Tokyo Nihonto

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Tokyo Nihonto The finest Japanese swords from Tokyo.

11/10/2026

Japan made about 2 million swords for World War Two. Many are illegal in Japan today. ⚔️

• Not enough traditional smiths → factories took over: power hammers, substitute steel, blades quenched in oil
• From 1937, their tangs were stamped to tell them apart: collectors call them shōwatō
• 1945: the occupation disarms Japan, the US Army alone collects about 660,000 swords
• The rule that still stands: only blades forged and hardened the traditional way can be registered in Japan, as works of art
• A factory blade found in a Japanese attic today gets no paper and is destroyed
• A traditionally forged wartime blade passes, like this katana by Tadatsugu of Hizen, 1940

Did someone in your family bring one home? 👇

More antique katanas at https://tokyo-nihonto.com.

Archive photo: Kuala Lumpur, 1945, No. 9 Army Film & Photographic Unit (public domain). Production figure = historical estimates.

10/10/2026

Japanese experts name the swordsmith without ever seeing the signature. 🔍

It's called kantei. At the Japanese Sword Museum in Tokyo, the NBTHK lays out five blades with their tangs hidden. You read the blade, write one name on a paper ballot, and the judge answers in one word:
• Atari: a hit
• Dōzen: right school
• Iya: no

How they read it:
1 · Shape → the century
2 · Steel grain → the province (straight in Yamato, burl-like in Bizen)
3 · Temper line → the school (clove buds for Bizen, three cedars for Kanemoto of Mino)
4 · The tip → Mino's « Jizō » turn-back

The Hon'ami family judged swords for the shogun and wrote their verdict on a folded paper, an origami. That's why « origami-tsuki » still means « guaranteed » in Japanese.

Which clue would you trust most: shape, steel, temper or tip? 👇

More antique katanas at https://tokyo-nihonto.com.

Photos: Japanese Sword Museum by Edomura no Tokuzo, origami (Hon'ami Kōchū, 1702) by SLIMHANNYA, both CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

09/10/2026

Show me the temper line, I'll tell you who forged it. 🔥

The hamon is the line left on the blade when the smith hardens the edge. Every school had its own:

1 · Suguha, a straight line: the pride of Hizen, on Kyushu. Munetsugu of Hizen, early 1600s
2 · Chōji, rows of little buds ("cloves"): the signature of Bizen. Sukesada of Bizen, dated 1677
3 · Tōranba, big crashing waves: made famous in Osaka by Sukehiro. This one is his, dated 1675
4 · Hitatsura, tempered spots all over: the wild style of Sōshū, the tradition of Masamune. Fusamune of Sōshū, c. 1500

Which one would you carry: 1, 2, 3 or 4? 👇

Photos: The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1, 2, 4) · Kurashiki Sword Museum (3).
More antique katanas at https://tokyo-nihonto.com.

08/10/2026

Samurai almost never fought with their katana. 🏹

• For centuries, the samurai's real weapon was the bow: their path was called kyūba no michi, "the way of the horse and bow"
• We know because samurai filed battle reports (gunchūjō), listing every wound to claim their reward
• In the 1500s: arrows first. After guns arrived in 1543, bullets. Then spears, even thrown stones
• The sword? Fewer than one wound in ten
• In 1588, Hideyoshi's sword hunt took the swords away from farmers. From then on, the two swords marked who was a samurai
• 250 years of peace later, the sword they rarely used in battle had become the soul of the samurai

Did you think samurai fought mostly with the katana? 👇

Photo: samurai, c. 1860, by Felice Beato.
More antique katanas at https://tokyo-nihonto.com.

07/10/2026

This entire katana is held together by one tiny piece of bamboo. 🎋

• Mekugi (目釘): one bamboo peg through the handle and the tang. No glue, no screws.
• The guard, the spacers and the copper collar simply slide onto the tang
• Bamboo is strong, flexes under impact, and is softer than steel, so it doesn't wear down the tang
• The finest pegs are cut from susudake (煤竹): bamboo smoked for decades in the ceilings of old farmhouses
• Swords were built to come apart: a second hole on the tang means it once took a new handle

Did you know a katana could come apart like this? 👇

More antique katanas at https://tokyo-nihonto.com.

06/10/2026

Pause it. Pick one. Drop the number below. ⏸️

88 real antique tsuba (sword guards), all from our own collection. Iron, brass, gold inlay, openwork: every one was hand-made to mount on a Japanese sword.

🔗 https://tokyo-nihonto.com

🗡️ Now available: antique katana, late Edo periodA long, powerful katana from the shinshintō era, when smiths went back ...
06/10/2026

🗡️ Now available: antique katana, late Edo period

A long, powerful katana from the shinshintō era, when smiths went back to building swords for real use.

• Blade length: 74.4 cm, longer than the Edo-period norm
• Original, unshortened tang (ubu nakago)
• Hamon: very regular gunome-midare, in the Mino manner
• Polish in good condition, no flaws to report
• Complete koshirae in Higo taste: iron fittings with silver inlay, black leather grip

Unsigned, no NBTHK paper.

💴 $4,200
More information here 👉 https://tokyo-nihonto.com/products/antique-japanese-katana-gunome-hamon-higo-iron-fittings-leather-tsukamaki

Shipped worldwide from Tokyo, with Japanese export permit.

05/10/2026

Cut down. Remounted four times. 500 years old, and still here.

• Sori 2.4 cm: the original was a long, sweeping sword
• Ō-suriage: the original tang and signature are gone
• NBTHK attribution: Kashū Ietsugu, Kaga province
• Iron plum-blossom guard: the first flower after winter
• Shakudō collar with gold chrysanthemums, and a lobster in the grip: a wish for a long life

How many owners do you think it had? 👇

More NBTHK-papered katanas at https://tokyo-nihonto.com.

04/10/2026

Show me the curve, I'll tell you the century. 📐

1 · Tachi, the first curved swords: hung edge-down from a rider's belt, deep curve close to the hand
2 · 1500s: worn edge-up through the sash, but the curve still sits low
3 · 1660s (Kanbun): peace and city fencing schools, almost straight
4 · 1800s: trouble coming, long and heavy again, and the curve comes back

Save this for the next katana you see. Which era would you carry: 1, 2, 3 or 4? 👇

🔗 https://tokyo-nihonto.com

03/10/2026

Can you guess what this is? 🛞

It's a Genji wheel (源氏車), half sunk in the waves, on an iron sword guard.

• Heian nobles rode ox-drawn carriages on huge wooden wheels
• To stop them drying and cracking, the wheels were left to soak in Kyoto's Kamo river: katawa-guruma
• In The Tale of Genji, a carriage quarrel turned Lady Rokujō into a jealous spirit
• Sakakibara Yasumasa, one of Tokugawa Ieyasu's great generals, took the wheel as his family crest

Which symbol should I decode next? 👇

Full sword: https://tokyo-nihonto.com

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Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
150-0001

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