Wakizashi Shinshinto in koshirae

Wakizashi from the Shinshinto period, Edo, mounted in koshirae. Sugata shinogi zukuri, iori mune, torii zori. Hada mokume with alternating stretches of ko mokume, compact. Hamon notare midare on suguha in nie deki. There are nie sake, nie kuzure, kinsuji and sunagashi. The boshi is suguha with short kaeri. Nakago ubu, 1 mekugi ana, ha agari kurijiri nakagojiri, katte sagari yasurime. The wakizashi is mounted in buke tsukuri koshirae with Kaneie school iron tsuba, Ebisu-themed fuchi and kashira in shakudo and gold, dragon-themed menuki in shakudo and gold. Iron kozuka also with a dragon theme.

The swords produced in the ShinShinto period have a different style from the Shinto ones, as the swordsmiths themselves placed greater importance on the practical side and attempted to resurrect the methods of the Kamakura and Nambokucho periods. In addition to katana and wakizashi, tanto were produced in large quantities, rare in the previous period. The main Japanese sword traditions are Bizen and Soshu, but ShinShinto smiths worked successfully in all gokaden and Shinto tokuden. A peculiar characteristic of ShinShinto swordsmiths was that of not confining themselves to a single tradition, but attempting to draw from others as well, mixing their characteristics. In this, however, they did not achieve complete success. Edo became the center of sword making, and students from all over the country came to study under Suishinshi Masahide, who is said to have had more than one hundred students. Taikei Naotane and Hosokawa Masayoshi are the two best students of the Suishinshi school.