Mino Kanetsuru

This is a beautiful example of a well-made, signed Tanto by Kanetsuru.  The time period that he worked was in the 1500’s.  This koto era tanto has excellent work in the blade.  An abundance of activity is visible. The hamon shows many hataraki that can easily be seen in the pictures.  The hada is very smooth and silky looking.  It has a wonderful whitish appearance and is in the itame/mokume style.  This is Blade has a classical shape of hira-zukuri and is sound.  The mounts that this tanto comes in, are also exception. Starting with the handle, a white silk is wrapped over quality SAME. It has a horn kashira and a Gold washed fuchi. The menuki our in a bat motif.  The bats very nicely carved.  The scabbard is wrapped in a high-quality SAME skin and Black lacquer is inlaid within the SAME ridges.  This creates a very Beautiful dramatic affect.  Saya like this are not always in this condition.  Overalls the mounts appear to be more of merchant or even a dress mount.  It’s not a common samurai koshirae style.

Information on the Mino school:

 MINO-DEN especially prospered during Sengoku Jidai(Warring State period) due to the high demand for weapons. And the location of Mino province was better than other schools. Akechi Mitsuhide controlled Mino province, and Nobunaga Oda ruled Owari province, and Tokugawa Ieyasu was the lord of Suruga (Neighboring areas). There was high demand from those powerful feudal lords and their retainers. Furthermore, so many wars occurred between the Kanto region and the Kyoto area, and Mino is located in the middle, making feudal lords feel convenient to order swords from MINO-DEN. The blades forged in MINO provinces also had the reputation of its practical design and sharpness. Many feudal lords demanded swords forged in the Mino province.

  This Tanto has a Hozon certificate issued by NBTHK. This authentication paper was only given to Japanese swords, worth preserving by Nihon Bijutsu Touken Hozon Kyokai (the Japanese Sword museum for the Preservation of the Japan Art Sword).