Beautiful, Koto, Samurai's Paired Swords Daisho, 425-525 Years Old. Katana and Chisa Katana. Edo Period Koshirae, Ume 'Maeda' 前田氏 Clan Mon Tsubas, 'Pine Needle' & Urushi Lacquer Sayas. The Maeda Clan, Lords of Kaga, One of the Most Powerful in Japa

The daisho’s blades, are both late Koto era, likely made between 1500 to 1600. They are most beautiful Koto period blades, of much elegance, one with its gently undulating notare hamon, the other its suguha hamon.

Both swords have gold and shakudo fushi kashira, one with the handachi form, with kabuto-gane pommel, decorated with gold lines on a nanako ground, the other with a fuchi that has a takebori dragon on a nanako ground, and the kashira is polished carved buffalo horn.
Mounted with a superb, Edo period, original pair of iron round plate sukashi daisho tsuba, with pierced Maeda clan mon of the ume, plum blossom, within both the daito and shoto tsuba. Pierced with the plum blossom mon pattern {with twigs}. used by the samurai connected and serving with the Maeda clan.The Maeda clan (前田氏, Maeda-shi) was a Japanese samurai clan who occupied most of the Hokuriku region of central Honshū from the end of the Sengoku period through the Meiji Restoration of 1868. The Maeda claimed descent from the Sugawara clan through Sugawara no Kiyotomo and Sugawara no Michizane in the eighth and ninth centuries; however, the line of descent is uncertain. The Maeda rose to prominence as daimyō of Kaga Domain under the Edo period Tokugawa shogunate, which was second only to the Tokugawa clan in kokudaka (land value).

The daisho's tsuba are likely from the Umetada tsuba school of tsuba craftsman, Umetada were the foremost swordsmiths of their day. Their 18th Master, Shigeyoshi I, is said to have made sword-furniture for the Ashikaga Shōgun (end of 14th century), but none of his work is known. Serious study of Umetada sword guards {tsuba} begins with the 25th Master, Miōju, or Shigeyoshi II; {b.1558; d. 1631}. His headquarters, as also those of the succeeding nine Masters, were at Kiōto, but he was invited to several provincial centres and exerted a lasting influence on the local schools.
A branch founded by Naritsugu (c. 1752) worked at Yedo, while various members of the family were active at other centres. The Umetada style in general is a skilful combination of chiselling and incrustation or inlay.

The daisho’s matching sayas are stunning, both with a highly complex decorative design pattern of pine needles laid upon black urushi lacquer, in a seemingly random pattern. But, in reality each pine needle was strategically placed upon them, when creating the decorative finish, with just a single needle, and just one at a time, to give the impression they fell naturally upon the ground from above, from a pine tree. The surface was then lacquered in clear transparent urushi lacquer to create a uniform smooth surface. in the Edo period it would take anything around a year or more to create a samurai sword saya, as the urushi lacquer coating would be anything up to 12 coats deep, and each would take a month to dry as they were made using on natural materials, not modern quick drying synthetic cellulose lacquers as used today.

The samurai's daisho, {his two swords title when carried within his obi} was named as such when his swords were worn together, and it describes the combination of the samurai’s daito and shoto {long mounted sword, and short mounted sword}. In the earlier period of the samurai, a daisho were comprising the matching of his long tachi and much shorter tanto, but in the later period, much more often, it was the matching of a combination of a katana and a wakazashi. However, some samurai may choose an alternative coupling of a katana matched with an o-wakazashi or chisa katana, or, even two chisa katana, but one sword was more usually mounted shorter than the other, despite the blades being of near equal length. This particular daisho that we offer here, is the combination of the latter type, that was specifically advantageous for a samurai trained, as was the famous samurai, Musashi, using a twin-sword combat method, of a sword carried and used together in each hand, simultaneously. For Musashi, this was a combat style that was undefeatable, when combined with his incredible skill.

Using a daisho of near equal length blades was the art of twin sword combat, using two at once in unison, one in each hand, the form as previously mentioned as used by the great and legendary samurai, Miyamoto Musashi, who reportedly killed 60 men before his 30th birthday.
Miyamoto Musashi 1584 – June 13, 1645), also known as Shinmen Takezo, Miyamoto Bennosuke or, by his Buddhist name, Niten Doraku, was an expert Japanese swordsman and ronin. Musashi, as he was often simply known, became renowned through stories of his excellent, and unique double bladed swordsmanship and undefeated record in his 60 duels. He was the founder of the Hyoho Niten Ichi-ryu or Niten-ryu style of swordsmanship and in his final years authored the The Book of Five Rings, a book on strategy, tactics, and philosophy that is still studied today.

Tsuba were made by whole dynasties of craftsmen whose only craft was making tsuba. They were usually lavishly decorated. In addition to being collectors items, they were often used as heirlooms, passed from one generation to the next. Japanese families with samurai roots sometimes have their family crest (mon) crafted onto a tsuba. Tsuba can be found in a variety of metals and alloys, including iron, steel, brass, copper and shakudo. In a duel, two participants may lock their katana together at the point of the tsuba and push, trying to gain a better position from which to strike the other down. This is known as tsubazeriai pushing tsuba against each other. A samurai's daisho were his swords, as worn together, as stated in the Tokugawa edicts. In a samurai family the swords were so revered that they were passed down from generation to generation, from father to son. If the hilt or scabbard wore out or broke, new ones would be fashioned for the all-important blade. The hilt, the tsuba (hand guard), and the scabbard themselves were often great art objects, with fittings sometimes of gold or silver. Often, too, they told a story from Japanese myths. Magnificent specimens of Japanese swords can be seen today in the Tokugawa Art Museum’s collection in Nagoya, Japan.
In creating the sword, a sword craftsman, such as, say, the legendary Masamune, had to surmount a virtual technological impossibility. The blade had to be forged so that it would hold a very sharp edge and yet not break in the ferocity of a duel. To achieve these twin objectives, the sword maker was faced with a considerable metallurgical challenge. Steel that is hard enough to take a sharp edge is brittle. Conversely, steel that will not break is considered soft steel and will not take a keen edge. Japanese sword artisans solved that dilemma in an ingenious way. Four metal bars a soft iron bar to guard against the blade breaking, two hard iron bars to prevent bending and a steel bar to take a sharp cutting edge were all heated at a high temperature, then hammered together into a long, rectangular bar that would become the sword blade. When the swordsmith worked the blade to shape it, the steel took the beginnings of an edge, while the softer metal ensured the blade would not break. This intricate forging process was followed by numerous complex processes culminating in specialist polishing to reveal the blades hamon and to thus create the blade's sharp edge. Inazo Nitobe stated: The swordsmith was not a mere artisan but an inspired artist and his workshop a sanctuary. Daily, he commenced his craft with prayer and purification, or, as the phrase was, the committed his soul and spirit into the forging and tempering of the steel.
Celebrated sword masters in the golden age of the samurai, roughly from the 13th to the 17th centuries, were indeed revered to the status they richly deserved.

Daito sword blade length tsuba to tip 24,5 inches, overall 36.5 inches long in its saya.

Shoto sword blade length tsuba to tip 24.25,
overall 34 inches long in its saya.

As once told to us by an esteemed regular visitor to us here in our gallery, and the same words that are repeated in his book;

“In these textures lies an extraordinary and unique feature of the sword - the steel itself possesses an intrinsic beauty. The Japanese sword has been appreciated as an art object since its perfection some time during the tenth century AD. Fine swords have been more highly prized than lands or riches, those of superior quality being handed down from generation to generation. In fact, many well-documented swords, whose blades are signed by their makers, survive from nearly a thousand years ago. Recognizable features of the blades of hundreds of schools of sword-making have been punctiliously recorded, and the study of the sword is a guide to the flow of Japanese history.”
Victor Harris
Curator, Assistant Keeper and then Keeper (1998-2003) of the Department of Japanese Antiquities at the British Museum. He studied from 1968-71 under Sato Kenzan, Tokyo National Museum and Society for the Preservation of Japanese Swords

Every single item from The Lanes Armoury is accompanied by our unique Certificate of Authenticity. Part of our continued dedication to maintain the standards forged by us over the past 100 years of our family’s trading, as Britain’s oldest established, and favourite, armoury and gallery

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