In the Sengoku era the school served a second warrior court: the Later Hōjō at Odawara, whose patronage kept the Tsunahiro line forging hitatsura for the uchigatana age until the castle fell to Hideyoshi in 1590.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatchThis blade was signed by Yoshisuke (義助), also known as, Shimada Yoshisuke(島田義助). The maker’s name(Yoshisuke) lasted several generations, and it started from the mid-Muromachi period and lasted until the end of the Edo period. The first-gen Yoshisuke was active during the Kosho era(1455-57), and he was the founder of Shimada school, located in the Suruga domain(today’s Shizuoka prefecture). It is said that the first-gen Yoshisuke was a descendant of Bizen Ichimonji Sukemune, one of the most famous swordsmiths in Japanese history.We believe this blade was signed by a late-gen Yoshisuke from the late Muromachi period. The first-gen Yoshisuke served a powerful feudal family named Imagawa. It is said that he received his maker’s name 義 from Imagawa Yoshitada. Shimada school interacted with other schools in Soshu swordsmiths living near Odawa castle in Kanagawa prefecture. The Suruga domain was vital for strong feudal lords such as Takeda, Tokugawa, and Hojo clan during the Sengoku Jidai(Warring state period: Late Muromachi period). The swordsmiths in Shimada school received many orders from these strong feudal families. This blade is appraised as a Hozon Token(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 is partial black rust as well as a few Kitae Kizu on the blade. Fuchi-Kashira You can see the family crest on this Fuchi-Kashira. Its family crest is Taka no Hamon (鷹の羽紋). Taka means Hawk. Hawk is an intelligent bird used for hunting, called falconry. It was famous as a recreation among high-class Samurais. In the old days, it was also familiar with emperors and royal families, so it might be why the hawk was regarded as a symbol of the ruler’s authority. During the warring period, the boy’s success was to become an excellent Samurai; therefore, it has been thought that men (Samurai) and the hawk had a deep connection as a symbol of advancement and authority. Many Samurais loved this design based on that reason. Furthermore, its wings were used for one of Samurai’s primary weapons; an arrow (They put hawk’s wings as arrow’s feather). The arrow itself is reminiscent of victory or defeat, battlefield; it is not difficult to imagine that Samurais also liked the hawk wings attracted to arrows. Still today, various family crests use this bird wing’s motif like this one. Tsuka and Menuki The main motif of the Wakizashi’s Menuki is Niwatori (鶏: rooster and hen). In ancient times, this bird was used for rituals to offer to gods. It is said this is why the chicken pattern was incorporated into family crests. As this bird tells the arrival of morning, people regard it as the Ake-no Tori (明けの鳥, bird of the dawn). Also, chickens have been treated as auspicious birds because they sing at first in the new year. In another theory, there is a wordplay: Yoikoto-wo “Tori”komu (良いことを取り込む, “take” good things). This Tori (取り) and Tori (鳥, bird) are associated based on the common pronunciation. Some people believe that this bird would bring a plentiful harvest or success in business. This Menuki design might have been chosen due to these ideas. Tsuba and Habaki On the tsuba, there is a figure wearing an eboshi, a traditional Japanese headgear. The eboshi is a type of black-lacquered cloth cap that was commonly worn by nobles, samurai, and court officials. It symbolized social rank and official status in historical Japan. Next to the figure, there appears to be a chrysanthemum (菊, kiku) motif. In Japanese culture, chrysanthemums are associated with nobility, longevity, and the imperial family. Kozuka A Kogatana (小刀, small knife) is stored in the Kozuka. The surface of this Kozuka is decorated with a spiny lobster (伊勢海老, Ise Ebi) is elaborately decorated. In Japanese culture, lobsters have long been considered symbols of health, longevity, and immortality, as the kanji characters for their name include “sea” (海) and “old” or “aged” (老). Their long whiskers and curved backs are also associated with old age and vitality. Additionally, the lobster’s form resembles a samurai clad in armor, making it a popular good luck charm among samurai warriors. The bright vermilion color of a boiled lobster is also regarded as auspicious, which is why lobsters have traditionally been used in New Year’s decorations. Authentication Paper They authenticated the blade on December 4th in the 6th year of Reiwa (2024). They appraised it as Hozon Touken, the blade worth preserving for Japanese society.
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Shimada school of Suruga Province · Suruga · around 1455-1526
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The oldest dated blade to survive under the name Yoshisuke is a tanto signed Suruga no Kuni ju Yoshisuke saku and dated the eighth month of Eisho 2 (1505). Its commentary states that among extant works those with an Eisho date are the oldest[[c:1]]. Yoshisuke is the principal name of the Shimada school of Suruga, a Muromachi group whose work the published sources read as strongly marked by neighboring Sagami. The sword directories place a first generation in the Kosho era and a second around Eisho and Daiei, and the name then continues in succession into the shinshinto period. One directory entry instead assigns a Tensho Yoshisuke to a fourth generation. Honma's inventory of the Imperial collection adds the school genealogy: a Yoshisuke of the Kosho era with the Buddhist name Keizen, and his younger brother Sukemune.
The hand that most distinguishes Yoshisuke is the one carried on the katana. Of the Daiei katana the published sources write that he received strong influence from Sagami work, judging it beyond doubt[[c:2]]. The form is shinogi-zukuri with mitsu-mune, the curvature shallow and the point an o-kissaki. The itame flows and stands open, with ji-nie adhering and chikei entering. Over it he tempers a notare with a boxed (hako) look that takes in togariba, the nioiguchi somewhat tight with ko-nie and sunagashi running. The boshi runs midare-komi, rounded at the tip with a long return, and is tempered deep. A bo-hi finished in kaku-dome carries a relief kurikara at the waist of the omote and a sanko-ken on the ura. The commentary judges ji and ha good and the carving skilled, and adds that in this too the blade is close to late Soshu work[[c:3]].
The quieter half of his work lives on the tanto and the wakizashi. There the itame is tightly forged, with areas of nagare-hada and a masame tendency toward the mune, turning somewhat whitish, with ji-nie forming well. The temper is a shallow notare mixed with gunome on the tanto and a notare-ba with nie on the wakizashi. On the Eisho tanto it becomes a large gunome with a choji flavor, tempered deep. The nioiguchi is deep and the nie adhere well, sunagashi runs through, and in places the habuchi frays into hotsure. The boshi is mostly sugu to ko-maru, and an ichimai on the Eisho piece. The carving continues in this register, a kurikara within the koshi-bi on one tanto and a bonji with suken and a shobu-hi on the wakizashi.
The tanto recorded in Honma's inventory of the Imperial collection widens that register. Its itame leans to masame and turns whitish, with tobiyaki mixed in. The notare takes in gunome, sunagashi runs frequently and nie attach, and the boshi runs midare-komi and returns pointed. The inventory judges this Yoshisuke old among the smiths of the name[[c:4]], while noting that the generations of Yoshisuke and Sukemune are hard to date from their signatures alone. His record therefore reads as two manners sorted by form rather than by date: the Soshu-leaning katana on one side, and the school's tanto and wakizashi on the other.
The dated tangs are what hold these blades against the directory chronology. In the earlier commentary on the Daiei katana, the published sources called Daiei the oldest date among extant works, and the inscription on its tang extremely valuable[[c:5]]. The Eisho tanto, designated later, moved that anchor back to 1505. A tanto placed perhaps after Tenbun draws its own note, for it carries, unusually, an openwork kurikara[[c:6]], and it is judged good in ji and ha and a valuable reference piece. The undated katakiriba-zukuri wakizashi is placed around Tenbun, its carving well composed and skilled. No successor line can be drawn through any single hand in so small a record. The published sources value these early pieces instead as material for the study of a name that runs through several generations.
Five designated works are on record, four Juyo blades and the tanto of Honma's inventory, all of them signed. He has no National Treasure or Important Cultural Property, and no provenance or institutional holder is recorded for any of his blades. The four Juyo blades are of unrecorded whereabouts and are held rather than traded, so a signed Shimada Yoshisuke of Juyo rank comes to market only occasionally. When one does, its interest lies where the published sources place it: in a dated tang that anchors the school's chronology, in skilled carving, and in the late Soshu character of the katana.
Where Yoshisuke 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
Soshu-den · Suruga
12 pieces on the market now
The Shimada school (島田) took its name from its base in Suruga Province, where it worked from the mid-Muromachi period along the Tōkaidō between the Mino hearths and the late Sōshū smiths of neighboring Sagami. The published sources place its founding generation in the Kōshō (or Kyōshō) era and trace its principal names without interruption down into the shintō period, with the same names continuing as late as the shinshintō era. Three smiths stand as the school's central hands: Yoshisuke (義助), held to be the principal mainstream name at the head of all Shimada work; Sukemune (助宗), recorded as the younger brother of the founder; and Hirosuke (廣助), placed as the son of the second-generation Yoshisuke. The oldest extant dated example, an Eishō 2 (1505) tantō by Yoshisuke, fixes the early corpus, and because the signature style does not separate the hands, a signed Shimada blade is read for its workmanship rather than assigned a generation. The Shimada smiths produced the working blades of the Muromachi century; one Hirosuke katana, a Kōshū-uchi work dated Eiroku 2 (1559), was held by Hara Mino Nyūdō Toratane of the Twenty-Four Generals of the Takeda, and the cut struck into the mune at the monouchi of a Yoshisuke katana drew a NBTHK remark that it speaks to martial use. Across the members the school reads in a single Soshu-den idiom inflected by Mino and Ise. The jigane the smiths describe is an itame, well knit and at times dense, that flows and leans toward masame, standing somewhat open in hada-dachi, with fine ji-nie lying through it, chikei entering, and a tonality the commentaries repeatedly call whitish; this flowing, slightly standing steel, rather than a tight Bizen surface, is what marks the Shimada hand for the eye. Upon it the smiths set a notare crossed with gunome, with ko-chōji and pointed togariba entering, ko-ashi, abundant nie, and sunagashi and kinsuji running through, the bōshi commonly midare-komi turning back rounded, at times with hakikake; tobiyaki and slight muneyaki appear, and on the larger blades the activity rises toward hitatsura in nie.
Sukemune's particular register is the connected gunome the NBTHK names the school's hallmark, while Hirosuke shows the most robust make, favoring a wide mihaba with sakizori and an extended kissaki. Against this typical midare every hand keeps a quieter exception: a hoso-suguha the commentary calls comparatively uncommon for Yoshisuke, and a suguha mixed with small gunome on a Sukemune tantō read as made with an eye toward the manner of Shizu. The carving tradition is shared throughout, bonji, suken, gomabashi, relief kurikara, and the figures of Marishiten and Fudō Myōō, with openwork sukashi-bori noted by examiners as an uncommon thing to find; the school also produced comparatively many yari, Yoshisuke's ōmi-yari among them. To kantei a Shimada blade is to read the late Sōshū idiom in a provincial Suruga register: the whitish, standing itame beneath a nie-laden notare-gunome with sunagashi, kinsuji, and frequent tobiyaki, set apart from a tight Bizen jigane and tied by the published sources to Sue-Sōshū, late Seki, the Senju group, and the work of Mino and Ise. Form sorts the manner: the broad Sōshū-leaning katana on one side, the school's tantō and wakizashi (often hira-zukuri with mitsu-mune, thick kasane, and a withered fukura kare) on the other. Among the members Yoshisuke is the name the sources reach for in describing the group, his finest katana and tantō praised for a jihada and hamon of clear, bright result; Sukemune's Osaka katana is judged his finest work; and Hirosuke's best pieces, one called hakubi, the best among its kind, with a suggestion he privately emulated Bizen Chōgi, number among the finest of the whole lineage. Dated and fully signed works such as those inscribed Shimada Hirosuke are particularly valued, the tangs anchoring the chronology of the later generations, and a rare collaborative blade between Hirosuke and Gensuke attests to the collegial working of the shop. Provenance reaches to the Imperial collection, Honma's inventory of which records works by Yoshisuke, Sukemune, and Hirosuke; with the Takeda general's blade and the documentary dated pieces, these holdings mark the standing of a respected one-province school whose hand sits close to the late Sōshū tradition. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Yoshisuke義助 | 1492-1504 | 6 |
| Sukemune助宗 | 1444-1449 | 4 |
| Yoshisuke義助 | 1455-1526 | 5 |
| Yoshisuke義助 | 1573-1592 | 3 |
| Hirosuke廣助 | 1504-1521 | 9 |
Sōshū in the Muromachi period
In the Sengoku era the school served a second warrior court: the Later Hōjō at Odawara, whose patronage kept the Tsunahiro line forging hitatsura for the uchigatana age until the castle fell to Hideyoshi in 1590.
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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