NihontoWatchIt has appeared, it has appeared, a meito by the famous swordsmith Bishu Mihara-ju Masachika has appeared. He is wonderfully famous in the sword world, and this is a sword one would want to own at least once. The smith who left behind works with the wonderfully witty mei "Ogui, Jogo, Omochikui Shikaredomo Kaji Beta Nari" ("A heavy eater, a heavy drinker, and eats many rice cakes, but is a poor blacksmith") is this master smith, Mihara Masachika of Bingo. Bingo is the present-day Mihara, Hiroshima Prefecture. This sword is an old, old, precious meito with a nenkiof Tenbun 18 (1549) (477 years ago) in the Muromachi period. This was exactly the time, two years after Lord Tokugawa Ieyasu, who would later become the Shogun of the realm, was sent as a hostage to the Great Lord of Tokai, Lord Imagawa Yoshimoto, due to the sorrow of being a small, weak province, when Francis Xavier arrived in Kagoshima in Tenbun 18 and the propagation of Christianity in Japan began. It was a time when powerful daimyo such as the Oda, Imagawa, Takeda, Hojo, Ouchi, and Shimazu clans began struggling for power in various regions. As for the sugata of this sword, it was originally a sword of about 2 shaku 4 sun, which a samurai of later generations shortened slightly to match his own swordsmanship because he desperately wanted to make this sword by Masachika his own sashiryo. The sugata of the sword has a high shinogi, was originally koshizori, and shows a good sword sugata with a difference between the moto-mihaba and saki-mihaba and little sori; the jigane is itame-hada mixed with masame-hada, showing chikei in the ji, and a vivid midare-utsuri appears in the ji from the moto to the saki, giving it character. The hamon is a suguha-style blade in nioi-deki with konie, mixed with gunome, with ko-ashi in the habuchi and nie attached, firing a blade that looks as if it would cut extremely well. Due to the condition of the togari, the boshi cannot be seen clearly, but it is likely the abruptly and deeply returning boshi called the "Mihara Taki-otoshi." The Yamato style is strong, and it is a sword that makes it very clear that a portion of Yamato smiths migrated to Mihara around the Shochu era (1324) (702 years ago) of the Kamakura period. This time, we received this sword from an old family who has cherished it for generations, with the request to "please pass it on cheaply to someone who will cherish it, as we ourselves have grown old," so we are offering it at a special, ultra-bargain price; everyone, please make sure not to be caught off guard. Please by all means enjoy this meito by the representative swordsmith of the Bingo Mihara smiths, Masachika, whose extant works are extremely few.
Offered by Nipponto
4 on the market
As written by the shop
Machine translation from the shop's Japanese · may contain errors ·
Yamato-den · Bingo · around 1532-1555
Fujishiro Jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 60%
1 piece on the market now
Yamato-den · Bingo
Phase: Sue-Mihara末三原· 1394–1596
4 pieces on the market now
Where Ko-Mihara closes at the end of the Nanbokuchō period, Sue-Mihara takes up the Bingo tradition through the Muromachi era. The setsumei place the later production in the same Mihara orbit but spread across several named hands and affiliated branches: Kai Mihara Masamori, whose Muromachi katana often carry the long "Mihara-jū Kai _" signature; and the closely tied Hokke Ichijō line, whose founder Ichijō is traditionally called a son of Mihara Masaie and whose generations continued from the Ōei era into the late Muromachi. Within that affiliated group the corpus names Nobukane, Yoshitsugu, and the joint-signing Ichijō Morie and Ichijō Moriyuki, working at Kusado (Kusado Sengen) in Bingo. Several setsumei stress that the Hokke Ichijō reckoning is genealogically uncertain, said variously to branch from Mihara or from Kokubunji, which marks the looser, more diffuse character of the school in its later chapter. The later workmanship the setsumei describe keeps the Yamato base of the early school but states it in a coarser, more standing-grain register. The forging remains itame mixed with mokume and flowing grain (nagare), now repeatedly noted as hada-dachi (standing grain) and, in one tantō, "somewhat coarse" with the steel turning masame toward the mune. A whitish cast persists: shirake-utsuri is singled out in the Ōei Nobukane tantō, while other blades show only a faint or shadowy utsuri-like effect and a darkish, "metallic" steel color.
The tempering moves from the school's quiet suguha toward more open midare: a chū-suguha varied with small gunome, ko-gunome run together into continuous midare, gunome mixed with pointed (togari) elements, and edges showing hotsure, sunagashi, and a subdued (shizumi) nioiguchi. The sugata follows Muromachi form, with sakizori added to the curve and a chū-kissaki. Against the refined early Ko-Mihara, with its tighter nioiguchi and restrained finish, these later blades read as looser and plainer, the Yamato-den footing now worn shallower; the corpus is thin, so this contrast rests on the handful of traits the setsumei actually record rather than on a full stylistic survey. For kantei, the setsumei separate Sue-Mihara from Ko-Mihara chiefly by the loosening of the ground and the opening of the temper: standing, occasionally coarse itame; faint or merely shadowy utsuri rather than a clear cast; and gunome-laced midare in place of quiet suguha. Where the Hokke Ichijō hand is present, the setsumei note one consistent point of difference, that its nie in both ji and ha runs a step stronger than ordinary Mihara, with the bōshi becoming pointed and turning back deeply. Named smiths supply the anchors: Masamori for the two-character Kai Mihara rarity against his usual long signatures, and the Ichijō hands, including a mumei katana appraised den Ichijō under a Hon'ami Kōchū origami. The dated works, in the Ōei and Chōroku eras, carry the documentary weight here, fixing the later phase to Muromachi Bingo and to the Kusado smiths of Kusado Sengen. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Masamune正宗 | 1469-1487 | 0 |
| Masaoki正興 | 1521-1528 | 0 |
| Nagashige長重 | 1487-1489 | 0 |
| Kaneyasu兼安 | 1469-1487 | 0 |
| Takakane高兼 | 1504-1521 | 0 |
Yamato in the Muromachi period
The monasteries that had sustained Yamato lost ground through the Muromachi period, and the schools thinned with them; Sue-Tegai kept the old masame manner alive in quantity. The burning of Tōdaiji’s Great Buddha hall in 1567 closed the temple age.
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 siteFor returns due to customer circumstances, the cost is the customer's responsibility. For returns due to our mis-shipment or a defective item, we bear the cost.
¥390,000