Ubu signed Kanemichi wakizashi

[Ray Singer]

Very nice Mino Kanemichi wakizashi with horimono in high quality tiger stripe honoki shirasaya with tsunoguchi. In polish with current NBTHK papers. Researching further but I believe that it is the smith below, bio credit to Markus Sesko.

 

$2,500 (plus shipping and PayPal) 

 

- KANEMICHI (兼道), Eiroku (永禄, 1558-1570), Mino – “Kanemichi” (兼道), “Kanemichi saku” (兼道作), “Nōshū Seki-jū Kanemichi” (濃州関住兼道). According to tradition the son of Kane´a (兼阿). It is said that there exists or rather existed a blade of Kanemichi with the signature “Shizu Saburō Kaneuji kyūdai-son” (志津三郎兼氏九代孫, “9th gen. Shizu Saburō Kaneuji”). Some sources list him as student of San´ami Kanetaka (三阿弥兼高). Kanemichi was active between the eras Tenbun (天文, 1532-1555) and Bunroku (文禄, 1592-1596) and we know date signatures from the 24th year of Tenbun (1555) to the fourth year of Tenshō (天正, 1576). At the beginning of his career – i.e. around Tenbun – he worked in the castle town of Hachiman (八幡) which was located in the Gujō district (郡上・具状) of Mino province. Later he also worked for Takeda Shingen (武田信玄, 1521-1573). In the second month of the second year of Bunroku (1593), he moved with his four sons Iga no Kami Kinmichi (伊賀守金道), Echigo no Kami Rai Kinmichi (越後守来金道), Tanba no Kami Yoshimichi (丹波守吉道), and Etchū no Kami Masatoshi (越中守正俊) to Kyōto where he settled in Nishinotō´in (西洞院) and where he founded the Mishina school (三品). There is the theory that Kanemichi was the same smith as Daidō (大道) because the latter signed in his early years also with the name Kanemichi (兼道) until he forged a sword for emperor Ōgimachi (正親町, 1517-1593) in Eiroku twelve (1569) for which he received the character “Dai/Ō” (大). Due to this, Daidō changed his name to Ō-Kanemichi (大兼道, lit. “the great Kanemichi”) and Ō-Kanemichi eventually became Daidō (dō is the Sino-Japanese reading of the character michi). It is still not clear if this Kanemichi and Daidō were the same smith or not. As for Kanemichi, we only know a few katana from him. Most of his extant works are tantō and ko-wakizashi. The jigane is a dense ko-itame with ji-nie or a standing-out itame mixed with masame. The hamon is a gunome-midare with mixed-in yahazuba that shows a tight nioiguchi. We also know interpretations in gunome with roundish yakigashira or in suguha. The yasurime of katana are takanoha and on tantō they are higaki. In his later years he also applied kiri-yasurime.