This is a tachi attributed to Nagamitsu, a renowned smith from the Bizen province during the late Kamakura period. Nagamitsu, son of Mitsutada, was appointed Sakon Shogen during the Shoo era. His works are known for their vibrant jitetsu with clear utsuri and bright hamon, evolving from a flamboyant style to a more subdued gunome-choji.
NihontoWatch
Osafune (Bizen) · Bizen · around 1274-1304
Fujishiro Sai-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 1%
3 pieces on the market now
Signed works by Nagamitsu survive in greater numbers than those of any other smith of the Kamakura period: the published sources open his record with the statement that his "extant signed works are the most numerous among Kamakura-period swordsmiths"[[c:1]], and that every one of them shows "no unevenness in the making"[[c:2]]. He was the son of Mitsutada, founder of the Osafune school, its second generation, and "a master ranking alongside his father"[[c:3]] in the NBTHK's words. The record gathered here holds 173 signed blades against 63 unsigned; "the two-character form is the most numerous" of his signatures[[c:4]], and dated pieces such as an ubu tachi of Einin 2 (1294) fix his chronology as few contemporaries allow.
His style divides broadly in two, a formula the published sources repeat across decades of designations. One manner is a robust construction carrying on the feeling of his father Mitsutada, tempered in a flamboyant midare dominated by choji; the other is a form of standard or slender width in a comparatively calm suguha-toned temper with choji-ashi. In the exuberant manner the hamon is a choji-midare mixed with gunome, and ashi and yo enter in abundance. Nioi predominates with ko-nie, fine kinsuji and sunagashi run through, and the nioiguchi is bright. The element the sources single out as his own is the "round-topped, plump choji"[[c:5]], a full swelling crest not shown in his father's record. The boshi is ko-maru far more often than any other form, the published sources reading again and again "shallow notare, returning short in ko-maru at the point"[[c:6]]; on the more active blades it runs in as midare-komi before that turn-back[[c:7]], and on a minority it stops in yakizume[[c:8]], the whole settling toward what the notes call the atmosphere of the so-called Sansaku boshi[[c:9]].
The jigane is an itame that tends in places toward a slightly standing grain and on many blades tightens into a refined ko-itame. Very fine ji-nie adheres thickly, fine chikei enter, and a vivid midare-utsuri rises clearly, present on the great majority of his blades. Of one signed late tachi the published sources write that its tightly compacted itame, with extremely fine ji-nie and minute chikei, is a forging "combining precision with beauty"[[c:10]]; the same notes return again and again to steel that is bright and clear.
Three registers can be followed through the record. The earliest lies closest to his father, a choji-dominant temper into which kawazuko mingles, work that "truly calls Mitsutada to mind"[[c:11]]. The prime works carry the rounded plump choji with gunome, the vivid utsuri and the Sansaku boshi. The calm suguha manner gathers late, around blades cut with the title Sakon Shogen and with long signatures. Transmission texts of the Muromachi and Edo periods held that there were two generations, the Shogen pieces belonging to a second; the NBTHK observes that "no difference between a first and second generation can be found in the signature characters"[[c:12]], and the persuasive reading now takes Shogen Nagamitsu as the work of his later to final years. In the tanto of this late register appear the first buds of kataochi-gunome, the form his son Kagemitsu would complete.
His flamboyant works can at first glance resemble the Ichimonji school, and the published sources draw the line by his own features: the gunome stands out more prominently within his midare, the pattern grows calmer above the monouchi where the yakiba drops distinctly lower, and the boshi settles toward the Sansaku form. Against his father he is told by the rounded swelling crests and by a temper that keeps its composure where the early works flare. His late suguha and the kataochi buds of his tanto open directly onto Kagemitsu, so that Mitsutada, Nagamitsu and Kagemitsu form the spine of the Osafune mainline, with Nagamitsu its broad and steady center.
Fujishiro ranks him Sai-jo saku. Twenty-six of his blades are Important Cultural Properties, the most of any swordsmith, and six are National Treasures; beneath them stand twenty-eight Tokubetsu Juyo and one hundred and forty-four Juyo, out of two hundred and fifty-three designated works on record. The meibutsu Daihannya Nagamitsu passed from Ashikaga Yoshiteru through Miyoshi Nagayoshi to Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu, and the wider denrai names Akechi Mitsuhide, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the Asano of Geishu, the Hosokawa of Higo, the Bizen Ikeda, the Uesugi, the Maeda, the Mito, Owari and Kishu Tokugawa houses, and the Imperial Family. His National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties are patrimony, preserved among holders that include the Tokyo National Museum, the Kyoto National Museum, the Tokugawa Art Museum, Atsuta Jingu and Itsukushima Jinja. Because he signed so freely, the body of work in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers is substantial, and a signed Nagamitsu, though it comes to market only rarely and at the very top of it, is not wholly beyond a patient collector's reach in the way the great unsigned masters are; when one appears, it is an event.
Where Nagamitsu 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
Bizen-den · Bizen
Phase: Ko-Osafune古長船· 1238–1335
235 pieces on the market now
Three smiths working at the village of Osafune across the second half of the thirteenth century set the terms for every Bizen blade that followed: Mitsutada the founder, his son Nagamitsu, and the closely related Sanenaga, the Sansaku triumvirate whose work opens this phase. Their window runs from the mid-Kamakura period into the early fourteenth century, when leadership passed to Nagamitsu's son Kagemitsu, the third-generation head whose dated tachi, naginata, and tanto carry the phase to its close around the Kenmu years. The setsumei repeatedly fix Kagemitsu by genealogy and date, citing pieces inscribed from Gen'o 1 (1319) and Genko 1 (1321) through Shochu and Kenmu (1325 to 1334); these ubu or lightly shortened, date-bearing blades are what give the founding chapter its firm chronological spine and separate it from the workshop-broad output of the later Nanbokucho and Oei generations. This is the orthodox mainline before the school fanned out: the generation that built the standard, not the ones that later reinterpreted it. The constructional signature of the phase is a tightly packed ko-itame, at times mixed with mokume, carrying fine ji-nie in dense particles, fine chikei, and a vivid midare-utsuri that the examiners single out again and again; one Kagemitsu tachi even pushes the utsuri toward a striped, Aoe-like dan-utsuri with reverse-slanting dark bands. Against the Ko-Bizen root, with its standing jifu-utsuri and thicker ha-nie, this phase reads as more refined and more tightly controlled in the ji. The temper marks the phase's internal turn.
Where Nagamitsu and Mitsutada favored flamboyant choji-midare, Kagemitsu pulls the hand inward to a suguha-based temper carrying ko-gunome, ko-choji, and angular elements, often with a reverse (saka-gakari) tendency, in a nioi-dominant, bright nioiguchi; the setsumei credit him specifically with perfecting kata-ochi gunome, the dropped-shoulder pattern repeatedly named as his completion. The boshi is the gentle sansaku-boshi, a shallow midare-komi or notare turning back in ko-maru. None of this is the powerful nie, scattered tobiyaki, and Soshu-den drama of the later Soden-Bizen, nor the open gunome and pointed candlewick boshi of the Oei revival; it is calmer, nioi-bound, and date-anchored. A collector separates this phase by its named masters and the kantei points the setsumei make explicit: kata-ochi gunome and the sansaku-boshi read Kagemitsu, while reverse-slanting jihan-utsuri and certain boshi forms let the examiners assign proxy daimei hands such as Chikakage and the collaborator Kagemasa, the latter named in a Shochu 2 (1325) joint tachi dedicated to Chichibu Shrine. Tanto are a discriminator in their own right, surviving in number for Kagemitsu where they are scarce for Nagamitsu, including the kanmuri-otoshi and hira-zukuri pieces with devotional bonji and kurikara carvings. Provenance present in the sample carries weight: a Kagemitsu tachi transmitted in the Chikuzen Kuroda family with its old scabbard, an orikaeshi-mei katana recorded in the Shimazu line, and tanto and tachi held in the Imperial collection where Kagemitsu is ranked beside Yoshimitsu, Shintogo Kunishige, and Samonji. These are the works that define the founding core against everything Osafune later became. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Mitsutada光忠 | 1238-1239 | 60 |
| Nagamitsu長光 | 1274-1304 | 244 |
| Kagemitsu景光 | 1303-1336 | 143 |
| Kanemitsu兼光 | 1323-1370 | 231 |
| Sanenaga眞長 | 1299-1309 | 64 |
Bizen in the Kamakura period
Kamakura was Bizen’s summit. Tradition places Ichimonji smiths among Go-Toba’s goban kaji, Mitsutada founded the Osafune line at mid-century, and orders flowed from the court and the warrior government alike. No province holds more National Treasure blades.
We could not find an authenticity certificate on the seller’s listing. Japanese swords and fittings are normally papered by the NBTHK (or the NTHK). Without one, the attribution is the seller’s own assessment and has not been independently verified — treat it with caution and ask the dealer about certification before buying.
If, 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.
This is a tachi attributed to Nagamitsu, a renowned smith from the Bizen province during the late Kamakura period. Nagamitsu, son of Mitsutada, was appointed Sakon Shogen during the Shoo era. His works are known for their vibrant jitetsu with clear utsuri and bright hamon, evolving from a flamboyant style to a more subdued gunome-choji.
NihontoWatchOsafune (Bizen) · Bizen · around 1274-1304
Fujishiro Sai-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 1%
3 pieces on the market now
Signed works by Nagamitsu survive in greater numbers than those of any other smith of the Kamakura period: the published sources open his record with the statement that his "extant signed works are the most numerous among Kamakura-period swordsmiths"[[c:1]], and that every one of them shows "no unevenness in the making"[[c:2]]. He was the son of Mitsutada, founder of the Osafune school, its second generation, and "a master ranking alongside his father"[[c:3]] in the NBTHK's words. The record gathered here holds 173 signed blades against 63 unsigned; "the two-character form is the most numerous" of his signatures[[c:4]], and dated pieces such as an ubu tachi of Einin 2 (1294) fix his chronology as few contemporaries allow.
His style divides broadly in two, a formula the published sources repeat across decades of designations. One manner is a robust construction carrying on the feeling of his father Mitsutada, tempered in a flamboyant midare dominated by choji; the other is a form of standard or slender width in a comparatively calm suguha-toned temper with choji-ashi. In the exuberant manner the hamon is a choji-midare mixed with gunome, and ashi and yo enter in abundance. Nioi predominates with ko-nie, fine kinsuji and sunagashi run through, and the nioiguchi is bright. The element the sources single out as his own is the "round-topped, plump choji"[[c:5]], a full swelling crest not shown in his father's record. The boshi is ko-maru far more often than any other form, the published sources reading again and again "shallow notare, returning short in ko-maru at the point"[[c:6]]; on the more active blades it runs in as midare-komi before that turn-back[[c:7]], and on a minority it stops in yakizume[[c:8]], the whole settling toward what the notes call the atmosphere of the so-called Sansaku boshi[[c:9]].
The jigane is an itame that tends in places toward a slightly standing grain and on many blades tightens into a refined ko-itame. Very fine ji-nie adheres thickly, fine chikei enter, and a vivid midare-utsuri rises clearly, present on the great majority of his blades. Of one signed late tachi the published sources write that its tightly compacted itame, with extremely fine ji-nie and minute chikei, is a forging "combining precision with beauty"[[c:10]]; the same notes return again and again to steel that is bright and clear.
Three registers can be followed through the record. The earliest lies closest to his father, a choji-dominant temper into which kawazuko mingles, work that "truly calls Mitsutada to mind"[[c:11]]. The prime works carry the rounded plump choji with gunome, the vivid utsuri and the Sansaku boshi. The calm suguha manner gathers late, around blades cut with the title Sakon Shogen and with long signatures. Transmission texts of the Muromachi and Edo periods held that there were two generations, the Shogen pieces belonging to a second; the NBTHK observes that "no difference between a first and second generation can be found in the signature characters"[[c:12]], and the persuasive reading now takes Shogen Nagamitsu as the work of his later to final years. In the tanto of this late register appear the first buds of kataochi-gunome, the form his son Kagemitsu would complete.
His flamboyant works can at first glance resemble the Ichimonji school, and the published sources draw the line by his own features: the gunome stands out more prominently within his midare, the pattern grows calmer above the monouchi where the yakiba drops distinctly lower, and the boshi settles toward the Sansaku form. Against his father he is told by the rounded swelling crests and by a temper that keeps its composure where the early works flare. His late suguha and the kataochi buds of his tanto open directly onto Kagemitsu, so that Mitsutada, Nagamitsu and Kagemitsu form the spine of the Osafune mainline, with Nagamitsu its broad and steady center.
Fujishiro ranks him Sai-jo saku. Twenty-six of his blades are Important Cultural Properties, the most of any swordsmith, and six are National Treasures; beneath them stand twenty-eight Tokubetsu Juyo and one hundred and forty-four Juyo, out of two hundred and fifty-three designated works on record. The meibutsu Daihannya Nagamitsu passed from Ashikaga Yoshiteru through Miyoshi Nagayoshi to Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu, and the wider denrai names Akechi Mitsuhide, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the Asano of Geishu, the Hosokawa of Higo, the Bizen Ikeda, the Uesugi, the Maeda, the Mito, Owari and Kishu Tokugawa houses, and the Imperial Family. His National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties are patrimony, preserved among holders that include the Tokyo National Museum, the Kyoto National Museum, the Tokugawa Art Museum, Atsuta Jingu and Itsukushima Jinja. Because he signed so freely, the body of work in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers is substantial, and a signed Nagamitsu, though it comes to market only rarely and at the very top of it, is not wholly beyond a patient collector's reach in the way the great unsigned masters are; when one appears, it is an event.
Where Nagamitsu 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
Bizen-den · Bizen
Phase: Ko-Osafune古長船· 1238–1335
235 pieces on the market now
Three smiths working at the village of Osafune across the second half of the thirteenth century set the terms for every Bizen blade that followed: Mitsutada the founder, his son Nagamitsu, and the closely related Sanenaga, the Sansaku triumvirate whose work opens this phase. Their window runs from the mid-Kamakura period into the early fourteenth century, when leadership passed to Nagamitsu's son Kagemitsu, the third-generation head whose dated tachi, naginata, and tanto carry the phase to its close around the Kenmu years. The setsumei repeatedly fix Kagemitsu by genealogy and date, citing pieces inscribed from Gen'o 1 (1319) and Genko 1 (1321) through Shochu and Kenmu (1325 to 1334); these ubu or lightly shortened, date-bearing blades are what give the founding chapter its firm chronological spine and separate it from the workshop-broad output of the later Nanbokucho and Oei generations. This is the orthodox mainline before the school fanned out: the generation that built the standard, not the ones that later reinterpreted it. The constructional signature of the phase is a tightly packed ko-itame, at times mixed with mokume, carrying fine ji-nie in dense particles, fine chikei, and a vivid midare-utsuri that the examiners single out again and again; one Kagemitsu tachi even pushes the utsuri toward a striped, Aoe-like dan-utsuri with reverse-slanting dark bands. Against the Ko-Bizen root, with its standing jifu-utsuri and thicker ha-nie, this phase reads as more refined and more tightly controlled in the ji. The temper marks the phase's internal turn.
Where Nagamitsu and Mitsutada favored flamboyant choji-midare, Kagemitsu pulls the hand inward to a suguha-based temper carrying ko-gunome, ko-choji, and angular elements, often with a reverse (saka-gakari) tendency, in a nioi-dominant, bright nioiguchi; the setsumei credit him specifically with perfecting kata-ochi gunome, the dropped-shoulder pattern repeatedly named as his completion. The boshi is the gentle sansaku-boshi, a shallow midare-komi or notare turning back in ko-maru. None of this is the powerful nie, scattered tobiyaki, and Soshu-den drama of the later Soden-Bizen, nor the open gunome and pointed candlewick boshi of the Oei revival; it is calmer, nioi-bound, and date-anchored. A collector separates this phase by its named masters and the kantei points the setsumei make explicit: kata-ochi gunome and the sansaku-boshi read Kagemitsu, while reverse-slanting jihan-utsuri and certain boshi forms let the examiners assign proxy daimei hands such as Chikakage and the collaborator Kagemasa, the latter named in a Shochu 2 (1325) joint tachi dedicated to Chichibu Shrine. Tanto are a discriminator in their own right, surviving in number for Kagemitsu where they are scarce for Nagamitsu, including the kanmuri-otoshi and hira-zukuri pieces with devotional bonji and kurikara carvings. Provenance present in the sample carries weight: a Kagemitsu tachi transmitted in the Chikuzen Kuroda family with its old scabbard, an orikaeshi-mei katana recorded in the Shimazu line, and tanto and tachi held in the Imperial collection where Kagemitsu is ranked beside Yoshimitsu, Shintogo Kunishige, and Samonji. These are the works that define the founding core against everything Osafune later became. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Mitsutada光忠 | 1238-1239 | 60 |
| Nagamitsu長光 | 1274-1304 | 244 |
| Kagemitsu景光 | 1303-1336 | 143 |
| Kanemitsu兼光 | 1323-1370 | 231 |
| Sanenaga眞長 | 1299-1309 | 64 |
Bizen in the Kamakura period
Kamakura was Bizen’s summit. Tradition places Ichimonji smiths among Go-Toba’s goban kaji, Mitsutada founded the Osafune line at mid-century, and orders flowed from the court and the warrior government alike. No province holds more National Treasure blades.
We could not find an authenticity certificate on the seller’s listing. Japanese swords and fittings are normally papered by the NBTHK (or the NTHK). Without one, the attribution is the seller’s own assessment and has not been independently verified — treat it with caution and ask the dealer about certification before buying.
If, 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.
