NihontoWatchStock No:SKA-120225Paper(Certificate): NoneCountry(Kuni)・Period(Jidai):Aomori・Showa era 1945Blade length(Cutting edge): 66.4cmCurve(SORI): 1.6cmWidth at the hamachi(Moto-Haba): 3.24cmThickness at the Moto-Kasane: 0.68cmWide at the Kissaki(Saki-Haba): 2.55cmThickness at the Saki-Kasane: 0.55cmLength of Koshirae: about 97cmSword tang(Nakago): Unaltered,Sujikai file patternRivet Holes(Mekugiana): 1Weight including handle: 1004gRegistration Card: Aomori【Additional Information】二唐一門は、津軽藩より作刀を任じられて以来350年以上、同地(青森県弘前)にて伝統を受け継いでいる刀鍛冶の名門です。二唐義信は、同家の四代目で、無鑑査刀匠 二唐国俊の父であります。本刀は、刃長が、二尺一寸九分、身幅重ね尋常、反り頃合いで中切っ先となる刀姿です。地鉄はよく練られた小板目肌に地沸が付きます。刃文は互の目を主として尖り刃、丁子が交じり、刃縁に小沸付き、匂口明るく冴えます。帽子は、乱れ込んで返ります。青森県の名門鍛冶 二唐家の四代目 義信の一刀で、同地で連綿と受け継がれた確かな力量が発揮された同工の優品です。銀無垢一重ハバキ、黒蝋色塗鞘打刀拵。
NihontoWatchOffered by World Seiyudo
Shinshinto · Shinano · around 1864-1865
1 piece on the market now
Shinshinto · Musashi
14 pieces on the market now
The Kiyomaro school gathered in the workshops of Yotsuya in Edo around the middle of the nineteenth century, its founder Yamaura Kiyomaro (清麿) born in Bunka 10 (1813) at Akaiwa village in the Komoro district of Shinano, the second son of the country gentry-warrior Yamaura Nobukaze. He learned forging first under the Ueda-domain smith Kawamura Toshitaka, signing his early blades Masayuki, went up to Edo in Tenpo 6 (1835) under the patronage of the military scholar Kubota Kiyone, and in the autumn of Koka 3 (1846) settled at Iga-cho in Yotsuya and changed his signature to Kiyomaro; he died by his own hand at forty-two in Kaei 7 (1854). Around him moved his elder brother Yamaura Masao (真雄/正雄), who took the same instruction from Toshitaka and walked the same course from choji into Soshu-den, and the pupils who entered the Yotsuya forge in its final years: Kurihara Nobuhide (信秀), a mirror-maker from Sanjo in Echigo whom the published sources place nearest the master's hand; Saito Kiyondo (清人) of Dewa, who afterward settled his teacher's sword debts and carried the manner into early Meiji; and the wider circle of associates and patrons through which the line passed. The shared vocabulary of the school is a powerful Soshu-revival manner. Over an itame that flows and stands a little, well packed and at times opening into mokume and o-itame, the smiths lay thick ji-nie with frequent chikei, the steel clear and without utsuri, for this is a late hand reaching back five centuries to Sagami rather than a Bizen revival. The temper is an o-midare or gunome-midare mixed with ko-notare, the ashi and yo entering, the nie thick and gathering coarse in clusters of ara-nie, with long kinsuji and streaming sunagashi running through nearly every blade; the boshi answers in a midare-komi turning pointed with hakikake. A Bizen-leaning side survives from the early years in the residual choji that shades into the mature work. Within this common ground the hands diverge. Kiyomaro's is read as the overwhelming one, his Soshu-den reaching the upper transmission with the Shizu vein as his forte of fortes, the NBTHK calling his work 「覇気に満ちている」, filled with commanding spirit.
Masao's grounded forging is candidly weighed against his brother's, the texts noting that his chikei, sunagashi, and kinsuji run fewer and the quality does not reach Kiyomaro's level. Nobuhide is named the closest approach to the master and is alone in the school for his carving, a mirror-maker's hand that set kurikara, dragons, and bonji into blades the others left plain. Kiyondo holds the round-headed gunome-midare at full strength and adds a manner of his own, a bright suguha aligned with the Yamato tradition that Kiyomaro never worked. To kantei the school, read first the imposing shape particular to the Yamaura line: a wide body with little taper, the sori toward the point, a chu-kissaki extended or run to an o-kissaki whose fukura is allowed to wither for a sharp impression, often a shobu-zukuri or kanmuri-otoshi wakizashi. Read then the nie, thick in ji and ha, the chikei and the conspicuous kinsuji and sunagashi that mark the force of the steel rather than any borrowed pattern. Carving narrows the field to Nobuhide; a Yamato suguha narrows it to Kiyondo. Kiyomaro stands at the head of the line, ranked by the published sources as high as Kotetsu and named without question the leading master among the shinshinto, the smith called the Yotsuya Masamune (四谷正宗). His extant work is scarce and closely held, passing through documented hands such as the Iwasaki family and the Seikado Bunko, and reaches the market only from time to time and at the very top of it. The pupils and the elder brother offer the more attainable face of the circle, signed and dated blades that come to a collector with patience; a signed example of any of these hands is a document of the moment when Soshu was reborn in Edo. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Kiyomaro清麿 | 1839-1854 | 73 |
| Nobuhide信秀 | 1857-1867 | 34 |
| Kiyondo清人 | 1848-1868 | 10 |
| Masao真雄 | 1844-1866 | 7 |
| Masanao正直 | 1865-1868 | 3 |
Shōwa to the present: destruction and revival
The twentieth century nearly killed the craft twice: wartime distortion, then the occupation ban. The NBTHK’s founding in 1948 and licensed forging from 1953 rebuilt the sword as an art, crowned by Living National Treasures and the mukansa rank.
No cooling-off period or returns; refund only if the purchased sword is proven fake, capped at purchase price (excludes commission sales, accessories, auction items).