Wakasa Fuyuhiro

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Fuyuhiro (冬広) is a name handed down through the generations among the smiths of Obama in Wakasa province, from the middle of the Muromachi period until the end of the Edo period. School tradition holds that the founder was a son of a smith of the Hirotsugu line of Sagami and settled in Wakasa in the mid-15th century; reference works disagree both on which Hirotsugu generation this was and on how many Fuyuhiro generations followed. In the kotō period the school worked in two manners: one derived from late Sōshū work, with an itame hada rich in ji-nie and a notare hamon with gunome, and another close to late Bizen work. In the second half of the 16th century a branch moved to Matsuyama in Bitchū, and some generations signed with the titles Wakasa no Kami (若狭守) or Wakasa Daijō (若狭大掾). The commonest signatures are Fuyuhiro saku (冬広作) and Jakushū-jū Fuyuhiro (若州住冬広). Because the name recurs over several centuries, the signature alone seldom shows which generation made a given blade.