NihontoWatchHidano Kami Ujifusa was one of the most famous swordsmiths during the late Azuchi-Momoyama-early Edo period. He was born in 1567 as the first son of Wakasano Kami Ujifusa in Mino province (today’s Gifu prefecture). His father worked for Nobunaga Oda, a famous feudal lord during Sengoku Jidai(Warring state period). Ujifusa also started to serve Nobutaka (the third son of Nobunaga) as a pageboy(one of the occupations in Samurai society) from 11 years old. A pageboy is a young boy who took care of his master, ranging from being secretary to being a human shield for the master in battlefields. Any pageboy needed to be familiar with formal manners, martial arts skills. Many famous feudal lords used to be pageboys when they were young, such as Toshiie Maeda, Kato Kiyomasa. His life changed completely when his master Nobutaka lost a battle against Hideyoshi Toyotomi in 1583. His master was ordered to kill himself, and Ujifusa lost his job and became Ronin(unemployed warrior). However, after many twists and turns, he worked under his father as a swordsmith in 1588. He forged swords for Fukushima Masanori, who was the head of the Kiyosu domain in Aichi prefecture back then. In 1592, Toyotomi Hidetsugu, who had become the ruler of the Kiyosu domain, granted the title of Hidanokami to Ujifusa to praise his outstanding forging skills. He also was able to take over his father’s sword-forging business right before receiving this title. Later on, he moved to the Owari domain in Aichi prefecture to serve the Owari Tokugawa clan, a powerful feudal family in the Edo period. He started his life as a Samurai. He went through so many difficulties in his life but ended up being a great swordsmith, working for a few famous feudal lords. This sword has a Hozon certificate issued by NBTHK. This authentication paper was only given to Japanese swords, worth preserving by Nihon Bijutsu Touken Hozon Kyokai(the Society for the Preservation of the Japan Art Sword). We assume this blade used to be Nagamaki. Nagamaki is a traditional Japanese pole weapon with a large and heavy blade. And it was shortened to be used as Katana. You can see a pretty long tip, which you don’t often see in normal Katana swords. This sword comes with a beautiful red scabbard and colorful sword mountings. Hamon The blade pattern created by the tempering process Jimon Visible surface pattern on the steel Nakago Although there is no maker’s name on the blade, NBTHK appraised it as the sword forged by Hidanokami Ujifusa based on the style and other factors. There are three Nakago holes on this blade, implying the blade was shorten at least twice in the past. Other Details Fuchi-Kashira The dragon is designed for this Fuchi-Kashira. It twists its slender body like a snake and soars calmly. The dragon is an imaginary creature that is found in ancient Chinese traditions or myths. Its body is likened to nine animals: antlers are deer, the head is a camel, eyes are demons, the neck is a snake, belly is Mizuchi (蛟, a mythical animal in Japan which looks like a snake and have a horn and four legs), scales are fish, claws are falcons, palms are tigers, and ears are cows. It has been considered dragon would reign at the top of all animals because of its odd-looking appearance. People appreciate this beast as a symbol of auspicious signs. The dragon pattern gives an elegant and luxury impression for works. Tsuka and Menuki It has dragon decoration. This Menuki is also shaped the dragon’s figure as well as Fuchi-Kashira. Using the same motif tells us the aim of its creator, making sense of unity as the sword mountings for the same sword. Tsuba and Habaki Tsuba is the hand guard for the Japanese Sword and Habaki is the equipment to make the blade not touch its scabbard inside. Oval-shaped Tsuba. Two small dots are engraved. Its Mimi (耳, edge) is covered with a different type of metal and decorated with geometric patterns. This processing that protects the Tsuba increases the strength of Tsuba. Certificate They authenticated the blade on June 25th in the second year Reiwa(2020). They appraised it as Hozon Touken, the blade worth preserving for Japanese society.
Offered by Samurai Museum
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Owari-Seki (Mino-derived Owari shinto; retained by the Owari Tokugawa) · Owari · around 1596-1615
Fujishiro Jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 26%
5 pieces on the market now
Hida no Kami Fujiwara Ujifusa was the son of Wakasa no Kami Ujifusa, born at Seki in Mino and first called Kawamura Isechiyo, later Heijuro. Most of the published sources give his birth as Eiroku 10, though one entry places it in Tenbun 10. They follow his career closely. He served Oda Nobutaka as a page and became a ronin after his lord's death, then served under Sakuma Masakatsu in Owari, moved to Kiyosu and began forging from about Tensho 17. In Tensho 19, when the Kampaku Toyotomi Hidetsugu became lord of Kiyosu, Ujifusa, Masatsune and Nobutaka were received at Jurakudai and each presented a sword, and Ujifusa was granted the title Hida no Kami. About Keicho 15 or 16 he moved to Nagoya and served Tokugawa Yoshinao as a retained smith, then passed the headship to Bizen no Kami Ujifusa in Kan'ei 8 and died that year at sixty-five. Three generations bore the name, the first Hida no Kami, the second Bizen no Kami and the third again Hida no Kami, and this code is the first.
His characteristic hand is a broad, generous notare. On a wide-bodied katana with shallow sori and a large kissaki, the shape the published sources call "the typical sugata of Keicho shinto"[[c:1]], he tempers an o-notare as the main tone, mixing gunome and small notare, with ashi and yo entering and ko-nie well attached, and patches of mura-nie and yubashiri along the line. The same broad manner runs across his naginata and his sun-nobi hira-zukuri wakizashi. Of one such wakizashi the sources write that it "fully and without reserve displays this smith's forte"[[c:2]]. On a dated Keicho 11 katana the same open notare mixed with gunome is named a typical work.
The jigane of that broad work is most often a standing one: an itame that tends to rise, at times a large itame or a coarse zanguri jigane, mixed with mokume and flowing toward masame along the shinogi-ji, with ji-nie. His finest katana, however, are forged differently. Two of them show a well-packed ko-itame with ji-nie, and over it a ko-midare or small notare mixed with gunome and pointed teeth. The published sources call one the white eyebrow of his work, the piece that "most clearly shows the Shizu style"[[c:3]] of his native Mino, and the other an excellent work that shows the same Shizu manner. The boshi over his blades is tempered deep, turning in notare-komi to a ko-maru or o-maru with a long return and hakikake. On his tanto and several other blades it rises instead in tsukiage to a pointed tip, the boshi of the Sanpin manner.
Within the one hand the published sources draw out two further faces. The first is his most numerous, the wide, shallow-curved, large-pointed body that recalls a greatly shortened Nanbokucho blade, though the judges point to the sakizori that fixes it as Keicho work. Among such pieces, they note, some look at first sight like the work of Muramasa. The second is rare, and the sources twice call it unusual for him: a chu-suguha worked with small gunome, abundant ko-ashi, hotsure and fine activity over a well-forged jigane, the boshi deep and pointed. On these blades the judges read a private aspiration to the great Soshu masters, naming Go and Samonji, and find "an archaic flavour as though he had privately studied the superior Sagami smiths"[[c:4]]. A Keicho 7 tanto with the Sanpin boshi recalls Echizen Yasutsugu at first sight, yet its larger notare and stronger, uneven nie are read as Ujifusa's own.
What sets him apart is the combination the judges keep returning to. He is a Seki smith by descent, and the standing, flowing jigane with masame along the shinogi-ji, the pointed Sanpin boshi and the Shizu manner of his best katana all carry that Mino root. The wide, powerful Keicho-shinto body, the deep nie and the reach toward Soshu in his suguha work mark the Owari smith who served the Tokugawa. Carving is uncommon on his blades beyond the bo-hi of the katana and the naginata-hi of the naginata, and the sources call it unusual when one sun-nobi hira-zukuri blade carries an inscription with Daruma carved in relief.
For the collector he is a well-documented founder rather than a rarity of legend. Fujishiro grades him Jo saku. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties. His record runs through the Juyo tier, where sixteen of his works are held, all signed, among them katana, wakizashi, a tanto and naginata of the first generation. Several bear Keicho-era dates that the published sources prize as "good material for the study of Hida no Kami Ujifusa"[[c:5]], and they note that signatures with Fujiwara Ason are uncommon. Provenance for his work is little recorded, so it is best described simply as held in private hands. A signed first-generation Ujifusa, broad and vigorous with its long signature, comes to market only from time to time, and a dated example is the one a student of Owari shinto would most wish to encounter.
Where Ujifusa 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.
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Years he was demonstrably active, proven by signed-and-dated blades
Mino-den · Owari
16 pieces on the market now
Rooted in Owari province at the boundary between the kotō and shintō eras, the Ujifusa line carried Mino-den forging into the late Momoyama and early Edo decades, working under the Tokugawa establishment of Owari at Nagoya. The setsumei here cover several hands of the group. Wakasa no Kami Ujifusa and Hida no Kami Ujifusa stand as the reference points against which the others are read. Echigo no Kami Fujiwara Ujitsune, recorded in the Meikan and the Mino-tō Taikan as the second son of Wakasa no Kami Ujifusa, first signed Ujishige, received the Echigo no Kami title in Genna 6 (1620), and died at Nagoya in Meireki 2 (1656). Ujisada, who took the court title Izumo no Kami and signed Sakon Shōshō and Sakon Gonshōshō, is transmitted as a son of the first-generation Ujifusa and younger brother of the second-generation Wakasa no Kami Ujifusa; one of his tantō carries a date of Tenshō 5 (1577). The shared hand begins in the kitae: a dense itame mixed with mokume and nagare-hada, carrying ji-nie and, in the fuller work, fine chikei. The temper draws on the Mino-den vocabulary, a notare mixed with gunome, ko-gunome in tsure, large gunome, and pointed togari-leaning forms, the notare often taking angular turns (kado-gakari).
Ko-ashi and yō enter; nie attaches, at times slightly coarse and unevenly applied, with kinsuji and sunagashi in the lower body and tobiyaki and muneyaki scattered through, so that some blades verge on hitatsura and minayaki. The nioiguchi can incline toward shizumi. The bōshi is tempered deeply and far down (yakisage) with hakikake, the point sometimes drawn into a sanpin-style sharpness on one face and an ō-maru on the other. Ujitsune's signed katana reads as a near-textbook gathering of these traits; Ujisada's tantō tightens the nioiguchi (shimarigokoro) toward his master's manner. For kantei, the angular notare, the patchy nie, the shizumi-inclined nioiguchi, and the sanpin-pointed bōshi with long yakisage mark the Wakasa no Kami group; the larger work adds broad mihaba, ō-kissaki, and thick kasane. Carving belongs to the record: a "grass" kurikara and gomabashi with rendai appear on Ujisada's tantō. The Ujitsune katana, by a smith the setsumei call a scant producer, is named his representative work, holding coherence across a great nagasa. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Ujifusa氏房 | 1596-1615 | 16 |
| Ujifusa氏房 | 1571-1592 | 9 |
| Ujifusa氏房 | 1624-1644 | 0 |
| Ujitsune氏恒 | 1596-1615 | 1 |
| Ujisada氏貞 | 1558-1592 | 7 |
Mino in the Momoyama period
Unification closed the mass market, and Seki’s smiths moved to where the new money was: the Mishina line to Kyōto with court titles, Daidō smiths to castle towns across the provinces. Mino became the great technical ancestor of the Shintō age.
Certifies a genuine blade worth preserving: a signature confirmed correct, or, if unsigned, an era, province, and school that the NBTHK can reliably identify.
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.
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