Matsuba Kunimasa
松葉國正 (Matsuba Kunimasa)
A smith from Hinokage, in Miyazaki prefecture, born in 1959 and made mukansa by the NBTHK in 2014; from 1995 to 2021 he signed Kunimasa.
Profile
Matsuba Kagemasa (松葉景正) was born in 1959 and forges in Hinokage, in Miyazaki prefecture. Since 2022 he signs Kagemasa (景正); from 1995 to 2021 he signed Kunimasa (國正), and until then he was known by that name, Matsuba Kunimasa (松葉國正).
The NBTHK made him mukansa in 2014, the rank that exempts a smith from the jury in its annual contest of new swords, and in 2023 he sat, as a mukansa smith, on the jury of the forging section of the Gendai Tōshoku-ten. A tachi of his from 2018, signed Nisshū Kunimasa saku (日州國正作), was shown at the Heisei no Meitō Meikō-ten exhibition at the Japanese Sword Museum (2019). The researcher Markus Sesko relates that he commissioned from him a wakizashi in naginata-naoshi shape freely inspired by a Ko-Aoe blade.
Monograph
Matsuba Kagemasa (松葉景正)
A swordsmith from Miyazaki who works in the Sōden-Bizen of Chōgi, told with the level of evidence of each fact.
Read the monograph
Rankings
- Mukansa since 2014