This is a graceful katana attributed to Hatakeda Mitsumori, a celebrated smith from the late Kamakura period. Originally a tachi, the blade has been shortened and features a dense ko-itame and mokume-hada with a brilliant gunome choji midare hamon. It is accompanied by a Juyo Token certificate from the 52nd session and a late Edo-period koshirae with a samurai armour theme.
NihontoWatchmumei · Hatakeda, Bizen · Koan (1278-1288) · nagasa 66.5cm · sori 1.8cm
Hatakeda (Bizen) · Bizen · around 1278-1288
Fujishiro Jo-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 11%
Mitsumori of the Hatakeda group is a smith of late-Kamakura Bizen, placed by the published reference works around the Shoo era (1288-93). The Jubi-designated Hotta-family tachi carries the judgment plainly: "this Mitsumori is thought to correspond to the smith recorded in the sword-signature books as a Hatakeda-school artisan working around Shoo (1288-93)"[[c:1]]頃の畠田派の刀工とあるもの). The published sources are candid that beyond this his genealogy is not fixed; the meikan record neither his dates nor his line clearly. What anchors him instead is his manner. From his rare signed blades, the NBTHK writes, the brilliant choji-midare in which kaeruko-choji is especially conspicuous readily suggests affiliation with the Moriie line, and the way he cuts his signature corresponds to it as well. He is judged close in particular to the second-generation Moriie, and the few signed pieces hold the attribution of the many unsigned ones in place.
His characteristic hand is a flamboyant, nioi-based choji-midare led by kawazuko-choji, the tadpole-headed clove that is the Hatakeda tell. It rises over an itame mixed with mokume that tends to stand in the grain, with abundant ashi and yo working into a temper that varies in height and packs into a dense midare. The recurring smith-level sentence in the published commentary fixes the family idiom in one image: the two representative signed works, the Hotta-family tachi and the Akimoto-family orikaeshi-mei wakizashi, "both temper a wide yakihaba of nioi-deki choji-midare, showing a splendid and ornate manner"[[c:2]]. The mumei blades read down from that, their choji mixed with gunome and pointed teeth, ko-nie adhering and the nioiguchi bright; on the 50th-session katana the NBTHK records that the hamon "clearly manifests his distinctive features" and the bright nioiguchi carries a superior result.
The jigane is an itame with mokume, in places flowing and standing in the grain, on which fine ji-nie gathers in dust-like mijin and delicate chikei enter. Across it a vivid midare-utsuri stands, named first in nearly every entry and, with the standing grain, the surest thing the published sources point to. The 14th-session tachi, the earliest in the record, sets the note at once: "the itame tends to flow and stand in the grain, and a vivid midare-utsuri appears"[[c:3]]. Within the ha, fine kinsuji and sunagashi run, and on the busier blades tobiyaki are scattered along the yakigashira; the boshi runs midare-komi, turning with a pointed tendency and hakikake, or settling in ko-maru. The nioiguchi tends at times toward a slight urumi, a soft, moist quality, yet on the best of them it is bright and clear.
Two registers divide the corpus. The signed register is the most flamboyant: on a closely forged ko-itame the temper widens into a nioi-based choji-midare carrying fukuro-choji, kawazuko-choji and juka-choji together, the nioi deep and the nioiguchi bright and clear, with ashi and yo active. The signature is a large, strongly individual two-character mei cut in a fine chisel, and on the shortened blades it survives as a gaku-mei, the inlaid plaque, or an orikaeshi-mei, the folded-back skin of the tang. The published commentary notes of one such piece that it is "cut with a fine chisel yet in a large, bold manner, as is usual for this smith." The prime register is the o-suriage mumei attribution: greatly shortened blades whose make and temper fit his signed work so closely that, in the recurring phrase, the appraisal of Mitsumori is drawn from the aspect of the yakiba and the workmanship as a whole. The 24th-session katana states the reasoning openly, that "the brilliant choji-midare in which kaeruko-choji is conspicuous accords with the Moriie line, and the manner of signing answers to it too"[[c:4]].
Within the Hatakeda group he stands beside his fellow Sanemori, the two read off the same idiom of wide nioi-based clove with kaeruko-choji and a bright midare-utsuri, the manner that runs the school toward the Osafune mainstream. The published sources draw his distinction not by contrast but by what his own blades carry: the kaeruko-choji dense in his temper where the old Ko-Bizen hands have none, a midare-utsuri that stands on nearly every blade, and an itame read a shade more openly than his Hatakeda fellow's. On the 42nd-session tachi the NBTHK writes that the choji, with the tadpole-style clove mixed in over a jigane in which the midare-utsuri stands, "well expresses the characteristic features of this smith"[[c:5]], and even where the lower character of the signature is lost under a mekugi-ana, the calligraphy of the surviving "光" and the workmanship leave no doubt of his hand.
Mitsumori is Jo-jo saku in Fujishiro's grading. Ten of his blades are designated Juyo and two more are Juyo Bijutsuhin, those two the representative signed works the published sources cite, the Hotta-family tachi and the Akimoto-family orikaeshi-mei wakizashi. The Hotta tachi is recorded in the Kozan Oshigata and descended through the Tokugawa shogunal house; both Jubi pieces are now held by the Tokyo National Museum, and one of the signed Juyo tachi is, in the NBTHK's words, "of note as one of the few signed works of Mitsumori"[[c:6]]. The provenance recorded against his blades runs through the Hotta and Akimoto houses, the Tokugawa shogunal family, the Akimoto family and the Imperial Family. The two museum-held Jubi pieces are patrimony that does not trade; of the rest, ten stand in the Juyo tier and the signed examples are scarce, so a Mitsumori reaching open hands is uncommon, a blade a collector may encounter from time to time and with patience rather than at will.
Where Mitsumori 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
6 pieces on the market now
The Hatakeda school (畠田) takes its name from a hamlet in Bizen lying hard against Osafune village, and from that address its founder, Moriie, is called Hatakeda Moriie. The published sources place his line across the great middle decades of Kamakura, the earliest dated work a tachi of Bun'ei 9 (1272), with the name running on through the Nanbokucho years. The standard reading sets two generations under Moriie, the first contemporary with Osafune Mitsutada and the second with Nagamitsu, though the same designations are candid that a clean division of generations on the carved characters alone is difficult and remains a subject for future study, and that some advocate a single-smith theory. Neither Moriie nor his fellow Sanemori ever signed Hatakeda-ju (畠田住); their residence always reads Osafune, as in inscriptions such as Bizen no Kuni Osafune-ju Moriie[[c:1]], and from this the record concludes that Hatakeda was a small place-name within Osafune village itself. The meikan set the line under Moritsune of the Fukuoka Ichimonji school, and the school worked the same bright Bizen steel as the smiths around whom the Osafune tradition first took its classic form. Across decades of NBTHK commentary the Hatakeda manner is fixed in nearly the same sentence: the workmanship broadly resembles that of the contemporary Osafune smiths, yet the jigane tends to stand and the kawazuko-choji (蛙子丁子), the waist-pinched, tadpole-headed clove, is conspicuous in the tempered edge. The forging is itame run with mokume, tending to hada-dachi and to stand in the grain where the Osafune masters close into a tight ko-itame, carrying thick fine ji-nie, fine chikei, and a vivid midare-utsuri that rises on nearly every blade. Over that standing, utsuri-lit ji the school forges at full power a flamboyant choji-midare mixing fukuro-choji, juka-choji, ko-choji and gunome with the tadpole clove, ashi and yo entering vigorously, ko-nie attaching, tobiyaki and yubashiri about the monouchi, fine kinsuji and sunagashi running, and a bright nioiguchi; the boshi runs midare-komi to a ko-maru, often turning pointed and sweeping out in hakikake. Moriie carries this flamboyance at its boldest, his ha-nie the stronger and his clove the more insistent, with a quieter second register of kataochi-gunome and tight suguha-cho on his later pieces.
His pupil or son Sanemori reads one degree calmer, the midare tending toward a somewhat smaller pattern and the rise and fall less pronounced, his finest work at a glance recalling a superior Nagamitsu. Among the juniors, Mitsumori widens a nioi-based clove led by the tadpole heads, while the late Morinaga turns wholly toward a nie-laden, notare-based Soden-Bizen hand, and Morishige drifts toward the Osafune mainline as the school assimilated into it. To kantei a Hatakeda blade is to read the standing, utsuri-lit Bizen ji against the round-headed clove. Where the choji of Mitsutada and Nagamitsu swells round and full, the Hatakeda clove pinches at the waist, and on unsigned blades the deciding point is the kawazuko breaking into great clusters midway along the edge, the place where, the published record states, lies the point of attribution to Moriie. Against Fukuoka Ichimonji the Hatakeda ji stands more and the utsuri reads as the old Bizen reflection rather than the Ichimonji exuberance of pure clove; against the Osafune mainline the standing grain and the pinched clove give the line away, the kissaki tending to extend where Mitsutada and the Osafune smiths keep theirs compact. Moriie stands at the head of the school, graded Sai-jo saku by Fujishiro and ranked beside the Osafune founders, his blades carrying the histories of the great houses, the Tokugawa, Mitsui, Hosokawa, Uesugi and Okudaira among them, and held in such collections as the Tokyo and Kyoto National Museums, the Tokugawa Art Museum and the Eisei Bunko. Sanemori, Jo-jo saku, is the more approachable name, most of his circulating work osuriage mumei resting on the smaller-patterned tadpole clove, his signed and dated tachi rare events when they appear. For the Bizen collector a standing, kawazuko-laden ji-ha reads as Hatakeda almost on that count, a blade from the circle in which the Osafune tradition first took its classic shape. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Moriie守家 | 1259-1260 | 33 |
| Moriie守家 | 1232-1233 | 27 |
| Sanemori眞守 | 1277-1293 | 57 |
| Mitsumori光守 | 1278-1288 | 13 |
| Moriie守家 | 1280-1299 | 14 |
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 blade of top-grade workmanship and condition, formally judged to rank with a nationally recognized Important Art Object (Jūyō Bijutsuhin). Awarded only at the NBTHK’s competitive annual examination.
Of Japan’s roughly 2.5 million registered swords, only 12,307 (about 1 in 203) have ever attained Jūyō.
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 siteAll swords come with a three-day inspection period beginning from the date of delivery. If not satisfied, the sword may be returned within this period for a full refund of the purchase price. Outside of this period, all sales are final. Swords purchased on a layaway payment plan are not eligible for the three-day inspection period.
This is a graceful katana attributed to Hatakeda Mitsumori, a celebrated smith from the late Kamakura period. Originally a tachi, the blade has been shortened and features a dense ko-itame and mokume-hada with a brilliant gunome choji midare hamon. It is accompanied by a Juyo Token certificate from the 52nd session and a late Edo-period koshirae with a samurai armour theme.
NihontoWatchmumei · Hatakeda, Bizen · Koan (1278-1288) · nagasa 66.5cm · sori 1.8cm
Hatakeda (Bizen) · Bizen · around 1278-1288
Fujishiro Jo-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 11%
Mitsumori of the Hatakeda group is a smith of late-Kamakura Bizen, placed by the published reference works around the Shoo era (1288-93). The Jubi-designated Hotta-family tachi carries the judgment plainly: "this Mitsumori is thought to correspond to the smith recorded in the sword-signature books as a Hatakeda-school artisan working around Shoo (1288-93)"[[c:1]]頃の畠田派の刀工とあるもの). The published sources are candid that beyond this his genealogy is not fixed; the meikan record neither his dates nor his line clearly. What anchors him instead is his manner. From his rare signed blades, the NBTHK writes, the brilliant choji-midare in which kaeruko-choji is especially conspicuous readily suggests affiliation with the Moriie line, and the way he cuts his signature corresponds to it as well. He is judged close in particular to the second-generation Moriie, and the few signed pieces hold the attribution of the many unsigned ones in place.
His characteristic hand is a flamboyant, nioi-based choji-midare led by kawazuko-choji, the tadpole-headed clove that is the Hatakeda tell. It rises over an itame mixed with mokume that tends to stand in the grain, with abundant ashi and yo working into a temper that varies in height and packs into a dense midare. The recurring smith-level sentence in the published commentary fixes the family idiom in one image: the two representative signed works, the Hotta-family tachi and the Akimoto-family orikaeshi-mei wakizashi, "both temper a wide yakihaba of nioi-deki choji-midare, showing a splendid and ornate manner"[[c:2]]. The mumei blades read down from that, their choji mixed with gunome and pointed teeth, ko-nie adhering and the nioiguchi bright; on the 50th-session katana the NBTHK records that the hamon "clearly manifests his distinctive features" and the bright nioiguchi carries a superior result.
The jigane is an itame with mokume, in places flowing and standing in the grain, on which fine ji-nie gathers in dust-like mijin and delicate chikei enter. Across it a vivid midare-utsuri stands, named first in nearly every entry and, with the standing grain, the surest thing the published sources point to. The 14th-session tachi, the earliest in the record, sets the note at once: "the itame tends to flow and stand in the grain, and a vivid midare-utsuri appears"[[c:3]]. Within the ha, fine kinsuji and sunagashi run, and on the busier blades tobiyaki are scattered along the yakigashira; the boshi runs midare-komi, turning with a pointed tendency and hakikake, or settling in ko-maru. The nioiguchi tends at times toward a slight urumi, a soft, moist quality, yet on the best of them it is bright and clear.
Two registers divide the corpus. The signed register is the most flamboyant: on a closely forged ko-itame the temper widens into a nioi-based choji-midare carrying fukuro-choji, kawazuko-choji and juka-choji together, the nioi deep and the nioiguchi bright and clear, with ashi and yo active. The signature is a large, strongly individual two-character mei cut in a fine chisel, and on the shortened blades it survives as a gaku-mei, the inlaid plaque, or an orikaeshi-mei, the folded-back skin of the tang. The published commentary notes of one such piece that it is "cut with a fine chisel yet in a large, bold manner, as is usual for this smith." The prime register is the o-suriage mumei attribution: greatly shortened blades whose make and temper fit his signed work so closely that, in the recurring phrase, the appraisal of Mitsumori is drawn from the aspect of the yakiba and the workmanship as a whole. The 24th-session katana states the reasoning openly, that "the brilliant choji-midare in which kaeruko-choji is conspicuous accords with the Moriie line, and the manner of signing answers to it too"[[c:4]].
Within the Hatakeda group he stands beside his fellow Sanemori, the two read off the same idiom of wide nioi-based clove with kaeruko-choji and a bright midare-utsuri, the manner that runs the school toward the Osafune mainstream. The published sources draw his distinction not by contrast but by what his own blades carry: the kaeruko-choji dense in his temper where the old Ko-Bizen hands have none, a midare-utsuri that stands on nearly every blade, and an itame read a shade more openly than his Hatakeda fellow's. On the 42nd-session tachi the NBTHK writes that the choji, with the tadpole-style clove mixed in over a jigane in which the midare-utsuri stands, "well expresses the characteristic features of this smith"[[c:5]], and even where the lower character of the signature is lost under a mekugi-ana, the calligraphy of the surviving "光" and the workmanship leave no doubt of his hand.
Mitsumori is Jo-jo saku in Fujishiro's grading. Ten of his blades are designated Juyo and two more are Juyo Bijutsuhin, those two the representative signed works the published sources cite, the Hotta-family tachi and the Akimoto-family orikaeshi-mei wakizashi. The Hotta tachi is recorded in the Kozan Oshigata and descended through the Tokugawa shogunal house; both Jubi pieces are now held by the Tokyo National Museum, and one of the signed Juyo tachi is, in the NBTHK's words, "of note as one of the few signed works of Mitsumori"[[c:6]]. The provenance recorded against his blades runs through the Hotta and Akimoto houses, the Tokugawa shogunal family, the Akimoto family and the Imperial Family. The two museum-held Jubi pieces are patrimony that does not trade; of the rest, ten stand in the Juyo tier and the signed examples are scarce, so a Mitsumori reaching open hands is uncommon, a blade a collector may encounter from time to time and with patience rather than at will.
Where Mitsumori 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
6 pieces on the market now
The Hatakeda school (畠田) takes its name from a hamlet in Bizen lying hard against Osafune village, and from that address its founder, Moriie, is called Hatakeda Moriie. The published sources place his line across the great middle decades of Kamakura, the earliest dated work a tachi of Bun'ei 9 (1272), with the name running on through the Nanbokucho years. The standard reading sets two generations under Moriie, the first contemporary with Osafune Mitsutada and the second with Nagamitsu, though the same designations are candid that a clean division of generations on the carved characters alone is difficult and remains a subject for future study, and that some advocate a single-smith theory. Neither Moriie nor his fellow Sanemori ever signed Hatakeda-ju (畠田住); their residence always reads Osafune, as in inscriptions such as Bizen no Kuni Osafune-ju Moriie[[c:1]], and from this the record concludes that Hatakeda was a small place-name within Osafune village itself. The meikan set the line under Moritsune of the Fukuoka Ichimonji school, and the school worked the same bright Bizen steel as the smiths around whom the Osafune tradition first took its classic form. Across decades of NBTHK commentary the Hatakeda manner is fixed in nearly the same sentence: the workmanship broadly resembles that of the contemporary Osafune smiths, yet the jigane tends to stand and the kawazuko-choji (蛙子丁子), the waist-pinched, tadpole-headed clove, is conspicuous in the tempered edge. The forging is itame run with mokume, tending to hada-dachi and to stand in the grain where the Osafune masters close into a tight ko-itame, carrying thick fine ji-nie, fine chikei, and a vivid midare-utsuri that rises on nearly every blade. Over that standing, utsuri-lit ji the school forges at full power a flamboyant choji-midare mixing fukuro-choji, juka-choji, ko-choji and gunome with the tadpole clove, ashi and yo entering vigorously, ko-nie attaching, tobiyaki and yubashiri about the monouchi, fine kinsuji and sunagashi running, and a bright nioiguchi; the boshi runs midare-komi to a ko-maru, often turning pointed and sweeping out in hakikake. Moriie carries this flamboyance at its boldest, his ha-nie the stronger and his clove the more insistent, with a quieter second register of kataochi-gunome and tight suguha-cho on his later pieces.
His pupil or son Sanemori reads one degree calmer, the midare tending toward a somewhat smaller pattern and the rise and fall less pronounced, his finest work at a glance recalling a superior Nagamitsu. Among the juniors, Mitsumori widens a nioi-based clove led by the tadpole heads, while the late Morinaga turns wholly toward a nie-laden, notare-based Soden-Bizen hand, and Morishige drifts toward the Osafune mainline as the school assimilated into it. To kantei a Hatakeda blade is to read the standing, utsuri-lit Bizen ji against the round-headed clove. Where the choji of Mitsutada and Nagamitsu swells round and full, the Hatakeda clove pinches at the waist, and on unsigned blades the deciding point is the kawazuko breaking into great clusters midway along the edge, the place where, the published record states, lies the point of attribution to Moriie. Against Fukuoka Ichimonji the Hatakeda ji stands more and the utsuri reads as the old Bizen reflection rather than the Ichimonji exuberance of pure clove; against the Osafune mainline the standing grain and the pinched clove give the line away, the kissaki tending to extend where Mitsutada and the Osafune smiths keep theirs compact. Moriie stands at the head of the school, graded Sai-jo saku by Fujishiro and ranked beside the Osafune founders, his blades carrying the histories of the great houses, the Tokugawa, Mitsui, Hosokawa, Uesugi and Okudaira among them, and held in such collections as the Tokyo and Kyoto National Museums, the Tokugawa Art Museum and the Eisei Bunko. Sanemori, Jo-jo saku, is the more approachable name, most of his circulating work osuriage mumei resting on the smaller-patterned tadpole clove, his signed and dated tachi rare events when they appear. For the Bizen collector a standing, kawazuko-laden ji-ha reads as Hatakeda almost on that count, a blade from the circle in which the Osafune tradition first took its classic shape. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Moriie守家 | 1259-1260 | 33 |
| Moriie守家 | 1232-1233 | 27 |
| Sanemori眞守 | 1277-1293 | 57 |
| Mitsumori光守 | 1278-1288 | 13 |
| Moriie守家 | 1280-1299 | 14 |
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 blade of top-grade workmanship and condition, formally judged to rank with a nationally recognized Important Art Object (Jūyō Bijutsuhin). Awarded only at the NBTHK’s competitive annual examination.
Of Japan’s roughly 2.5 million registered swords, only 12,307 (about 1 in 203) have ever attained Jūyō.
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 siteAll swords come with a three-day inspection period beginning from the date of delivery. If not satisfied, the sword may be returned within this period for a full refund of the purchase price. Outside of this period, all sales are final. Swords purchased on a layaway payment plan are not eligible for the three-day inspection period.
