Fujiwara Nobuchika

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Fujiwara Nobuchika (藤原信近) is a smith of whom only what his signature and its date say is known. One blade is signed 於東武大城下藤原信近作之 (probable reading: Tōbu Daijōka ni oite Fujiwara Nobuchika kore o saku), by which he declares that he made it at the foot of the great castle of Tōbu (東武), that is, of Edo, in Musashi province. It is dated 慶應元年八月吉日 (Keiō gannen hachigatsu kichijitsu), the eighth month of the first year of Keiō (1865), at the end of the shinshintō period. The reference works consulted record neither his school, nor his master, nor his dates.