Did any Hizen smiths sign katana mei on .... well, katana?

[KungFooey]

Hi!

 

Another question to throw out there. I know that Hizento (the good ones at least) follow a rule of tachi-mei on katana and katana-mei on wakizashi. Are there any exceptions to this rule apart from obvious gimei?

 

Thanks again!

Dee

Edited January 15 by KungFooey
Corrected by Jean! 👍

[CSM101]

I once owned the "Hizen To Taikan". And there were no exceptions. Even the lesser known smiths have a tachi mei.

[Ian B3HR2UH]

Roger Robertshaw has a second generation Tadahiro , signed katanamei , illustrated in his book which is thought to be genuine . I can't recall if it was Roger or the NBTHK who thought it was right . I would be hugely suspicious of any full length Hizen sword that is signed katanamei.

[KungFooey]

Many thanks gentlemen!

 

Even though it's suriage, I thought this couldn't be right...

[Bazza]

3 hours ago, Ian B3HR2UH said:

Roger Robertshaw has a second generation Tadahiro , signed katanamei , illustrated in his book which is thought to be genuine . I can't recall if it was Roger or the NBTHK who thought it was right . I would be hugely suspicious of any full length Hizen sword that is signed katanamei.

Ian et al, I remember talking with Roger about this sword and my recall is that the sword in question was 'short', perhaps 60.6 cm/2.0 shaku or less and the question was whether it was considered a wakizashi...

 

BaZZa.

[Stephen]

3 hours ago, KungFooey said:

Even though it's suriage, I thought this couldn't be right...

Does it state nagasa?

[Jacques D.]

Never seen one

[Mark]

i owned a 28" hizen katana maybe 20 years ago.  i forget who signed it, Tadahiro, tadakuni or similar. I figured it was gimei as it was signed katana mei.  Roger bought it, it passed TH, my understanding from Roger was that Mr Tanobe looked at it and said it was probably custom order and signed that way. Definitely very rare but not 100%

[KungFooey]

1 hour ago, Stephen said:

Does it state nagasa?

Hi Stephen!

Current nagasa is 69.6 cm - so definitely never a wakizashi!

 

Dee

[KungFooey]

Well folks, I just checked the oshigata of all nine generations and that weird 'Kuni' character is a big NO for all of them.

 

Dee

[Jussi Ekholm]

While it is true for probably 99% of Hizen swords, there are some exceptions. I have way too many references and I don't know much about Hizen and they don't interest me that much. Still I remember seeing some katana mei Hizen katana.

 

The famous smith Hizen Munetsugu used katana mei. I have 10 Jūyō katana by him in books and they all have katana mei

 

 

Hizen Muneyasu also used katana mei. 2 Jūyō katana of him have katana mei and 1 has tachi mei

 

 

Then there are few katana by Mutsu Tadayoshi that are katana mei. I think these are c.65 cm so possibly thought as short swords.

 

 

I do believe there might be few lesser known Hizen smiths that used katana mei too, unfortunately I have too many references and as I don't focus on Hizen I haven't put any notes regarding them.

[Robert S]

10 hours ago, KungFooey said:

Many thanks gentlemen!

 

Even though it's suriage, I thought this couldn't be right...

From a historical point of view I'd say that blade is of interest, because assuming it is gimei, it was done long enough ago that it was before it was suriage. 

[Bazza]

Then there is that -ZEN kanji...  Not mainline Tadayoshi.

 

BaZZa.

[Jacques D.]

Quote

The famous smith Hizen Munetsugu used katana mei. I have 10 Jūyō katana by him in books and they all have katana mei

 If i'm not wrong, he did'nt belong to the Tadayoshi school

[Jussi Ekholm]

I do think Jacques is correct. I believe he was contemporary of Hizen Tadayoshi working around the same time but slightly earlier. However he worked in Hizen and I do personally classify smiths by province. I know my preference of province vs. the supposed tradition might create confusion some times. I do personally judge smiths from Hizen province as Hizen smiths.

[KungFooey]

8 hours ago, Jussi Ekholm said:

I do think Jacques is correct. I believe he was contemporary of Hizen Tadayoshi working around the same time but slightly earlier. However he worked in Hizen and I do personally classify smiths by province. I know my preference of province vs. the supposed tradition might create confusion some times. I do personally judge smiths from Hizen province as Hizen smiths.

I agree Jussi - after all, not every Soshu blade is a Masamune.

[Gakusee]

As Jussi highlighted, Munetsugu is the one who signed katana mei. But even not mainline, he is still a Hizen smith. 
 

Another rare bird is Muneyasu (student of Munetsugu I think) - fewer swords of his are around and also he signed both ways. 
And just to preempt Jacques, he is a Hizen smith and there are connections with the Nabeshima daimyo. 

[Jacques D.]

Quote

Munetsugu (宗次), 1st gen., Keichō (慶長, 1596-1615), Hizen – „Hizen no Kuni Minamoto Munetsugu“ (肥前国源宗次), „Hizen no Kuni jūnin Iyo no Jō Minamoto Munetsugu“ (肥前国住人伊予掾源宗次), „Hizen Isahaya-jū Minamoto Munetsugu“ (肥前諌早住源宗次), „Iyo no Jō Minamoto Munetsugu“ (伊予掾源宗次), civilian name „Sakai San´emon“ (境三右衛門), he was born as second son of Sakai Kuranojō Masatsugu (境内蔵丞正次) in Hizen´s Nagase (長瀬), he succeeded as head of this family in the 20th year of Tenshō (天正, 1592) instead of his older brother Kohei Sanemasa (小兵衛真正), the Sakai were actually shintō priests in their main profession and so also Munetsugu worked also as a priest, his nyūdō-gō was „Seishin“ (清心), the transmission says that he received the honorary title „Iyo no Jō“ in the eleventh year of Keichō (1606), two years later the imperial court made him deputy of the office which was in the control of the awarding of honorary titles for sword smiths, so there is also the theory that the granting of the title „Iyo no Jō“ came actually with this appointment, also the 16th year of Keichō (1611) is listed in some sources as date for the granting of his title, later he moved to Saga (佐賀) to the village of Raikōji (来迎寺) where he received a salary by the Nabeshima family (鍋島) in the amount of 14 koku, there exists the anecdote that Toyotomi Hideyoshi visited once Hizen in the course of preparations for the invasion of Korea, there Munetsugu presented him a sword which was praised by Hideyoshi as „confusingly similar to a Masamune (正宗)“, his year of death is unknown but he transferred the direction of the school to his son in the ninth year of Kan´ei (寛永, 1632), Munetsugu was somewhat earlier active than the famous Hizen Tadayoshi (忠吉) and worked also in a different style because he focused primarily on the Sōshū tradition, we know date signatures from the seventh to the eleventh year of Kan´ei (1630-1634), his jigane is a rather standing-out itame with nagare and ji-nie all over the blade, the hamon is a gunome-midare mixed with notare in nie-deki which varies in its width, in addition many togari elements as well as kinsuji and sunagashi appear, the nioiguchi is rather broad, the bōshi is midare-komi with hakikake and tends sometimes to kaen, the tang reminds with its bulbous shape of Muramasa´s (村正) tanagobara-gata, the tip of the tang is a ha-agari kurijiri and the yasurime are kiri or katte-agari, he signed Hizen-atypical with a katana-mei

Translation of the Nihonto meikan by Markus Sesko. You can be a Hizen smith and not belong to the Tadayoshi school.

[Gakusee]

2 minutes ago, Jacques D. said:

Translation of the Nihonto meikan by Markus Sesko. You can be a Hizen smith and not belong to the Tadayoshi school.

yes, we agree on that  indeed. 
These two above are not mainline Tadayoshi.