This Tachi by Yoshimoto, son of Yoshifusa of Fukuoka Ichimonji, was active around the Shogen period in the middle Kamakura period. It features a standard mihaba, deep koshizori, and chu-kissaki, retaining its original ubu-nakago form. The jigane shows a mix of itamehada and mokumehada with chikei and utsuri, while the hamon is a vibrant notare with choujiba and gunome, abundant with ashi, you, nie, kinsuji, and sunagashi, creating a bright nioiguchi.
NihontoWatchmei · Fukuoka Ichimonji · Ryakunin (1238-1239) · nagasa 68.4cm · sori 2.4cm
Fukuoka Ichimonji (Bizen) · Bizen · around 1238-1239
Fujishiro Jo saku
1 piece on the market now
Yoshimoto is a Bizen smith of the Fukuoka Ichimonji group whose readable record is small and uncommonly distinguished: three blades at the Juyo rank, including a katana carrying a kiwame gold-inlaid signature, and two tachi designated Juyo Bijutsuhin before the war, one of them published in the Kozan Oshigata. The Fukuoka Ichimonji was the Bizen school that arose in the early Kamakura period with Norimune as its founder and that, by the mid-Kamakura, brought the choji temper to its most consciously decorative maturity, mixing large choji, layered double-flower choji and frog-spawn choji with abundant ashi and yo. The name Yoshimoto sits across two lineages in the Meikan, one strand among the Fukuoka Ichimonji and one among the Osafune smiths, and the published sources note that the second generation later relocated to Osafune, recording of the first that "its second generation is said to have moved to Osafune."[[c:1]] One tradition transmits the first generation as a son of Yoshifusa, the school's foremost master of the flamboyant choji.
His hand is read in two manners. The first is an archaic, somewhat subdued early-Kamakura tachi: over a slender body with high koshizori and clear funbari, ending in a ko-kissaki, he forges an itame that runs in places and tends slightly to stand, a faint midare-utsuri rising over it. The temper is a ko-choji mixed with small irregularity and ko-gunome, hotsure breaking the line in places, ashi entering well throughout, ko-nie adhering and sunagashi running, the boshi straight with a yakitsume tendency. On the slenderer of the signed tachi the lower half settles toward a suguha base and a chiba-utsuri, the speckled reflection of old Bizen steel, is discerned in the ji. The published sources read this restrained early work as archaic in ji, ha and form alike, holding that "its workmanship and shape are archaic in character and it is appraised to the early Kamakura period."[[c:2]]
The ji carries his recognition as much as the temper. The forging is an itame, in one piece mixed with mokume and running here and there, tending a little to stand, with ji-nie attaching, and over it the midare-utsuri rises. It is faint on the early tachi and discerned as a chiba-utsuri on the shortened one, and it stands vividly on his mature katana, where a densely forged ko-itame carries fine ji-nie and chikei beneath a clear reflection. The published sources call that jigane bright in steel and well refined, writing of the katana that "the forging, with its vivid midare-utsuri standing, is bright in steel color and well worked."[[c:3]] The hamon enters in nioi with ko-nie attaching, the fine kinsuji and sunagashi of his developed hand running through it, the boshi straight or very shallowly midare-komi and turning back in a small round.
His kinzogan-mei katana shows the school's mature manner at its developed height and supplies the second of his two registers. Greatly shortened, the body somewhat wide with little difference between base and tip width, it retains koshizori with added curvature toward the tip and a chu-kissaki, with bo-hi carved through on both sides. The temper is a choji-midare mixed with ko-choji and togariba; in the upper half it rises high and varies in height to a splendid effect, ashi and yo entering well, the nioiguchi bright and nioi-dominant. This is the flamboyant choji the school is known for, where his early tachi keep the calmer ko-choji of the old Bizen tone, so a collector reads the two pieces as one smith working at the two ends of his school's range. The kinzogan attribution itself rests on a connoisseur's judgment of manner, and the published sources locate it in the temper, holding that "compared with Yoshifusa, the slightly more restrained setting of the habuchi accords convincingly with the kiwame to Yoshimoto."[[c:4]]
That last judgment places him within the Fukuoka Ichimonji rather than apart from it. His own grounded tells are the bright midare-utsuri over a well-worked itame, the ko-choji-toned early temper and the slightly calmer habuchi that the appraisers weighed against Yoshifusa's more exuberant hand, and these set him within the school without naming a rival's features. The recognized signed work belongs to the Fukuoka Ichimonji Yoshimoto, distinguished from the Osafune namesake by the archaic ji, ha and form of his early-Kamakura tachi, while the Meikan's double entry and the recorded move of the second generation carry the name forward into the rising Osafune school. The published sources resolve the homonym on a Juyo Bijutsuhin tachi by style and signature, judging that of the two Yoshimoto smiths "this one is thought to correspond to the former,"[[c:5]] the son of Yoshifusa in the Fukuoka line.
Yoshimoto is graded Jo-saku by Fujishiro, and his designated record, though small, is high: a kiwame gold-inlaid katana and two signed tachi at the Juyo rank, and two signed tachi recognized as Juyo Bijutsuhin in the prewar years, five designated works on record in all. One Juyo tachi is published in the Kozan Oshigata; the Juyo Bijutsuhin pair appears in the Shinto Koto Taikan, the Token Mei Taishu and the Shinko Meito Zufu. The blades whose owners are recorded passed through private hands, Kikuchi Takashi of Kyoto and Honma Yusuke of Yamagata holding the two Juyo Bijutsuhin tachi at the time of their designation, the early Juyo tachi recorded with private owners in Tokyo and abroad. No National Treasure or Important Cultural Property bears his name, so his work is not held out of reach in museums and shrines but survives in long-held private collections. A signed Yoshimoto tachi is a rare thing, the more so an ubu-mei example, which the published sources prize as reference material; one reaches the market only seldom, and a piece in this archaic Fukuoka Ichimonji hand rewards the patience of the collector who waits for it.
Where Yoshimoto 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.
Bizen-den · Bizen
Phase: Fukuoka Ichimonji福岡一文字· 1207–1288
6 pieces on the market now
Centered at Fukuoka in Bizen across the middle Kamakura decades, this window is the loud heart of the Ichimonji school, the moment when the ichi-mark workshops pushed their chōji tempering to its showiest extreme. The setsumei repeatedly name the same triad as its representative hands: Norifusa, Sukezane, and Yoshifusa, a grouping cited again and again as the smiths who forged the most flamboyant chōji-midare of the period. Around them work Sukefusa, recorded as a two-character-signature smith from whom Yoshifusa, Norifusa, and Sukezane are transmitted as sons, together with Sukemori, Sukehide, Hirotoshi, Narichika, and a Fukuoka Yoshiie whose two-character blades are at times hard to separate from the Sanjō line. Norifusa, son of Sukefusa, later relocated to a place called Katayama and so came to be styled Katayama Ichimonji, a branch reading often left an open question between Bitchū and a Katayama near Fukuoka itself. Where the earlier Ko-Ichimonji generations still carried a Ko-Bizen character, with ko-midare more prominent than chōji, this phase resolves that older quietness into full, deliberate spectacle as Bizen rose to supply the Kamakura warrior demand. The defining temper here is chōji-midare worked at large scale: ō-chōji, layered jūka-chōji, and tadpole-shaped kawazu-ko chōji that climb and drop in tall waists across the ha. The blades named Norifusa show wide mihaba, high deep koshizori, retained funbari, and a generous chū-kissaki, the broad mid-Kamakura sugata that carries such a busy temper. The ground is a well-packed ko-itame, sometimes standing into hada-dachi with mixed mokume, carrying densely applied ji-nie, fine chikei, and a vivid midare-utsuri that rises clearly against the steel; the jigane reads bright and clear.
Ashi and yō enter in profusion, the nioiguchi runs soft and nioi-dominant with ko-nie, and kinsuji and sunagashi play through the hardening. This separates the phase on both sides. Against the calmer Ko-Ichimonji ko-midare, the Fukuoka work is taller and more exuberant; against the later Yoshioka Ichimonji, whose temper narrows into smaller-motif chōji-midare with conspicuous gunome and a frequent saka-gakari lean, the Fukuoka temper is broader, deeper, and less regular. The Katayama-attributed blades within this phase already foreshadow that reverse tendency, hardening flamboyant but reverse-inclined chōji. For kantei, the combination to read is wide mid-Kamakura sugata, large undulating chōji-midare with jūka and kawazu-ko mixed in, a soft nioi-dominant nioiguchi, and standing midare-utsuri over bright ko-itame. Two-character signatures cut boldly with a thick chisel recur across Norifusa, Sukemori, Sukehide, and Norinawa, and many surviving blades are suriage or ō-suriage tachi. The named masters carry weight beyond style: a Narichika tachi descends through the Date family of Sendai, a Norifusa passed through the Yanagisawa family, and Hon'ami appraisals by Kōtsune and Kōchū accompany Sukemori and Norifusa works. One den Norifusa katana bears a kinpun-mei reading Tenka Daiichi, "Best Under Heaven," a measure of how the connoisseurs of later centuries ranked this Fukuoka peak among Bizen production. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Sukezane助眞 | 1264-1275 | 42 |
| Yoshifusa吉房 | 1247-1249 | 45 |
| Norimune則宗 | 1184-1185 | 8 |
| Yoshihira吉平 | 1243-1247 | 17 |
| Tamekiyo爲清 | 1213-1219 | 6 |
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.
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 siteReturns/exchanges/cancellations not accepted after shipment except for significant defects; if defective, return/exchange possible within 3 days of arrival (return shipping paid by customer).
¥8,500,000
This Tachi by Yoshimoto, son of Yoshifusa of Fukuoka Ichimonji, was active around the Shogen period in the middle Kamakura period. It features a standard mihaba, deep koshizori, and chu-kissaki, retaining its original ubu-nakago form. The jigane shows a mix of itamehada and mokumehada with chikei and utsuri, while the hamon is a vibrant notare with choujiba and gunome, abundant with ashi, you, nie, kinsuji, and sunagashi, creating a bright nioiguchi.
NihontoWatchmei · Fukuoka Ichimonji · Ryakunin (1238-1239) · nagasa 68.4cm · sori 2.4cm
Fukuoka Ichimonji (Bizen) · Bizen · around 1238-1239
Fujishiro Jo saku
1 piece on the market now
Yoshimoto is a Bizen smith of the Fukuoka Ichimonji group whose readable record is small and uncommonly distinguished: three blades at the Juyo rank, including a katana carrying a kiwame gold-inlaid signature, and two tachi designated Juyo Bijutsuhin before the war, one of them published in the Kozan Oshigata. The Fukuoka Ichimonji was the Bizen school that arose in the early Kamakura period with Norimune as its founder and that, by the mid-Kamakura, brought the choji temper to its most consciously decorative maturity, mixing large choji, layered double-flower choji and frog-spawn choji with abundant ashi and yo. The name Yoshimoto sits across two lineages in the Meikan, one strand among the Fukuoka Ichimonji and one among the Osafune smiths, and the published sources note that the second generation later relocated to Osafune, recording of the first that "its second generation is said to have moved to Osafune."[[c:1]] One tradition transmits the first generation as a son of Yoshifusa, the school's foremost master of the flamboyant choji.
His hand is read in two manners. The first is an archaic, somewhat subdued early-Kamakura tachi: over a slender body with high koshizori and clear funbari, ending in a ko-kissaki, he forges an itame that runs in places and tends slightly to stand, a faint midare-utsuri rising over it. The temper is a ko-choji mixed with small irregularity and ko-gunome, hotsure breaking the line in places, ashi entering well throughout, ko-nie adhering and sunagashi running, the boshi straight with a yakitsume tendency. On the slenderer of the signed tachi the lower half settles toward a suguha base and a chiba-utsuri, the speckled reflection of old Bizen steel, is discerned in the ji. The published sources read this restrained early work as archaic in ji, ha and form alike, holding that "its workmanship and shape are archaic in character and it is appraised to the early Kamakura period."[[c:2]]
The ji carries his recognition as much as the temper. The forging is an itame, in one piece mixed with mokume and running here and there, tending a little to stand, with ji-nie attaching, and over it the midare-utsuri rises. It is faint on the early tachi and discerned as a chiba-utsuri on the shortened one, and it stands vividly on his mature katana, where a densely forged ko-itame carries fine ji-nie and chikei beneath a clear reflection. The published sources call that jigane bright in steel and well refined, writing of the katana that "the forging, with its vivid midare-utsuri standing, is bright in steel color and well worked."[[c:3]] The hamon enters in nioi with ko-nie attaching, the fine kinsuji and sunagashi of his developed hand running through it, the boshi straight or very shallowly midare-komi and turning back in a small round.
His kinzogan-mei katana shows the school's mature manner at its developed height and supplies the second of his two registers. Greatly shortened, the body somewhat wide with little difference between base and tip width, it retains koshizori with added curvature toward the tip and a chu-kissaki, with bo-hi carved through on both sides. The temper is a choji-midare mixed with ko-choji and togariba; in the upper half it rises high and varies in height to a splendid effect, ashi and yo entering well, the nioiguchi bright and nioi-dominant. This is the flamboyant choji the school is known for, where his early tachi keep the calmer ko-choji of the old Bizen tone, so a collector reads the two pieces as one smith working at the two ends of his school's range. The kinzogan attribution itself rests on a connoisseur's judgment of manner, and the published sources locate it in the temper, holding that "compared with Yoshifusa, the slightly more restrained setting of the habuchi accords convincingly with the kiwame to Yoshimoto."[[c:4]]
That last judgment places him within the Fukuoka Ichimonji rather than apart from it. His own grounded tells are the bright midare-utsuri over a well-worked itame, the ko-choji-toned early temper and the slightly calmer habuchi that the appraisers weighed against Yoshifusa's more exuberant hand, and these set him within the school without naming a rival's features. The recognized signed work belongs to the Fukuoka Ichimonji Yoshimoto, distinguished from the Osafune namesake by the archaic ji, ha and form of his early-Kamakura tachi, while the Meikan's double entry and the recorded move of the second generation carry the name forward into the rising Osafune school. The published sources resolve the homonym on a Juyo Bijutsuhin tachi by style and signature, judging that of the two Yoshimoto smiths "this one is thought to correspond to the former,"[[c:5]] the son of Yoshifusa in the Fukuoka line.
Yoshimoto is graded Jo-saku by Fujishiro, and his designated record, though small, is high: a kiwame gold-inlaid katana and two signed tachi at the Juyo rank, and two signed tachi recognized as Juyo Bijutsuhin in the prewar years, five designated works on record in all. One Juyo tachi is published in the Kozan Oshigata; the Juyo Bijutsuhin pair appears in the Shinto Koto Taikan, the Token Mei Taishu and the Shinko Meito Zufu. The blades whose owners are recorded passed through private hands, Kikuchi Takashi of Kyoto and Honma Yusuke of Yamagata holding the two Juyo Bijutsuhin tachi at the time of their designation, the early Juyo tachi recorded with private owners in Tokyo and abroad. No National Treasure or Important Cultural Property bears his name, so his work is not held out of reach in museums and shrines but survives in long-held private collections. A signed Yoshimoto tachi is a rare thing, the more so an ubu-mei example, which the published sources prize as reference material; one reaches the market only seldom, and a piece in this archaic Fukuoka Ichimonji hand rewards the patience of the collector who waits for it.
Where Yoshimoto 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.
Bizen-den · Bizen
Phase: Fukuoka Ichimonji福岡一文字· 1207–1288
6 pieces on the market now
Centered at Fukuoka in Bizen across the middle Kamakura decades, this window is the loud heart of the Ichimonji school, the moment when the ichi-mark workshops pushed their chōji tempering to its showiest extreme. The setsumei repeatedly name the same triad as its representative hands: Norifusa, Sukezane, and Yoshifusa, a grouping cited again and again as the smiths who forged the most flamboyant chōji-midare of the period. Around them work Sukefusa, recorded as a two-character-signature smith from whom Yoshifusa, Norifusa, and Sukezane are transmitted as sons, together with Sukemori, Sukehide, Hirotoshi, Narichika, and a Fukuoka Yoshiie whose two-character blades are at times hard to separate from the Sanjō line. Norifusa, son of Sukefusa, later relocated to a place called Katayama and so came to be styled Katayama Ichimonji, a branch reading often left an open question between Bitchū and a Katayama near Fukuoka itself. Where the earlier Ko-Ichimonji generations still carried a Ko-Bizen character, with ko-midare more prominent than chōji, this phase resolves that older quietness into full, deliberate spectacle as Bizen rose to supply the Kamakura warrior demand. The defining temper here is chōji-midare worked at large scale: ō-chōji, layered jūka-chōji, and tadpole-shaped kawazu-ko chōji that climb and drop in tall waists across the ha. The blades named Norifusa show wide mihaba, high deep koshizori, retained funbari, and a generous chū-kissaki, the broad mid-Kamakura sugata that carries such a busy temper. The ground is a well-packed ko-itame, sometimes standing into hada-dachi with mixed mokume, carrying densely applied ji-nie, fine chikei, and a vivid midare-utsuri that rises clearly against the steel; the jigane reads bright and clear.
Ashi and yō enter in profusion, the nioiguchi runs soft and nioi-dominant with ko-nie, and kinsuji and sunagashi play through the hardening. This separates the phase on both sides. Against the calmer Ko-Ichimonji ko-midare, the Fukuoka work is taller and more exuberant; against the later Yoshioka Ichimonji, whose temper narrows into smaller-motif chōji-midare with conspicuous gunome and a frequent saka-gakari lean, the Fukuoka temper is broader, deeper, and less regular. The Katayama-attributed blades within this phase already foreshadow that reverse tendency, hardening flamboyant but reverse-inclined chōji. For kantei, the combination to read is wide mid-Kamakura sugata, large undulating chōji-midare with jūka and kawazu-ko mixed in, a soft nioi-dominant nioiguchi, and standing midare-utsuri over bright ko-itame. Two-character signatures cut boldly with a thick chisel recur across Norifusa, Sukemori, Sukehide, and Norinawa, and many surviving blades are suriage or ō-suriage tachi. The named masters carry weight beyond style: a Narichika tachi descends through the Date family of Sendai, a Norifusa passed through the Yanagisawa family, and Hon'ami appraisals by Kōtsune and Kōchū accompany Sukemori and Norifusa works. One den Norifusa katana bears a kinpun-mei reading Tenka Daiichi, "Best Under Heaven," a measure of how the connoisseurs of later centuries ranked this Fukuoka peak among Bizen production. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Sukezane助眞 | 1264-1275 | 42 |
| Yoshifusa吉房 | 1247-1249 | 45 |
| Norimune則宗 | 1184-1185 | 8 |
| Yoshihira吉平 | 1243-1247 | 17 |
| Tamekiyo爲清 | 1213-1219 | 6 |
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.
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 siteReturns/exchanges/cancellations not accepted after shipment except for significant defects; if defective, return/exchange possible within 3 days of arrival (return shipping paid by customer).
¥8,500,000
