Kantei
A tantō without mounting, standing upright on a black background, with the dark nakago and four holes at the bottom.

Kyoto National Museum, via ColBase · ColBase terms of use

Matsukawa-hada · ko-notare · takenoko-zori

Work and style

Mostly tachi and tantō, in the Sōshū-den with more Yamato flavour than Masamune, and a jigane like pine bark.

On this page
  1. Kantei keys
  2. What sets him apart
  3. Whom he is confused with
  4. The tantō of the Kyoto National Museum

Kantei keys

According to the Japanese Wikipedia and the NBTHK Sword Journal:

  • Sugata: mostly tachi and tantō, and a single confirmed naginata. The tachi have the shape of the late Kamakura, with koshizori, funbari and an elongated kissaki. The tantō, about 24 cm long, have a thick kasane, a narrow mihaba, a spare fukura, an uchizori called 筍反り (takenoko-zori) and a furisode nakago.
  • Jihada: ō-itame with mokume, with a visible, dark hada; through the wear of polishing it looks like layers of pine bark, the matsukawa-hada. Coarse ji-nie, rounded yubashiri and chikei that cross into the edge as kinsuji and inazuma.
  • Hamon: a suguha base with ko-notare, strong ha-nie and a sunken nioiguchi (匂口), which blurs the boundary between ji and ha; many kinsuji and sunagashi, and uchinoke.
  • Bōshi: midare-komi with yakizume, or with a deep kaeri.
  • Nakago and mei: nakago almost ubu, furisode, with a kurijiri tip and yasurime mostly kiri; a two-character signature in large characters, 則重 (Norishige), with a thick chisel and in the centre. Long dated signatures are known, 越中国佐伯則重 (Etchū-no-kuni Saeki Norishige).

What sets him apart

For the NBTHK, his jiba takes Ko-Bizen and Ko-Hōki as its model, but with a larger, visible hada and matsukawa-hada over the whole surface; a komidare in which strong and weak nie alternate, thick chikei interwoven with yubashiri and tobiyaki, up to hitatsura. That highly variable hataraki is his own feature, which neither Yukimitsu nor Masamune have. The NBTHK also describes his tantō of small shape and poor fukura, with takenoko uchizori, and the mune that the treatises call “an iori-mune like a hill”, with a sharp angle.

Whom he is confused with

NBTHK Sword Journal no. 746 warns of a common mistake: voting Ko-Bizen or Ko-Hōki for his tachi, because besides obvious Sōshū work he made classic ko-midare in his own way. The clues are a wide, thick, heavy blade, plenty of hiraniku, bright ha-nie with frequent kinsuji and sunagashi, and the absence of the jifu-utsuri of Ko-Bizen. In no. 767, an unsigned tachi attributed to Norishige is compared with Ko-Hōki Yasutsuna and with Sanekage: an old sayagaki hesitated between Ko-Hōki, Norishige and Yukimitsu.