Horii Nobuhide
堀井信秀 (Horii Nobuhide)
A smith of Muroran, in Hokkaidō, of the Shōwa period; according to his family’s genealogy, the fourth head of the Horii house, which had worked in Muroran since 1918.
Profile
Horii Nobuhide worked in Muroran, in Hokkaidō: under that name and in that city he appears among the exhibitors of the show of new swords held at Ueno, in Tokyo, in the spring of 1941. The family genealogy given by Japanese Wikipedia, in an article that cites no sources, counts him as the fourth head of the Horii house, after Horii Toshihide, and names separately a secondary branch, that of Horii Tanetsugu.
The house begins with Horii Taneyoshi, a pupil of Gassan Sadakazu and of Taikei Naotane according to that genealogy. Its third head, Toshihide, moved to Muroran in 1918, called by the city’s steelworks, and is the first to have signed with the name 瑞泉 (Zuisen); the Gendai Tōkō Meikan also gives Nobuhide the name Zuisenshi. The sources consulted do not say who his teacher was or give his dates.
The Gendaitō Meisaku Zukan reproduces two blades by him, a tachi and a tantō.
Notable works
- Tachi: plate 47 of the Gendaitō Meisaku Zukan (p. 95).
- Tantō: plate 48 of the Gendaitō Meisaku Zukan (p. 97).