This is a very large and wide hirazukuri wakizashi by the gendai smith Matsubara Hidemune. He was born Matsubara Ryuhei in 1930 and likes in Gifu, Japan. This blade is a beautiful piece of work with a very wide o-gonome hamon with ashi and thick kinsuji running throughout. The mihada is wide and the blade has a solid silver habaki in a koke-style. Jihada is a very fine ko-itame with ji-nie. The Hidemune is in shirasaya and very nice polish which is almost perfectly intact, except for one spot in which is looks like someone has cleaned a stain with uchiko (shown in the photos). This is an exceptional and massive gendai wakizashi which will be a pleasure to own.

$3,500.00

SKU: WAKIZASHI0022 Categories: , , Tags: , ,

Description

Gendaito are traditionally made modern Japanese swords forged from swordsmiths working after the Meiji period. Some references categorize gendaito as swords made after the end of the Meiji, including only the Taisho, Showa, Heisei and Reiwa eras. Those swords categorized as gendaito were made using fully-traditional methods, including a heat treatment in water, rather than oil, and using tamahagane (traditional Japanese iron) as the base material for their work. Tamahagane is made from satetsu (iron sand) and put through a smelting process in an tatara (clay furnace) for up to 72 hours to produce a quality iron for the forging process.

Those swordsmiths who were approved to forge gendaito during WWII were designated Rikugen Jumei Tosho. While for many years Showa period blades were overlooked, a number of exhibitions such as the first showing of Yasukuni-to, demonstrated the high level of craftsmanship exhibited in these swords. Some are extraordinarily impressive examples modelled on classical works (koto utushimono of smiths such as the Bizen Nagamitsu and the Ichimonji school). The schools of Miyairi Akihira, Gassan Sadakazu, Kasama Ikkansai Shigetsugu and others are especially famed for their quality of work and produced swords that are regarded today as exemplary examples that can be compared favorably with the swords of earlier time periods.