A Masafusa Katana (薩州住藤原正房)

This is an exceptional signed and dated katana by Sandai (third generation) Masafusa of Satsuma province, forged on an auspicious day in the first month of 1727 – mid-Edo, yet made in the one domain that never set down its sword. While the rest of Japan settled into the long Tokugawa peace, Satsuma kept a wartime footing for the whole period, its swordsmen schooled in the uncompromising Jigen-ryû and its smiths forging for warriors rather than for show. Masafusa stood among the leading figures of the Satsuma-Shintô tradition, a school born when Maruta Bingo no Kami Ujifusa carried Mino-den technique south during the Tenshô era and married it to the raw intensity of Sôshû-den.

The blade wears that fierce inheritance openly. A well-forged nashiji-hada shows shirake-utsuri drifting through the steel, and above it runs a vibrant gunome-midare charged with vigorous nie set like rows of prayer beads. Sweeping sunagashi and pointed togari – the latter a clear nod to the school’s Mino-den roots – run alongside the wildly thick imozuru, the ‘potato vine’ activity that is the regional fingerprint of Satsuma work. The whole hamon stands in a thick, bright nie-deki that catches the light like frost: a blade made for cutting, not for the cabinet, and rightly certified NBTHK Tokubetsu Hozon.

This katana was once the property of Kenshiro Abbe, one of the foremost martial artists of the twentieth century – holder of 8th dan in judo, 6th in aikido and 6th in kendo, and the man who brought aikido to Britain in 1955. The sword was found for him by his close friend Nobuo Ogasawara, former curator of the Tokyo National Museum and one of the great nihontô scholars of his generation. You can see exactly why Ogasawara chose this blade for Abbe-sensei. A sword from Japan’s most uncompromisingly martial province, in the hands of a man who dedicated his entire life to the martial arts – honestly, how could it have been anything else?

Its Edo-period koshirae was built in that same martial spirit. A glossy black uchigatana-koshirae, NBTHK Hozon certified, carries a stunning soroi-kanagu by the celebrated Ômori school, its fittings alive with carp battling up a waterfall – the Dragon Gate legend, in which the single carp that completes the climb is transformed into a dragon, an emblem of perseverance and rising status. Gold dragon menuki complete the story, while the iron tsuba by Sadanaga of Kii carries a tomoe crest of distinctly Satsuma character. Nearly three centuries from the forge, and decades since it graced Abbe-sensei’s dojo, this katana is here and ready for its next caretaker. Who will be the lucky one?