A Sekishu Sadatsuna Wakizashi (石州貞綱)

Sekishu Sadatsuna hails from the province of Iwami, and his lineage carries serious weight – he is the son of Naotsuna, one of the ten great students of the grandmaster Masamune. This wakizashi was forged during the mid to late Nambokucho period, between 1346 and 1370, over six centuries ago. Japan was then locked in one of its most intense civil conflicts, and demand for blades of the highest quality had never been greater.

The steel tells the story immediately. Marvelous chikei – dark lines of nie – weave through the rich itame jihada like rhythmic sound waves, a deeply satisfying sight under good light. The hamon is a bright, vibrant gunome midare packed in nie crystals, with long ashi reaching toward the cutting edge, vivid sunagashi, and flashing kinsuji cutting through the temper line. The polish is finished to an extraordinary standard. There is an unmistakable Soshu tradition quality to this blade.

The nakago carries a beautiful gold inlay signature of an Edo-period appraiser – read Tadaoki or Tadataka – that glows against the deep chocolate patina. An attractive bo-hiruns along both sides of the blade. A striking custom uchigatana koshirae was commissioned for this wakizashi in Japan in the summer of 2017, built around a unified dragon theme: a Mito Tamagawa school tsuba with a gold-inlaid dragon crawling over Mt. Fuji, snarling dragon kashira, and menuki of crawling dragons attributed to the Nomura School of the Late Edo period. A kozuka with dragon motif completes the set.