The Shintō era was largely invented in Kyōto: Umetada Myōju’s workshop trained the movement, Horikawa Kunihiro raised a generation, and the Hon’ami appraisers, who held no forge, governed the meaning of famous blades.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatchThis blade was signed by Etchu no Kami Masatoshi (越中守正俊). He is also known as the first-gen Masatoshi, who was the fourth son of Seki Kanemichi(関兼道). He received an honorable official title of Etchu no Kami in the second year of the Keicho era (1597). He was especially active during 1600-1624. Seki Kanemichi was originally from Mino province, exclusively forging blades for Shingen Takeda, a famous feudal lord. In 1593, he moved to Kyoto in 1593 by bringing his four sons, Iga no Kami Kinmichi(伊賀守金道)、Izumi no Kami Rai Kinmichi(和泉守来金道), Tanba no Kami Yoshimichi(丹波守吉道) and Echu no kami Masatoshi(越中守正俊). Seki Kanemichi established Mishina school in Kyoto, one of the most prestigious schools in the early Edo period. The first-gen Etchu no Kami Masatoshi was known as Kyoto Gokaji(京都五鍛冶), five prestigious swordsmiths living in Kyoto in the early Edo period. It is said that the first-gen Masatoshi was the most skilled one among other brothers, and his craftsmanship was passed down to his son, the second-gen Masatoshi. The second-gen Masatoshi was allowed to inscribe a chrysanthemum emblem, which is the symbol of the Japanese emperor. His sword-forging technique was so great that the emperor licensed him to use this emblem, which was quite honorable for any swordsmiths. It is appraised as a Tokubetsu Hozon Token (特別保存刀剣) issued by NBTHK (Nihon Bijutsu Touken Hozon Kyokai: 日本美術刀剣保存協会). *Please keep in mind that there are a couple of Kitae Kizu on this blade. Tsuka and Menuki The theme of this Menuki is two monkeys playfully interacting. Originally, monkeys were a rare subject in Japanese art. However, around the 13th century, monkey-themed paintings were introduced from China, and the motif gradually became more common in Japan. In Chinese, the character for monkey is 「猴」, which is pronounced the same as 「侯」, a character meaning “lord” or “feudal lord” in Japanese. Because of this shared pronunciation, monkey motifs came to be regarded as auspicious and sacred in Japan. Tsuba and Habaki The theme of the Habaki is the “Maru ni Katabami” family crest. The Katabami (wood sorrel) is a wild plant native to Japan since ancient times. Known for its resilience—it doesn’t wither even when trampled—it became a popular motif for family crests, symbolizing strength and perseverance. It is also considered one of the oldest family crests in Japan. Kozuka The theme of the Kozuka is the scattered cherry blossoms and the three monkeys. Cherry blossom is one of the seasonal things of spring, and it has been loved for a long time in Japan. Its pattern is designed not only for sword mountings but also for Kimono (着物, traditional Japanese costume) or furnishings. One theory says that the god of grain exists in cherry blossoms. Therefore, this flower pattern has been treated as the symbol of a plentiful harvest. People held a traditional custom under cherry blossom trees to pray for a bumper year in ancient times. It is said this is the origin of the cherry blossom viewing picnic today. Authentication Paper They authenticated the blade on May 29th in the 27th year of Heisei (2015). They appraised it as Tokubetsu Hozon Touken, the blade especially worth preserving for Japanese society.
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Mishina (Sanpin) school, Kyoto Shinto · Yamashiro · around 1596-1615
Fujishiro Jo-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 8%
3 pieces on the market now
Shodai Etchū no Kami Masatoshi was the fourth and youngest son of Kanemichi of Mino-Seki, and the latest dated work from his hand bears the year Kan'ei 6 (1629), the earliest Keichō 5 (1600). With his father and his three elder brothers, Iga no Kami Kinmichi, Rai Kinmichi and Tanba no Kami Yoshimichi, he came up from Mino to Kyōto and there founded the Mishina school, one of the principal forces of Kyoto Shintō beside the Horikawa. Among the four brothers the published sources give the youngest the highest marks: they call his dexterity foremost of the brothers[[c:1]] and his range the broadest within the lineage[[c:2]], a versatility one entry sets beside that of Kunimichi of the rival Horikawa school. Fujishiro grades him Jō-jō saku. His record is not one manner held at full power but several manners practiced by a single capable hand, and it is read that way.
The center of that record is the Shizu manner the published sources say he most excelled in[[c:3]]. Over an itame mixed with mokume, ō-itame and a flowing nagare-hada that stands a little, the steel sometimes taking a slightly blackish tone, he sets a large midare based on a shallow notare, mixing gunome, ko-gunome, angular elements and pointed teeth. The nie is strong and at times coarse, gathering unevenly into patches; vigorous sunagashi runs through it, long kinsuji enter, and small tobiyaki and yubashiri cross the edge into a nijūba-like aspect, the nioiguchi tending to sink. The published sources read these as taken from the Shizu range he preferred, rustic and antique in flavor, and call his finest of them outstanding even among his own works.
The jigane is the constant that underlies every manner. An itame that flows into nagare-hada, the grain standing and often becoming masame toward the edge, carries the Mino-Seki inheritance into the Kyōto work, with thick fine ji-nie adhering and chikei entering well. Above it the activity is the tell. Sunagashi is all but constant, far heavier than on a Bizen ji, and twice over he marks himself in the bōshi and the yakigashira. The bōshi runs in most often pointed, thrusting up before the turnback and sometimes settling into a small ko-maru, with hakikake along the tip; the published sources read this shallow notare-komi pointed-and-swept form as the Mishina bōshi, single it out as most conspicuous in Masatoshi of the four brothers, and describe it, more than once, as a textbook example, a temper made as if drawn from a picture[[c:4]]. Above the yakigashira the strong nie gathers with tobiyaki and yubashiri into stripes, the sprouting of sudareba (簾刃の萌), and the judges note this is not infrequently seen in his work[[c:5]]; it is the seed of the basket-weave temper that would define the later Mishina school.
Because he was so versatile, his record divides into registers as much as phases. The Shizu prime stands beside a strongly Mino-flavored register, where the lower half flares into a flamboyant gunome-chōji mixed with gunome and the pointed sanbon-sugi teeth the sources attribute to a model in Magoroku Kanemoto, the steel flowing into masame near the edge and bunched, washed-out tama gathering in the ha. A third, quieter register is Yamato: an itame flowing into masame under a tight chū-suguha, with uchinoke, small nijūba and hotsure along the habuchi, one suguha katana read by the judges as worked with an awareness of the Shikkake smith Norinaga. To these the published commentary adds Sōshū hitatsura, so that no single edge form fixes him; what fixes him is the bōshi, the sunagashi and the flowing jigane that persist across all of them. Dated works are rare, but the brothers' move up to Kyōto, his Bunroku-era receipt of the Etchū no Kami title, and a documented change from about Keichō 20 in how the sixth stroke of the character mori in his title is cut give the signed work an unusually firm chronology.
What sets him within the school is named plainly by the judges. He is the most capable and the widest-ranging of the four Mishina brothers, and where his eldest brother Iga no Kami Kinmichi shared the Shizu specialty, Masatoshi carries it furthest and shows the family bōshi at its clearest. The name continued for several generations, but the published sources hold that the second generation and after are markedly inferior[[c:6]], so the first generation is the recognized master of the line, the hand against which the rest are measured. His distinction is therefore not a borrowed resemblance but his own spread of attested traits, the broadest in the school carried with a steady technique the commentary repeatedly calls skillful.
For the collector he is a signed and knowable name from the founding generation of Kyoto Shintō. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record runs instead through two Tokubetsu Jūyō and twenty-six Jūyō blades and the prewar Jūyō Bijutsuhin, twenty-eight pieces in the Tokujū and Jūyō tiers all told, and almost every one of them signed. Provenance is thin but distinguished, his blades passing through the hands of Oda Urakusai and the Oda family, the Imperial household, and the Kitano Shrine association. Carvings, rare in the Mishina line, appear on a few of his blades, a Fudō Myōō and Kurikara among them that the judges call valuable for the study of his hand. Most designated blades, in private hands or not, are held rather than traded, and only a small part of his record reaches the tradeable tiers, so a signed Etchū no Kami Masatoshi comes to market from time to time rather than readily. When one does, it is a sound and varied document of the smith the Mishina school regarded as its most versatile founder-generation hand.
Where Masatoshi 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
Shinto · Yamashiro
55 pieces on the market now
The Mishina school (三品), one of the two dominant smithing groups of early Edo Kyoto beside the Horikawa, grew from the late-Mino workshop of Kanemichi of Seki, whose dated blades run through the Tenbun, Eiroku, and Tenshō eras. During the closing decades of the sixteenth century Kanemichi came up to the capital with his four sons and settled at Nishinotōin Ebisugawa, where the eldest, Iga no Kami Kinmichi, is recorded as having greatly raised the name of the line. The brothers, Kinmichi together with Izumi no Kami Rai Kinmichi, Tanba no Kami Yoshimichi, and Etchū no Kami Masatoshi, became known collectively as the Sanpin (三品) makers, and the published sources count Kinmichi head of the Kyō go-kaji, the five Kyoto smiths. From the second generation the house held a hereditary right to recommend smiths to the court for their titles and added that by-line to its signatures. The name continued under the same appellation to the end of the Tokugawa period, throwing off branches that included the Tango no Kami line working at Ōsaka into the Genroku years, though the published record consistently holds the founding generation the most outstanding of the line. Beneath every branch lies a shared vocabulary carried up from Mino-Seki. The jigane is the constant: an itame mixed with mokume that flows into nagare-hada and tends toward masame near the mune, the grain standing, with thick fine ji-nie and frequent chikei. Over it the Mino-derived gunome and togariba are refined toward a Kyoto manner, the nie strong and at times coarse, gathering unevenly, kinsuji and vigorous striped sunagashi running throughout. Two tells bind the house. The first is the Mishina bōshi, a notare or midare run-in pointed at the tip and swept with vigorous hakikake, the form Masatoshi shows at its clearest, described as if drawn from a picture. The second is sudareba, the bamboo-blind temper in which layered sunagashi and yubashiri stripe into parallel bands; Tanba no Kami Yoshimichi devised it, and the first-generation hand keeps it a free, semi-cursive disorder where his heirs would regularize it into a fixed lattice.
The lines diverge from that common ground. Kinmichi and his younger brother Masatoshi both excelled in a Shizu manner, the large midare of Mino grafted onto Sōshū nie, with Masatoshi the most versatile, ranging across Shizu, Mino sanbon-sugi, Yamato suguha, and Sōshū hitatsura. The later Ōsaka Tanba branch held to the sudareba alone, opening from a straight yakidashi, while the second Tango no Kami Kanemichi cast off the family chōji for a flamboyant tōran-style large gunome in alternating two-joined and three-joined groups, and a deep-nioi suguha read in the manner of Inoue Shinkai. To kantei Mishina is to read these two house marks first. The pointed, hakikake-swept bōshi and the striped sudareba, set over a standing itame that flows to masame, place a blade within the line before any signature is weighed; the sunagashi, far heavier than on a Bizen ji, is the very material from which the temper is built. Within the house the founding generation sets the standard. Fujishiro grades Kinmichi and Masatoshi Jō-jō saku, the Ōsaka Tanba shodai Jō-saku, and the second Tango no Kami Chū-jō saku, the sources judging the later Kyoto and Ōsaka generations markedly inferior to the founders as the manner thinned toward a single uniform pattern. Provenance on record runs through samurai and collector hands rather than great museums: a Kinmichi katana among the cherished swords of Tani Tateki, a Yoshimichi katana made for Naitō Kuroemon and another now in the Kyoto National Museum, Masatoshi blades passing through Oda Urakusai and the Imperial household, and a second Tango no Kami katana descending from the Aoyama wardens of Ōsaka castle. The brothers' blades are signed and knowable, dated examples rare, so the manner of the mei joins the workmanship in placing them; for the Ōsaka and Kyoto branches the cut of the character 守 separates one hand from the next. Most designated work is held rather than traded, so a signed founding-generation Mishina blade comes to light only from time to time, and with it the temper in which one of the most recognizable hamon of the Shintō era was first being worked out. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Kinmichi金道 | 1596-1615 | 25 |
| Yoshimichi吉道 | 1596-1615 | 36 |
| Masatoshi正俊 | 1596-1615 | 29 |
| Kanemichi兼道 | 1681-1704 | 5 |
| Eisen来栄泉 | 1673-1688 | 3 |
Kyōto: the revival workshop
The Shintō era was largely invented in Kyōto: Umetada Myōju’s workshop trained the movement, Horikawa Kunihiro raised a generation, and the Hon’ami appraisers, who held no forge, governed the meaning of famous 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.
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