After the Ōnin War broke the Ashikaga order, a century of Sengoku warfare armed nearly every province in Japan. The era rewards a discriminating eye: routine work exists in quantity, and beside it stand custom blades of the first rank.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatchIt is said that in the late Heian period, a swordsmith named Masakuni came from Yamato to Taniyama-gun, Naminohira in Satsuma Province and became the founder of the Naminohira school, and his son was called Yukiyasu, with the lineage continuing until the shinshinto period at the end of the Edo bakufu. Among the school, swordsmiths and their works that do not date later than the Nanbokucho period are collectively called Ko-Naminohira, and while their style strongly shows Yamato characteristics, the features include a moist and soft quality to the kitae, a hamon with a slightly urumi nioiguchi, and the yakiotoshi at the habaki-moto. As recorded in the Genpei Seisuiki that the swords worn by Inomata Kinpeiroku Noritsuna and Hatakeyama Shigetada were works of Naminohira, Naminohira swords have received high evaluation on the battlefield since ancient times. Furthermore, there is a legend that when a Naminohira tachi was thrown into the sea to calm a rough ocean, the wind and rain subsided, and the Naminohira faith among samurai who specialized in naval battles was passed down until modern times; the treasure of the Murakami Suigun of Innoshima was also a Naminohira Yukiyasu forged in the late Kamakura period. This tachi is a work of the Naminohira school active in the early Muromachi period, and despite being o-suriage, it still maintains a powerful funbari, and the kissaki retains a sharp sugata that is slightly extended. The jigane is ko-itame flowing overall to exhibit masame-hada, with ji-nie appearing amidst a faint shirake-utsuri, and furthermore, fine chikei enters, quietly exuding the air of an old master smith. The hamon is a slightly narrow chu-suguba with a deep nioiguchi, and the boshi enters sugu and turns back round at the tip in a handsome finish. The accompanying jindachi koshirae is a composed work depicting karakusa in katakiribori, but the Tosa-kashiwa mon, the family crest of the Yamauchi family of the Tosa Domain, is carved on the taikogawa, adding dignity. Except for the fact that tsuba-nari is observed, there is no rattling in the tsuka and it is robust, and overall it can be said to be kenzen.
Certificate reading — 無銘（波平）
NihontoWatchOffered by Toushin
2 on the market
As written by the shop
Machine translation from the shop's Japanese · may contain errors ·
Wakimono · Satsuma · around 1206-1207
2 pieces on the market now
Wakimono · Satsuma
Phase: Ko-Naminohira古波平· 987–1393
11 pieces on the market now
Within the long span of Naminohira, Ko-Naminohira (古波平) marks the formative chapter, the body of smiths and works held in the setsumei to not descend past the Nanbokuchō period. The setsumei place the school's base at Naminohira in Taniyama District of Satsuma Province in southern Kyushu, where, by tradition, a Yamato smith named Masakuni settled in the late Heian era around Eien (987 to 989) and founded the line. His son Yukiyasu stands at the head of the working lineage, and the name Yukiyasu passed through generation after generation as the main line (chakuryū), with smiths favoring the characters yuki (行) and yasu (安). The setsumei attach the lineage to the Yamato Senjuin tradition; one Jūyō-Bijutsuhin record fixes the earliest dated inscription in all of Japanese swords to a Heiji 1 (1159) tachi read as Yukimasa, recorded in the meikan as Ko-Hahei. Beyond Yukiyasu the corpus names Yasuji, Chikayasu, Yasumitsu, Tomoyasu, and Yamauchi Yasuyuki, the named members of this early generation. The phase style sits close to Yamato yet keeps a Satsuma accent the setsumei return to repeatedly. The forging is itame with a flowing nagare and masame tendency toward the edge, the grain at times standing (hada-dachi), carrying well-adhered ji-nie and fine chikei; the steel is described as nettori, a viscous, soft-feeling ground, often with a whitish shirake-utsuri. The temper is a narrow suguha to hoso-suguha, shading at times into ko-midare or shallow notare, worked in ko-nie with frequent hotsure, nijūba, yubashiri, and intermittent kinsuji and sunagashi.
Two diagnostics recur: the nioiguchi tends to urumi, a moist, subdued quality, and the temper drops away at the base in yakiootoshi. The sugata is archaic, slender with deep koshizori and funbari in the older tachi, the bōshi commonly yakizume. The setsumei frame this against the later Sue-Naminohira only by exclusion: Ko-Naminohira is the early, hand-built work that does not descend beyond Nanbokuchō, set apart from the school's Muromachi disorder and shintō decline noted in one record, rather than the routinized later output. For kantei, the setsumei converge on a recognition cluster: nettori ground, urumi nioiguchi, base yakiootoshi, nijūba and fine sunagashi/kinsuji within a suguha of strong Yamato cast, an ayasugi-like masame flavor noted in older works. The records caution that this conservative manner shows little change by period, so a missing nengō makes dating difficult and the ubu form carries weight. Several setsumei align Ko-Naminohira with other Kyushu classical lines, naming Bungo Yukihira and Miike Mitsuyo as kin in archaic flavor. For provenance and benchmark, the texts cite the tachi at Sanage Shrine as Yukiyasu's oldest, the named tachi "Sasanuki" transmitted in the Kabayama family of the Shimazu, and a Kareki 2 (1327) dated tantō, the rarity of signed and dated early pieces giving the surviving examples their documentary weight. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Yukiyasu行安 | 1308-1311 | 9 |
| Yasutsugu安次 | 1375-1381 | 0 |
| Yasuyoshi安吉 | 1469-1487 | 0 |
| Fuji藤 | 1394-1428 | 0 |
| Yasutsugu安次 | 1224-1225 | 0 |
The Muromachi period (1392 to 1573)
After the Ōnin War broke the Ashikaga order, a century of Sengoku warfare armed nearly every province in Japan. The era rewards a discriminating eye: routine work exists in quantity, and beside it stand custom blades of the first rank.
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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