Aoe Suketsugu
助次 (Suketsugu)
A smith of the Aoe school, in Bitchū; a signature dated 1312 places him at the end of the Kamakura period.
Profile
Suketsugu (助次) worked in Aoe, in Bitchū province. Japanese Wikipedia records a tachi of his signed with the province and the place Aoe and dated the sixth month of the first year of Shōwa (正和), that is, 1312, which places him at the end of the Kamakura period. The same encyclopaedia counts him among the smiths of Chū-Aoe, the middle phase of the school, in its article on Aoe, and among those of Ko-Aoe in the general article on the Japanese sword; the date of that signature corresponds to the middle phase. No teacher is known for him, nor any designated work.
The Kotō Taikan reproduces three of his signatures. He should not be confused with the Suketsugu of Yoshioka Ichimonji, in Bizen, of the same period, who writes his name with the same characters.