A Kanabô Masatsugu Katana (金房政次)

The Kanabô school is said to have begun producing swords in the Daiei era (1521-1528), with its roots in the Yamato Sue-Tegai tradition. Founding influences trace back to Shinya Masanaga and Fujiwara Masanaga, and the school’s leading smiths included Masashige, Masasada, Masakiyo and Masatsugu. The Kanabô smiths built a strong reputation as expert makers of spears, particularly the jumonji-yari, and their swords were equally valued by samurai warriors as dependable battle-tested blades.

This long, powerful katana attributed to Kanabô Masatsugu is a textbook example of why Kanabô swords were prized on the battlefield. Strong and stout in shape, shallow in curvature, with a wide mihaba, thick kasane, and a massive ô-kissaki just shy of 10cm in length – this blade means business. The steel shows wonderful straight-grain masame-hada with pools of rounded mokume-hada and striking streams of sunagashi running throughout. The hamon is a wild mix of styles closest to Sue-Bizen and Mino in flavour, with characteristic spiking togari-ba peaks that reflect the turbulence of the late Muromachi period.

The sword comes with a fine set of late Edo period koshirae centred on a splendid polished iron sukashi tsuba attributed to Sunagawa Masachika of Edo province, depicting a flock of geese flying in the rain with one hitsu-ana filled in gold with an exquisite floral design. The fuchi-kashira is a superb shakudô piece attributed to the Bizen Shôami school, featuring a dragon swimming in waves. Oversized menuki depict protective shishi lions enveloped with peonies – symbols of wealth, prosperity, and spiritual guardianship – wrapped in katate-maki so they can be fully appreciated. This is a sword that will stand tall in any nihonto collection.