Juyo Koto by the numbers. (Sort of)

[Mushin]

Please consider the following which is the result of me mining the Juyo lists compiled by Jussi Ekholm. It is a very arbitrary list of Juyo numbers from top Koto smiths and schools where possible. Listed is the school or smith followed by the total number of Juyos. Not every school or smith were included, thus the artibrary designation. That said I think this does reveal some interesting trends. All in the decription means every smith and mumei attribution to either a smith or school is represented. Here is the list:

 

Rai (All) - 680
Ichimonji (All) - 422
Shizu (All) - 399
Aoe (All) - 344
Taima (All) - 226
Norishige - 211
Rai Kunimitsu - 210
Bizen Kanemitsu -201
Bizen Nagamitsu - 180
Naoe Shizu (All) - 166
Rai Kunitoshi - 159
Senju’in (All) - 157
Nobukuni (All) - 146
Soshu Yukimitsu - 136
Hasebe (All) - 120
Bizen Sukesada (All) - 111
Sadamune - 106
Awataguchi (All) - 97
Tegai (All) - 97
Chōgi - 96
Kencho - 88
Bizen Masamitsu - 82
Tametsugu - 78
Masamune - 71
Shintogo (All) - 62
Soshu (Yukimitsu through Sue-Soshu) - 58
Rin Tomo - 58
Rai Kunitsugu - 51
Rai Kuninaga - 50
Sue Sa - 50
Sa Kunihiro - 48
Kinju - 45

Bizen Nagamori - 42
Bizen Katsumitsu (All) - 39
Sa Yasuyoshi - 39

Shintogo Kunimitsu - 36
Bizen Motomitsu - 35 

Hiromitsu - 35
Sa Sadayoshi - 22
Akihiro - 17
Samonji - 12
Sa Yukihiro - 9
Soshu Masahiro (Zaimei) - 5
Go Yoshihiro - 5

 

Let me start out by saying that this little endeavor began as an exercise in mental self-gratification. I was intrigued by the theory espoused by the late Darcy Brockbank and others, holding that Soshu swords were the modern weapons of their day, used mostly to the point of failure so fewer remain around today, while blades by big sword names of the Kamakura period and earlier where stashed away as treasure pieces. I figured that Juyo numbers to some extent should bear this out as there would be many, many more blades from other schools.

 

While the data -- which by no means is exhaustive, let alone double-checked, so user beware -- does show to a large degree that Soshu works do seem to be considerably fewer, it also raises some interesting facts. One is the large number of blades from a handful of Soshu smiths such as Norishige, Shizu and his students compared to others. And then there are these interesting big numbers of the SoDen-Bizen smiths like Kanemitsu and Chogi Schools (560 just counting Kanemitsu, Tomomotsu, Masamitsu, Motomitsu, Chogi, Kencho and Nagamori. This number grows considerably when when we expand the circle to include other students and family members,)

 

So, why did so many of these works survive until today in decent condition while top mainline Soshu Smiths like Shintogo Kunimitsu, Masamune, Sadamune, Hiromitsu and Akihiro blades seemingly left behind so few top quality blades (203)? Could it be that their numbers are better reflected among Hozon and Tokubetsu Hozon blades because heavy use left them in a condition less than Juyo? (I can't think that this would be correct as I would imagine that the number of less than Juyo blades would also go up proportionally with the other smiths. Also because of their rarity, some condition issues are overlooked at the Juyo level.) Could this be because smiths like Hiromitsu and Akihiro stayed behind in Kamakura long after the town fell to Nitta Yoshisada in 1333, while their customers fled elsewhere? Could it be simply that the output of these smiths was low because their market share moved away? Did Norishige, Shizu and the Sa School fare far better because they found new markets in Echizen, Mino and Kyoto? Did they make technological breakthroughs that allowed them to produce more swords in the same period of time? And why did so many Rai blades survive in such great numbers, including from the Nanbokucho? Or was this whole mental exercise using incomplete or incompatible data sets to draw conclusions horribly flawed? I understand the heyday of the Soshu school lasted for a dramatically shorter period of time than all other schools, notwithstanding some smiths and schools of the day did way better in the same period than others. Would love to hear your thoughts about what you make of the trends that this information seems to indicate?

 

Bobby

 

[DoTanuki yokai]

I think you have a problem because you make the cut at juyo, how many Nagamitsu are kokuho or other cultural status that exclude them from Juyo.

Maybe Rai was not good enough to get their blades to Tokubetsu Juyo. 

It is nice to see the Numbers but to really understand its meaning some more must be put in consideration i think.

[Rivkin]

The idea that Masamune was somehow considered "utilitarian" and Shizu or Norishige were prized sounds strange.

The problem with mainline versus off-shoots I think involves both that Soshu is not a unified master and 10 students school it is usually posed to be, and that the bulk of sword demand came after the war started, towards 1350-1370.

Which is Shizu, Hasebe, Nobukuni, sue Sa.

At the same time Hiromitsu and Akihiro became provincial smith with meager demand and output.

 

Shintogo is best compared to Awataguchi Yoshimitsu. "Court" maker specializing in tanto, despite probably two generations - limited production with very consistent quality.

The bulk of early Soshu is Norishige versus Yukimitsu and Sadamune, the latter being basically the very best of Yukimitsu style.

Roughly comparable in scale, Norishige's activity period was quite a long one also. If one is to compare their numbers against any strictly the end Kamakura individual smiths, there are not many names with comparable number of blades. Bizen Kanemitsu, but Bizen always churned up a lot of blades.

There is not much inconsistentcy here.

 

Masamune on the other hand is a rare attribution that typically implies historical acceptance of the blade as Masamune. Every kind of statistics breaks when it comes to him - atypical distribution of styles, atypical distribution of sugata, atypical stylistic divergence of signed versus unsigned works, atypical number of works versus the activity period.

Its an attribution that sticks out in every manner.

 

 

 

[nulldevice]

2 hours ago, DoTanuki yokai said:

I think you have a problem because you make the cut at juyo, how many Nagamitsu are kokuho or other cultural status that exclude them from Juyo.

Maybe Rai was not good enough to get their blades to Tokubetsu Juyo. 

It is nice to see the Numbers but to really understand its meaning some more must be put in consideration i think.

Are there lists of all of the Toko Ju, Kokuho, and national treasure (Bunkazai) swords? I would imagine that data should be pretty readily available somewhere seeing how there are only ~900 Juyo Bunkazai, and ~122 that are Kokuho.

 

That way you could compile the data of known swords by these schools/smiths and have more data points to consider such as Juyo or greater, TJ or greater, etc. 

 

It looks like nihontoclub.com has a list of JB swords and there are ~188 listed there so that could be a starting place. But finding a list of all 900JB swords and then a compilation of the TJ publications could get you much closer to what you're asking about Christian.

 

Edit: There would also have to be consideration for swords that make it TJ will also be listed in the Juyo publications as they were Juyo before they reached TJ+. 

 

[Brano]

I sincerely appreciate your effort, but checking random items I have to say that your numbers are not accurate
Norishige has less than 120 Juyo blades and Go Yoshihiro almost 40

[Mushin]

34 minutes ago, Brano said:

 

I sincerely appreciate your effort, but checking random items I have to say that your numbers are not accurate
Norishige has less than 120 Juyo blades and Go Yoshihiro almost 40

 

You are correct: Bit of dyslexia with Norishige (112 not 211.) And since there are various ways to look up the way the smiths are recorded in the books it can take several passes to figure that and I wasn’t very vigilant with Go. The number 40 seems far more reasonable. That said I did caution that this was done quickly and not double checked. But I appreciate the vigilance  and I will be refining the lists as mistakes are found and corrected. That said what I am looking at is trends. Yes, Kokuho and JuBi will offer further truths that are worth recording. But what I am wrestling with is the volume of top blades that survived from some schools vs others and wondering what factors people ascribe to explain this. I found Rivkin’s point about the absurdity of the idea that Masamune swords were considered utilitarian especially interesting. So how were Rai Kunimitsu’s blades seen at the time? Less utilitarian? Soshu blades only seem to me to get serious attention from tastemakers in the warrior class around the mid 1500s, it is also the same time the first lists of the Jitetsu were being drawn up. So before that, were they less treasured than Rai blades? More utilitarian than Yamato swords? What were the shifting factors going on that could explain these trends in terms of the volumes of top quality blades that survived? That was my only point in making this post.

[Jacques D.]

If i"m not wrong a sword can be kokuho and tokuju

[PNSSHOGUN]

Unfortunately this is an exercise in futility if the numbers are not correct, and do not contain a full list of smiths, session number, Nagasa, etc etc etc. An interesting exercise, but needs to be compiled correctly for any real value to be gained.

[Jussi Ekholm]

That is great analysing Bobby. Research is always nice. You can find list of Kokuhō, Bunkazai and Bijutsuhin I made from the forum. It has numbers of current designations so you can find the items in Japanese database. I decided not to make TJ list as I would ideally match them to Jūyō sessions. I think I can probably do 95% but as it ain't 100% I still skip it.

 

Jūyō and Tokubetsu Jūyō are just NBTHK rankings. Sword can have other rankings as well. However sending a sword with National rank to NBTHK is not happening as Jūyō Bunkazai is more prestigeous than NBTHK ranks.

 

There are few blades that have been elevated to Jūyō Bunkazai after they previously had NBTHK rank. As I am currently in Japan I cannot check but from memory I am 100% on 2 blades.

 

The problem with Jūyō is that while it is good data it is just NBTHK high level items. The bonus side on that is that it is bit accessible.

 

You would need to consider National rankings, old JuBi, NBTHK, NTHK, Imperial, items with no designation in collections (museums, shrines, temples) etc. Give me some years and I will try to make something really nice with info on every item 😇😇

 

For example when I visited Tokyo National Museum 2 days ago they had on display 5 items that had no designation. 3 of the I have info already, 4th I need to check and for 5th I had 0 info.

[mywei]

Are there smiths/schools missing from this list, or are they just grouped under a bigger category?

 

For example, I don't see schools such as Hosho, Ayanokoji, Shikkake. There also aren't any of the 'more rustic' smiths like Naminohira, Jitsua etc that will have a few Juyo floating around 

[Franco D]

51 minutes ago, mywei said:

Are there smiths/schools missing from this list

 

Some very big names missing and that's after a quick glance.

[Brano]

9 hours ago, Jacques D. said:

If i"m not wrong a sword can be kokuho and tokuju

For example, Ken by Mitsutada is a TokuJu and also a JuBun

 

[Jussi Ekholm]

Cannot fall asleep yet and hadn't anything better to do so I looked up info I have on Masamune swords as he is so famed. I do not yet own all the Jūyō books so some Jūyō items are missing. But these numbers will show you how extremely top heavy Masamune attributed swords are in ranking.

104 Masamune swords, it would have been 105 but more on that at the end.

 

Kokuhō 9

Jūyō Bunkazai 10

Jūyō Bijutsuhin 9

EX Jūyō Bijutsuhin 1

Imperial Collection 4

Tokubetsu Jūyō 23

Jūyō 30

Prefecture Bunkazai 1

No designation 15

Unknown published 2

 

Prefecture Bunkazai can be a duplicate of non-national ranked sword as unfortunately I havent seen a picture of it (there is often very little info on prefecture & city Bunkazai swords).

 

105th would have been Yasukuni Jinja Masamune. I visted last year if it would be on display and this year too. Then on tuesday I got the Jūyō 68 book and found out NBTHK had attributed it to Tomomitsu.

 

I know there are more Masamune attributed blades out there even outside Jūyō that I am missing but these are the ones I have info on so far.

[Jussi Ekholm]

I might have a crazy opinion as for me Hiromitsu might be my favorite Sōshū smith.

 

One reason for relatively low numbers of Hiromitsu and Akihiro work in general is that suriage mumei katana in general do not get attributed to them.

 

For Hiromitsu I am aware of 2 mumei katana and they are both Jūyō Bijutsuhin.

 

For Akihiro I am aware of 1 mumei katana and it is Jūyō Bunkazai.

 

What is wonderful about remaining items of Hiromitsu and Akihiro that there are so many signed & dated items.

[Mushin]

Excellent theory, Jussi and very plausible!  Very true that katana rarely get attributed to them. I have read that part of the problem may be that when working on longer pieces, Hiromitsu's and Akihiro's yakiire changed somewhat so that the hitusra is more moderate to benefit of resiliency of the bigger sword as a weapon. I wonder if this is why? Surely there must be an older record or mention of their daito? But I also wonder how much them staying behind in Kamakura after power and money left the area contributed to them becoming, in Kiril's words, "provincial smith(s) with meager demand and output." Still, their fame and mastery was widely held from early on so I am not sure how to reconcile these points. What is certain is that that everything about the Soshu School --  from its dramatic arrival on the scene, to the rapid and beautiful technological developments, to its relatively quick demise --  is an endless source of wonder and unanswerable questions. Fascinating. Thank you, Jussi!

[Rivkin]

There are many textual testimonies made by children or grandchildren that Hiromitsu, Masahiro, Shimada were destitute.

We don't even know early Muromachi smiths that well - when was the first Shimada is uncertain, Oei Akihiro is uncertain, and we have almost nothing left by Masahiro circa 1440-1470.

 

What's bizarre is that circa 1330-1350 there are almost no signed tanto by the mainline Soshu, quite a few mumei (Sadamune, Masamune) which is by itself most bizarre. The lack of signed daito by comparison is less alarming since aside from Bizen everyone else left noticably fewer signed pieces.

Daito hitatsura is a controversial subjet since its very hard to produce one without overwarping or cracking the blade.

There was Heianjo Oei smith, forgot the name, who made very attractive daito hitatsura and basically in Muromachi you see premier smiths here and there attempting it as a test of their skill.

Its HARD.