Edo was the sword’s age of connoisseurship: the Hon’ami appraisers, the shogunal register of famous blades of 1719, and a thriving literature turned the sword into an object of study even as it ceased to be drawn in war.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatch渋い時代拵え付き、新刀期の 長船祐定です。 備前長船祐定は室町期に備前刀剣大国と言われるぐらい、大いに繁栄しました。 現在存在する刀剣類の半分は備前刀という説もあります。 このお刀は室町末期の数打ち刀ではなく、新刀期に注文で作られたお刀だと思われます。 地金や刃紋には戦国を思わせる野性味ある刃を焼いていますが、その刀姿や銘振りは新刀期と言わざるを得ないお刀です。 今では法令上60㎝以上が刀と分類されているので、脇差に分類されてしまいますが、この刀姿は完全に江戸期の打ち刀です。 金具類も大刀用の大きさで、鍔などは正阿弥在銘の良品です。 赤銅変わり切羽もこの鍔専用に作られています。 鞘は珍しい孔雀石を散らした鞘です。長さは刀身より長く作られていますが、ガタ付きは全くなく本鞘で作られています。 中身より鞘が長いお刀は時々見かけますが、老武士が見栄で長い刀を差しているように見せていたとの説もあります。 あの伊達者と言われた、独眼竜政宗も晩年江戸城内で一人長脇差を差していたと言われております。 さて、本刀を見ていきます。 姿は元先身幅差が付いて、反りは少なく中切先、地金は板目で鎬地は柾目。 刃紋は沸出来の互の目、焼き頭に荒沸ついて、所々とび焼き気味に入っている箇所も有ります。 切っ先は掃け気味に中丸に、峯部に長く3寸位返っています。 全体的に小傷小錆び等見られますが、現状でも十分鑑賞できます。 研磨代を抑えて、リーズナブルにご提供致します。 気になる方は別途10万円で全体を研ぎ直し致します。 お申し付けください。 ご質問等、お気軽にお問い合わせください。
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As written by the shop
Bizen-den · Bizen · around 1596-1615
2 pieces on the market now
Where Sukesada 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
Bizen-den · Bizen
Phase: Sue-Bizen末備前· 1441–1596
54 pieces on the market now
The last great chapter of Osafune unfolds in the Eisho and Tenbun years of the late Muromachi, when the riverside workshop turned its accumulated craft toward an age of constant war. Where Oei-Bizen had looked backward, reviving the tachi shape and the choji temper of the Kamakura masters under Yasumitsu and Morimitsu, Sue-Bizen faces forward into Sengoku demand. The leading hands carry the same family characters one generation further: the Sukesada group, headed by Yosazaemon-no-jo Sukesada and the Hikobee-jo Sukesada said to be his father, alongside Katsumitsu (often Jirozaemon-no-jo), Munemitsu, Tadamitsu of the Heiroemon-jo line, and the Kiyomitsu smiths Magoemon-no-jo and Gorozaemon-no-jo. The setsumei draw a sharp line through their output. Commissioned blades, chumon-uchi, were signed with full zokumyo, dated, and frequently inscribed with the name of the ordering party, as on the Katsumitsu and Sadamitsu naginata of Meio 8 made for the Miyake of Kojima, a house that fed into the Ukita. Below them ran the bulk trade of kazu-uchimono, the arms that supplied the warring provinces, and it is the chumon-uchi masters that the designations preserve. What the steel does in this window is distinct from every earlier Osafune register. The shape is the uchigatana: wide mihaba with thick kasane, pronounced sakizori, an extended chu-kissaki or o-kissaki, and a short nakago suited to the katate-uchi one-handed draw, a body unlike the koshizori tachi of Ko-Osafune or the broad Nanbokucho profile of Soden-Bizen. The forging tightens into ko-itame over which a midare-utsuri stands faintly rather than vividly, weaker than the bright reflection of the founding generation.
The signature temper is the open-waisted koshi-no-hiraita gunome, splitting at the heads into fukushiki compound midare and mixed with togariba and choji; it is nioi-based with ko-nie and a bright nioiguchi, with ashi, yo, kinsuji and small tobiyaki worked through. Against this, Soden-Bizen had pushed Soshu nie and notare, while the founders had tempered flamboyant choji over a vivid utsuri. Two specialties branch off the gunome base: the Kiyomitsu and Tadamitsu suguha, calm and tightly forged, and the hitatsura of high-tempered pieces with long muneyaki and yubashiri, seen in the warlord-smiths Akamatsu Masanori and Ishikawa Yukihisa. To kantei a Sue-Bizen blade is to read the body first and the temper second. The compact uchigatana sugata with thick kasane and a short tang fixes the late-Muromachi date; the faint utsuri over dense ko-itame keeps it in Bizen; the open-waisted compound gunome names the group. The masters then separate by hand: Katsumitsu is set apart by the abundant choji he folds into the gunome, yielding a more florid, brilliant dekiguchi than his peers; Tadamitsu and the Kiyomitsu smiths are read out by their suguha, with Magoemon-no-jo's itame standing in mokume to distinguish his ground. The cutting reputation is documented directly, as on the Hikobee-jo Sukesada katana of Keicho 5 carrying a tameshi inscription naming the tester Ichihara Hachibee. Provenance threads through the supplementary signatures: Masanori's reward blades cut for his retainers, the Miyake names tying the workshop to the Ukita, and the Shinjuro Sukesada whose few large works may have ended in the Tensho flood. The horimono carried from the mainline, bonji with rendai, Fudo Myoo, and shrine dedications, persist on these blades as a final mark of the line. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Sukesada祐定 | 1504-1551 | 72 |
| Sukesada祐定 | 1532-1583 | 18 |
| Sukesada祐定 | 1547-1592 | 8 |
| Sukesada祐定 | 1487-1521 | 5 |
| Sukesada祐定 | 1532-1573 | 3 |
The Edo period (1615 to 1868)
Edo was the sword’s age of connoisseurship: the Hon’ami appraisers, the shogunal register of famous blades of 1719, and a thriving literature turned the sword into an object of study even as it ceased to be drawn in war.
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.
NBTHK official site