Bakumatsu Katana By Sendai Kanetsugu

[Peter Bleed]

Dear Friends,

Please allow me to present for discussion and help the signature of the blade i discussed on Eclipse Day. Since then I have spent several hours with this blade and generally have felt good about it

The blade is signed

Oite Toto Senfu ju Minamoto KANETSUGU tsukuru kore

That part is easy - saying something like

In The East Capital by Sendai Resident Minamoto Kanetsugu

I am less sure of the rest

Ou Mitsuhiro kimi something..

Made for Mitsuhiro - I beg the help of other on this part of the mei.

The blade is very nice. It is well made and well controlled. Frankly, give Kanetsugu's reputation I was hoping for more strident masame, but basically the masame is right down along the habuchi with running itame along most of the hada-ji. It is a Sendai-to, but not a screamer. I am also not at all sure why Kanetsugu was down in Edo (or "Toto" 'The Eastern Capital') at this point. ("Who said "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore Toto"). But things were certainly heating up and lots of swords were being ordered. Maybe a guy just had to go where the market was.

Thanks for looking

Peter

[Guido]

應光廣君需

 

By request of Mr. Mitsuhiro. It’s quite unusual to only state the given name of the person who ordered the sword.

[Wim V]

Peter,

 

Looks like an interesting blade you have there.  Certainly one of the more elaborate signatures by this smith.  Would be nice to see the running itame you described as all the examples I have seen by this smith were in pure masame.

 

As you suggested in your "eclipse post" I included some pictures here of my 5th generation Kanetsugu blade.  It's quite a typical example by the smith I would say: masame hada with a gently undulating suguba hamon with some sunagashi/kinsuji along the habuchi and a komaru boshi with a hint of hakikake.  I tried to take a close-up picture of the masame but it's rather difficult to capture, even more since my experience in taking pictures of swords is very limited.

 

Oh yes, this sword has green (tokubetsu kicho) papers, but I am 100% sure they are genuine since I did my homework and every feature of the blade is perfectly consistent with all the textbook examples.  Furthermore it is published in two references (Zuhan Tomei Soran and an article on the Sendai smiths in Japanese Token Bijutsu).  So according to some current hot debate, this may well be one of the last few examples of doubtless green papers   .

 

Wim

[Wim V]

Found another example of Sendai Kanetsugu this morning: https://www.aoijapan.com/katana-seiryusgi-kanetsugu-saku

 

Wim

[Peter Bleed]

Wim,

I began my day - as I usually do - by checking with Aoi-sama. And there i too discovered the blade you described above.. Thank you for calling attention to this sword and  for remembering my earlier post.  I am sorry for opening this thread in a way that seems not to have been inviting to discussion. I really have to figure out how to post good images.

Let me mention two things that I find interesting about these swords.

First, it is interesting that Kanetsugu stayed with masame hada while he also seems to have used a number of stylistic features that point away from Sendai.. Note how Tsuruta-san seems to compare him to a wider circle of smiths. My sword offers proof positive that he was active in Edo. He may have been a rather cosmopolitan fellow.

Second, the hada of these swords is pretty interesting. Your sword has wonderful masame. I love it. As I said. my newly polish sword has some masame, but it is not apparently as complete as the steel of your blade. That makes me curious about the comment on the Aoi page to the effect that additional polish will bring out more masame on their blade. Is this true? Hmmmm.

Peter