Life and forging · Takahashi Sadatsugu (高橋貞次)

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Training

He was born on 14 April 1902 in Ōmachi, in the Niihama district, now the city of Saijō (Ehime). His elder brother 高橋義宗 (Takahashi Yoshimune), also a swordsmith, died young. Ehime Kioku relates that he was encouraged to forge by his brother 徳太郎 (Tokutarō), a swordsmith and sword dealer.
In 1917, at the age of fifteen, he joined 月山貞一 (Gassan Sadakazu) and his son 月山貞勝 (Gassan Sadakatsu) in Osaka.
In 1919 he became an apprentice of the 中央刀剣会 (Chūō Tōken-kai) in Tokyo, where he studied the old swords for four years until he mastered the five traditions (五箇伝, gokaden).

Kotobank settles him in Matsuyama in 1930, with the forging name 龍王子貞次 (Ryūōji Sadatsugu); the Japanese Wikipedia and Ehime Kioku open his Ishite forge, in Matsuyama, in 1936.
In 1938 he won the Prime Minister’s prize at the first sword exhibition, and in 1940 he forged the sacred sword of the shrine 鶴岡八幡宮 (Tsurugaoka Hachimangū), in Kamakura.
In 1943 he became swordsmith to the court (宮中御用刀匠, kyūchū goyō tōshō) and artist of the Imperial Household (皇室技芸員, kōshitsu gigei-in). At 42 he led the swordsmiths of the great workshop of the shrine 熱田神宮 (Atsuta Jingū).

The Allied ban on forging swords left him without work. On the advice of 本間順治 (Honma Junji), in 1950 he gave a dagger engraved with a plum tree and a dragon (梅龍, ume ryū) to Lieutenant General Walker, of the United States 8th Army, who wrote him a letter of thanks; it was part of the campaign to have the sword recognised as art. Licensed forging reopened in 1953.
In 1951 he forged the sacred treasure swords of the shrine 伊勢神宮 (Ise Jingū) for its ritual renewal (式年遷宮, shikinen sengū).
In 1955, at the age of 53, he was the first swordsmith named a Living National Treasure, and to this day the only one from Ehime.
He forged the protective swords (御守刀, omamori-gatana) of Princess Michiko in 1959, for her wedding to Prince Akihito, and those of Princes Naruhito in 1960 and Fumihito in 1965. The Tokyo National Museum holds a tachi of 1960 forged with the steel left over from Naruhito’s sword.
The Japanese Wikipedia adds that the Burmese general Aung San owned a sword of his, which his daughter Aung San Suu Kyi inherited.

He died on 21 August 1968, at the age of 66. He is buried at the temple 金剛院 (Kongō-in), in Saijō; the site of his Ishite forge has already been demolished.
In 2001 part of the material from his forge was deposited at the Ehime Museum of History and Culture: engraving tools and lead moulds of his motifs. The museum studied them in an article of 2002.