gunome-chōji, with ko-chōji, togariba and angular heads mixed in, long ashi and yō entering, fine sunagashi and kinsuji, and a bright, clear nioiguchi. To read his hand, the setsumei flag particular chōji shapes (the kawazuko tadpole-head and the kobushi fist-shaped chōji clustered near Keiō-dated work), a midare-komi bōshi turning in ko-maru with hakikake, and the bold, thick-chiseled signatures with prominent chisel-pillows. Cutting-test inscriptions are common, several tied to the connoisseur Iga Norishige, who is recorded learning swordmaking from Munetsugu. His pupils carry the same vocabulary: Tairyūsai Sōkan (宗寛, also Munekane), son of Ōno Heizō and later a Koga/Furukawa domain smith, whose blades add a faint midare-utsuri and a smaller-pattern late temper; and the likely student Kongōsai Munehiro, who copied the same shrine original his master did. For kantei, the discriminating points are the orderly yet varied chōji arrayed shoulder-to-shoulder, the nie-laden Tenpō-era pieces whose habuchi has not yet settled, and a deliberate allusion to the second-generation Kunisuke when kobushi-like chōji appear. The named works root the line in documented copying: an utsushi of the National Treasure Koryū Kagemitsu, reconstructed to its original ubu state with kurikara and bonji carved by Sōkan; and a Tenpō 11 (1840) wakizashi copying the hōchō-shaped Masamune of Egara Tenmangū in Kamakura, carved by Tōryūsai Seiju and dedicated by Nomura Toshikatsu, a rare pairing of two Edo masters. Provenance inscriptions name patrons such as Miyake Takuma and the Furukawa domain on the Sōkan side. Across the NBTHK register, the work stands as a disciplined Edo restatement of the Bizen chōji tradition, prized for the brightness of its nioiguchi and for the documentary value of its dated, commissioned and trial-cut tangs. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Munetsugu宗次 | 1830-1870 | 52 |
| Sokan宗寛 | 1850-1868 | 5 |
Bakumatsu: the last war market
Perry’s arrival in 1853 unraveled the Tokugawa peace and created the first mass demand for working swords in two centuries. Kiyomaro, called the Masamune of Yotsuya, died on its eve; Munetsugu and Yukihide carried the boom to the end.
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).