Owari Masatsune

Profile

Masatsune (政常) is a line of Owari swordsmiths closely tied to the Owari Tokugawa house. The founder was born in Mino, trained in the Seki tradition and first signed Kanetsune (兼常); around 1567 he settled at Komaki in Owari and took the name Masatsune. He received the title Sagami no Kami (相模守) around 1591, and in 1600 he followed Matsudaira Tadayoshi to Kiyosu as his retained smith. In 1607 he passed the name to his son, but when the son died shortly afterwards he returned to the forge, now signing Masatsune nyūdō (入道); he died in 1619. He is counted among the Owari sansaku (尾張三作), together with Nobutaka and Ujifusa. His output is mainly hira-zukuri tantō and wakizashi, with a ko-itame hada tending to masame and a suguha in ko-nie, alongside naginata and yari; katana by him are rare. The line was carried on by an adopted son from the Daidō family, who signed Mino no Kami Fujiwara Masatsune (美濃守藤原政常) and worked around the Kanbun era, and by later successors; the numbering of the generations differs from one reference to another.