Edo was the sword’s age of connoisseurship: the Hon’ami appraisers, the shogunal register of famous blades of 1719, and a thriving literature turned the sword into an object of study even as it ceased to be drawn in war.
This is a katana by Masakiyo, a renowned smith from Satsuma province during the Edo period. It features a robust shape with a wide moto-haba and saki-haba, showcasing a well-forged itame jigane with abundant jinie. The hamon is a vibrant choji-midare with active nie and nioi, characteristic of Satsuma smiths, and comes with a magnificent koshirae adorned with dragon fittings.
NihontoWatchmei · Kyoho (1716-1736) · nagasa 69.4cm · sori 1.3cm
Ichinohira (Satsuma), shinto · Satsuma · around 1714-1736
2 pieces on the market now
Mondo-no-Sho Masakiyo is said to have been born in Kanbun 10 (1670) at Izumi-go in Satsuma, common name Miyahara Seiemon, also called Kakudayu. He learned forging from the Satsuma domain smith Maruta Sozaemon Masafusa, first signing Kiyomitsu and later changing the name to Masakiyo. In the first month of Kyoho 6 (1721) he was summoned together with his townsman Ippei Yasuyo by the eighth shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune to forge in Edo, and his skill was such that the bakufu granted him the right to cut the single-leaf hollyhock crest of the Tokugawa on his tang. On his return journey the Imperial Court raised him to the title Mondo-no-Sho. He died in Kyoho 15 (1730) at sixty-one. The published sources frame him by a single pairing they return to whenever they place him: with Yasuyo he is, in their words, one of "the twin pillars of Satsuma shinto" (「安代と並んで薩摩新刀の双璧」)[[c:1]], and where Yasuyo often tempered a calm notare-toned suguha, Masakiyo tempered the varied, vigorous midare that became the recognized hand of the school.
His characteristic work is the Soshu-den the published sources say he handled with greatest mastery, modelled on the old Shizu manner. Over a strongly forged itame he tempers a ko-notare into which he sets gunome, ko-gunome and pointed togariba, the temper deep in nioi and the nie thick and strong with coarse ara-nie mixed in. Through the ha run long, frequent kinsuji and nie-suji with sunagashi, the streaming nie-lines of a Satsuma hand, and ashi and yo enter well. The pointed teeth set into the undulating notare are the spine of his recognition, the feature that separates his varied midareba from the level suguha of his fellow pillar. The sources name the manner plainly as "the Shizu-style working range that he most excelled in" (「最も得意とした志津風の作域」)[[c:2]], and on his finest blades they say the result comes near old superior work.
The jigane beneath is the constant. It is a well-forged itame that overall flows strongly and turns masame-inclined, at times a tighter ko-itame mixed with mokume, carrying thick ji-nie with coarse ji-nie mixed and vigorous chikei the sources liken to a distinctive metallic figuring. The steel is masame-prone precisely because the Shizu model asks for it, and the long kinsuji ride that flowing grain into the boshi, which runs in midare-komi or notare to a pointed return, swept with hakikake and turning back deeply. The nioiguchi is bright and clear and only here and there a little uneven. His body is the grand Satsuma form, extremely wide in mihaba with thick kasane and ample hiraniku, an extended chu-kissaki and a sense of funbari, and the published commentary calls such a blade bold, heroic and robust, with the feeling of a decisive downward cut.
There is a second feature the judges single out as a recognition point and read as antique. Especially in the upper half, at the crests of the temper, vigorous yubashiri gather and present an appearance like nijuba, the double temper-line of old work, while long kinsuji and nie-suji run through and sunagashi accompanies them. The sources name it directly, writing that "the manner in which yubashiri are vigorously applied at the crests of the temper to produce a nijuba-like appearance conveys an impression of antique flavor" (「焼頭に湯走り風がさかんにかかって二重刃状を呈している様には, 古色の風が感ぜられる」)[[c:3]]. This is not a separate manner but the upper reach of his characteristic hand, the nie-activity pushed to its fullest over the same flowing itame. His tang carries its own constant: almost always ubu, tapering to an iriyama-gata or sword-shaped tip with shallow katte-sagari file marks, the large long signature cut boldly, and on the blades made before the shogun a single-leaf hollyhock crest with a date. The published sources also caution the collector that in his later years many surviving blades were made as daimei by his son Masachika and his pupil Masamori, so a late Masakiyo signature is read against that workshop.
What sets him within his province is exactly the pairing the judges name and the manner they keep returning to. He is read first against his elder townsman Yasuyo, the two held together as the twin pillars of Satsuma shinto, and the distinction is precise: Yasuyo is the calm notare-toned suguha, Masakiyo the varied Shizu-style midare with its pointed togariba, its coarse nie and its long running kinsuji. His own bright deep-nioi gunome, his gathering yubashiri and the nijuba of antique flavor are the grounded traits that mark him out, not a borrowed comparison, and the published sources go so far as to say his best work can be mistaken "for old superior blades" (「往々古刀上位の作に見まがう」)[[c:4]]. He stands at the head of the Ichinohira-allied Satsuma shinto masters, the hand by which a varied Soshu-style Satsuma blade of his generation is read.
For the collector he is one of the great names of Satsuma shinto, and his work survives almost wholly ubu and signed. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record on the modern designation tiers runs through the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo ranks, where twenty-three of his works are held, several dated and many carrying the hollyhock crest granted before the shogun. His provenance reaches the highest houses of his age: his masterpiece katana and wakizashi, presented together with a blade by Yasuyo by the Satsuma lord Shimazu Tsuguhisa to Konoe Iehisa, Minister of the Left, who treasured them so that he sent both smiths gifts of fine silver and a set of poems of the Six Immortal Poets endorsed by court nobles, the documents still surviving; and pieces preserved with the provenance of the Tokugawa shogunal house and the Imperial family. Most designated blades, including those in private hands, are held rather than traded, and a fine signed Masakiyo of his Shizu-style Soshu-den comes to market only from time to time and with patience. His work is, comparatively, among the more findable of the first-rank shinto masters, more so than the locked heritage of the old traditions, but a dated, crest-bearing katana in his full vigorous manner remains a landmark acquisition, a document of how the Satsuma school reached its early summit.
Where Masakiyo 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
Yamato-den · Satsuma
32 pieces on the market now
The Satsuma school gathered the smiths of southern Kyushu under the patronage of the Shimazu, the daimyo house of Satsuma and Osumi, and the published sources read its history in two distinct flowerings rather than one continuous line. Its shinto fountainhead is Izu no Kami Masafusa, a son of the Mino smith Ujifusa who moved to Kagoshima and carried a strongly nie-laden hand into the province; the NBTHK names him the origin of Satsuma forging. From that root the early school rose to its summit in the pair the judges return to whenever they place it, Mondo-no-Sho Masakiyo and Ippei Yasuyo, the twin pillars of Satsuma shinto. Both were summoned in Kyoho 6 (1721) by the eighth shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune to forge in Edo and were granted the single-leaf hollyhock crest of the Tokugawa for their tangs, and the Ippei line continued through Yasuyo's adopted heir Yasuari. A century later a second summit formed in the shinshinto twin pillars, Oku Yamato no Kami Motohira of the Oku house and Hoki no Kami Masayuki of the Ijichi house, raised to their court titles in the same year of Kansei 1 (1789); Masayuki's name had begun as Masayoshi, and his pupil Masakage carried the manner into the Bunka and Bunsei years. The training the members record runs back through the Naminohira and Yamato roots of the early Ippei smiths, but the working idiom the school is known by is its own. That idiom is a Soshu-den read in coarse nie rather than in clove-flower, and the members describe it in a shared vocabulary. The body is broad in mihaba, thick in kasane, full in hiraniku and stoutly built, the imposing Satsuma sugata. Over a well-forged itame, often a tight ko-itame turning toward nagare or masame and carrying thick ji-nie and dark chikei, the smiths temper a notare-toned gunome-midare into which they set pointed togariba, deep in nioi with thick nie and coarse ara-nie mixed through. The feature the commentary names most often is what streams within that temper, the long kinsuji, nie-suji and sunagashi the sources call imozuru, the yam-vine of the province, vine-like nie-lines running unbroken through the ha.
The jigane takes a markedly blackish cast against which the bright nioiguchi and coarse nie stand out, and the boshi runs in midare-komi or straight, swept with hakikake and on the most vigorous work flaring to a flame-like kaen. Within this one settled manner the members divide. Masakiyo handled the varied Shizu-style midare, his yubashiri gathering at the crests of the temper into a nijuba-like, antique appearance, where Yasuyo tempered a calmer notare-toned suguha whose strength lay in the depth of its nioi and the length of its imozuru; Motohira and Masayuki carried the flamboyant gunome with its kaen boshi into the later period, while a small number of blades lean toward masame and recall the Yamato Hosho grain that the early training laid down. To kantei Satsuma work, the judges read three grounded marks together: the pointed togariba riding a notare base, the deep coarse nie with its running imozuru, and the dark, chikei-laden standing jigane, completed by the swept hakikake or kaen boshi and the broad heavy body. The tang offers further constants, almost always ubu with a bold thick-chiseled signature that frequently carries the smith's age, Motohira's funagata-narrowed kengyo point and Masayuki's bo-hi among them. Among the members the standing is high: Masakiyo and Yasuyo hold the early summit, while Motohira and Masayuki lead the shinshinto generation, the latter's pupil Masakage judged to have inherited the master's hand with notable refinement. The cutting reputation of the province, tied to its Jigen-ryu martial tradition, runs through the bold robust construction the sources call decisive in the hand. The provenance is grand for a domain school: blades presented by the Shimazu house upward to the shogun Yoshimune and to Konoe Iehisa, Minister of the Left, who returned silver and poems to the smiths, with pieces descending through the Tokugawa, the Imperial family and Shimazu branch houses such as the Kabayama. Such blades are held in long-established collections rather than traded, and a signed Satsuma work in its full vigorous Soshu-den comes to a collector only with patience. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Yasuyo安代 | 1716-1736 | 19 |
| Motohira元平 | 1778-1789 | 38 |
| Masayuki正幸 | 1772-1817 | 27 |
| Masakiyo正清 | 1714-1736 | 25 |
| Masayoshi正良 | 1764-1786 | 10 |
The Edo period (1615 to 1868)
Edo was the sword’s age of connoisseurship: the Hon’ami appraisers, the shogunal register of famous blades of 1719, and a thriving literature turned the sword into an object of study even as it ceased to be drawn in war.
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).
This is a katana by Masakiyo, a renowned smith from Satsuma province during the Edo period. It features a robust shape with a wide moto-haba and saki-haba, showcasing a well-forged itame jigane with abundant jinie. The hamon is a vibrant choji-midare with active nie and nioi, characteristic of Satsuma smiths, and comes with a magnificent koshirae adorned with dragon fittings.
NihontoWatchmei · Kyoho (1716-1736) · nagasa 69.4cm · sori 1.3cm
Ichinohira (Satsuma), shinto · Satsuma · around 1714-1736
2 pieces on the market now
Mondo-no-Sho Masakiyo is said to have been born in Kanbun 10 (1670) at Izumi-go in Satsuma, common name Miyahara Seiemon, also called Kakudayu. He learned forging from the Satsuma domain smith Maruta Sozaemon Masafusa, first signing Kiyomitsu and later changing the name to Masakiyo. In the first month of Kyoho 6 (1721) he was summoned together with his townsman Ippei Yasuyo by the eighth shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune to forge in Edo, and his skill was such that the bakufu granted him the right to cut the single-leaf hollyhock crest of the Tokugawa on his tang. On his return journey the Imperial Court raised him to the title Mondo-no-Sho. He died in Kyoho 15 (1730) at sixty-one. The published sources frame him by a single pairing they return to whenever they place him: with Yasuyo he is, in their words, one of "the twin pillars of Satsuma shinto" (「安代と並んで薩摩新刀の双璧」)[[c:1]], and where Yasuyo often tempered a calm notare-toned suguha, Masakiyo tempered the varied, vigorous midare that became the recognized hand of the school.
His characteristic work is the Soshu-den the published sources say he handled with greatest mastery, modelled on the old Shizu manner. Over a strongly forged itame he tempers a ko-notare into which he sets gunome, ko-gunome and pointed togariba, the temper deep in nioi and the nie thick and strong with coarse ara-nie mixed in. Through the ha run long, frequent kinsuji and nie-suji with sunagashi, the streaming nie-lines of a Satsuma hand, and ashi and yo enter well. The pointed teeth set into the undulating notare are the spine of his recognition, the feature that separates his varied midareba from the level suguha of his fellow pillar. The sources name the manner plainly as "the Shizu-style working range that he most excelled in" (「最も得意とした志津風の作域」)[[c:2]], and on his finest blades they say the result comes near old superior work.
The jigane beneath is the constant. It is a well-forged itame that overall flows strongly and turns masame-inclined, at times a tighter ko-itame mixed with mokume, carrying thick ji-nie with coarse ji-nie mixed and vigorous chikei the sources liken to a distinctive metallic figuring. The steel is masame-prone precisely because the Shizu model asks for it, and the long kinsuji ride that flowing grain into the boshi, which runs in midare-komi or notare to a pointed return, swept with hakikake and turning back deeply. The nioiguchi is bright and clear and only here and there a little uneven. His body is the grand Satsuma form, extremely wide in mihaba with thick kasane and ample hiraniku, an extended chu-kissaki and a sense of funbari, and the published commentary calls such a blade bold, heroic and robust, with the feeling of a decisive downward cut.
There is a second feature the judges single out as a recognition point and read as antique. Especially in the upper half, at the crests of the temper, vigorous yubashiri gather and present an appearance like nijuba, the double temper-line of old work, while long kinsuji and nie-suji run through and sunagashi accompanies them. The sources name it directly, writing that "the manner in which yubashiri are vigorously applied at the crests of the temper to produce a nijuba-like appearance conveys an impression of antique flavor" (「焼頭に湯走り風がさかんにかかって二重刃状を呈している様には, 古色の風が感ぜられる」)[[c:3]]. This is not a separate manner but the upper reach of his characteristic hand, the nie-activity pushed to its fullest over the same flowing itame. His tang carries its own constant: almost always ubu, tapering to an iriyama-gata or sword-shaped tip with shallow katte-sagari file marks, the large long signature cut boldly, and on the blades made before the shogun a single-leaf hollyhock crest with a date. The published sources also caution the collector that in his later years many surviving blades were made as daimei by his son Masachika and his pupil Masamori, so a late Masakiyo signature is read against that workshop.
What sets him within his province is exactly the pairing the judges name and the manner they keep returning to. He is read first against his elder townsman Yasuyo, the two held together as the twin pillars of Satsuma shinto, and the distinction is precise: Yasuyo is the calm notare-toned suguha, Masakiyo the varied Shizu-style midare with its pointed togariba, its coarse nie and its long running kinsuji. His own bright deep-nioi gunome, his gathering yubashiri and the nijuba of antique flavor are the grounded traits that mark him out, not a borrowed comparison, and the published sources go so far as to say his best work can be mistaken "for old superior blades" (「往々古刀上位の作に見まがう」)[[c:4]]. He stands at the head of the Ichinohira-allied Satsuma shinto masters, the hand by which a varied Soshu-style Satsuma blade of his generation is read.
For the collector he is one of the great names of Satsuma shinto, and his work survives almost wholly ubu and signed. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record on the modern designation tiers runs through the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo ranks, where twenty-three of his works are held, several dated and many carrying the hollyhock crest granted before the shogun. His provenance reaches the highest houses of his age: his masterpiece katana and wakizashi, presented together with a blade by Yasuyo by the Satsuma lord Shimazu Tsuguhisa to Konoe Iehisa, Minister of the Left, who treasured them so that he sent both smiths gifts of fine silver and a set of poems of the Six Immortal Poets endorsed by court nobles, the documents still surviving; and pieces preserved with the provenance of the Tokugawa shogunal house and the Imperial family. Most designated blades, including those in private hands, are held rather than traded, and a fine signed Masakiyo of his Shizu-style Soshu-den comes to market only from time to time and with patience. His work is, comparatively, among the more findable of the first-rank shinto masters, more so than the locked heritage of the old traditions, but a dated, crest-bearing katana in his full vigorous manner remains a landmark acquisition, a document of how the Satsuma school reached its early summit.
Where Masakiyo 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
Yamato-den · Satsuma
32 pieces on the market now
The Satsuma school gathered the smiths of southern Kyushu under the patronage of the Shimazu, the daimyo house of Satsuma and Osumi, and the published sources read its history in two distinct flowerings rather than one continuous line. Its shinto fountainhead is Izu no Kami Masafusa, a son of the Mino smith Ujifusa who moved to Kagoshima and carried a strongly nie-laden hand into the province; the NBTHK names him the origin of Satsuma forging. From that root the early school rose to its summit in the pair the judges return to whenever they place it, Mondo-no-Sho Masakiyo and Ippei Yasuyo, the twin pillars of Satsuma shinto. Both were summoned in Kyoho 6 (1721) by the eighth shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune to forge in Edo and were granted the single-leaf hollyhock crest of the Tokugawa for their tangs, and the Ippei line continued through Yasuyo's adopted heir Yasuari. A century later a second summit formed in the shinshinto twin pillars, Oku Yamato no Kami Motohira of the Oku house and Hoki no Kami Masayuki of the Ijichi house, raised to their court titles in the same year of Kansei 1 (1789); Masayuki's name had begun as Masayoshi, and his pupil Masakage carried the manner into the Bunka and Bunsei years. The training the members record runs back through the Naminohira and Yamato roots of the early Ippei smiths, but the working idiom the school is known by is its own. That idiom is a Soshu-den read in coarse nie rather than in clove-flower, and the members describe it in a shared vocabulary. The body is broad in mihaba, thick in kasane, full in hiraniku and stoutly built, the imposing Satsuma sugata. Over a well-forged itame, often a tight ko-itame turning toward nagare or masame and carrying thick ji-nie and dark chikei, the smiths temper a notare-toned gunome-midare into which they set pointed togariba, deep in nioi with thick nie and coarse ara-nie mixed through. The feature the commentary names most often is what streams within that temper, the long kinsuji, nie-suji and sunagashi the sources call imozuru, the yam-vine of the province, vine-like nie-lines running unbroken through the ha.
The jigane takes a markedly blackish cast against which the bright nioiguchi and coarse nie stand out, and the boshi runs in midare-komi or straight, swept with hakikake and on the most vigorous work flaring to a flame-like kaen. Within this one settled manner the members divide. Masakiyo handled the varied Shizu-style midare, his yubashiri gathering at the crests of the temper into a nijuba-like, antique appearance, where Yasuyo tempered a calmer notare-toned suguha whose strength lay in the depth of its nioi and the length of its imozuru; Motohira and Masayuki carried the flamboyant gunome with its kaen boshi into the later period, while a small number of blades lean toward masame and recall the Yamato Hosho grain that the early training laid down. To kantei Satsuma work, the judges read three grounded marks together: the pointed togariba riding a notare base, the deep coarse nie with its running imozuru, and the dark, chikei-laden standing jigane, completed by the swept hakikake or kaen boshi and the broad heavy body. The tang offers further constants, almost always ubu with a bold thick-chiseled signature that frequently carries the smith's age, Motohira's funagata-narrowed kengyo point and Masayuki's bo-hi among them. Among the members the standing is high: Masakiyo and Yasuyo hold the early summit, while Motohira and Masayuki lead the shinshinto generation, the latter's pupil Masakage judged to have inherited the master's hand with notable refinement. The cutting reputation of the province, tied to its Jigen-ryu martial tradition, runs through the bold robust construction the sources call decisive in the hand. The provenance is grand for a domain school: blades presented by the Shimazu house upward to the shogun Yoshimune and to Konoe Iehisa, Minister of the Left, who returned silver and poems to the smiths, with pieces descending through the Tokugawa, the Imperial family and Shimazu branch houses such as the Kabayama. Such blades are held in long-established collections rather than traded, and a signed Satsuma work in its full vigorous Soshu-den comes to a collector only with patience. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Yasuyo安代 | 1716-1736 | 19 |
| Motohira元平 | 1778-1789 | 38 |
| Masayuki正幸 | 1772-1817 | 27 |
| Masakiyo正清 | 1714-1736 | 25 |
| Masayoshi正良 | 1764-1786 | 10 |
The Edo period (1615 to 1868)
Edo was the sword’s age of connoisseurship: the Hon’ami appraisers, the shogunal register of famous blades of 1719, and a thriving literature turned the sword into an object of study even as it ceased to be drawn in war.
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).
