Kashū Kanewaka
加州兼若 (Kashū Kanewaka)
Lineage: the signature does not state the generation
Line of swordsmiths in Kanazawa, Kaga province, founded in the early 17th century by a smith from Mino and active until the end of the Edo period.
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The Kanewaka were a family of swordsmiths in Kanazawa, Kaga province, who worked for the Maeda house through the Edo period. The founder, Tsujimura (辻村) Kanewaka, came out of the Seki tradition of Mino and settled in Kanazawa around 1605 at the invitation of the Maeda. He later received the title Etchū no kami (越中守) and changed his signature to Takahira (高平); he died around 1628. He was given the nickname Kaga Masamune (加賀正宗). He was followed by Matasuke (又助), who died in 1677, and then by Shirōemon (四郎右衛門), active into the early 18th century; the family kept the name until the end of the Edo period. The school's work, rooted in Mino, pairs an itame hada with a gunome midare and notare hamon, often with squarish sections (hako-midare). The usual signatures, Kashū-jū Kanewaka (賀州住兼若) or the longer Kashū Kanazawa-jū Fujiwara Kanewaka (賀州金沢住藤原兼若), do not always tell the generations apart. A wakizashi signed Kashū-jū Kanewaka, of undetermined generation, is held by the Takaoka City Museum.
Swords available
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Kashū Kanazawa-jū Fujiwara Kanewaka
Second-generation Kanewaka, smith to the Maeda of Kaga, shortened in its day by a samurai of the domain yet keeping its signature intact. The second Kanewaka, Tsujimura Matasuke, was born in 1611 as the third son of the first; he inherited the name because his elder brother Kagehira had no son. He worked for the Maeda of Kaga, and in Kanazawa it was said that a young samurai owning a Kanewaka would be granted a daughter in marriage, for what the purchase revealed of his ambition. The blade, signed 賀州金澤住藤原兼若 (Kashū Kanazawa-jū Fujiwara Kanewaka), now measures 69.7 cm nagasa with 1.2 cm sori, 3 cm motohaba and 0.65 cm motogasane. The hada is a tight itame with chikei, and the hamon the deep nioi notare “like fine drifted snow” that was Kanewaka's speciality. The original seller states that the blade was originally some 2 shaku 5 sun and that a later samurai of the Kaga domain shortened it to suit his own swordsmanship: it is suriage. The photographs show two mekugi-ana, one plugged with brass, and the full signature running close to the nakago-jiri. NBTHK Tokubetsu Hozon papers dated 16 February 2026, together with two older certificates from 1968. The koshirae is Edo work, with a kuro-yuteki-nuri saya, an iron tsuba with a gold-inlaid landscape on both faces, gilded fuchi-kashira, gilt menuki and a Kaga-style habaki with its silver cross. Shirasaya included.
51.5/100
€8,770
