[ Feature ]
Form : Shinogi-zukuri. Iori-mune. Both mihaba and kasane are ordinal. Shallow sori attached. Chû-kissaki more or less extended form.
Nakago : Suri-age. Yasurimes are kiris. Saki is kiri. Three holes.
Horimono engraving : Both on omote and ura sides, there are bô-"hi"s with soe-"hi"s.
Jigane : Ko-itame-hada well grained. Part by part, itame-hada mixed. Jinie attached. Chikei appeared.
Hamon : Chû-suguha. Nioi-kuchi is distinctive. Ko-gunomes and ko-chô-ji mixed. Nezumi-ashis appeared. There are changes in uchi-noke shape.
Boushi : It runs in shallow notare. Then it turns in komaru in somewhat tsuki-age. Saki has a little haki-kake.

[ Highlight ]
Pale red signature on nakago is hard to read by bare eyes. Both in tôrokushô register paper and certificate paper say no signature mumei. By color photo imaging, it can be read them as "延寿國吉" on omote side, "光□︎(花押)" on ura side of nakago. The sword is magnificent like kotô sword but one can observe its youthfulness. It is consentable attribution to MIYAMOTO Kanenori. Deep taste jigane and calm hamon are so fine.


MIYAMOTO (or surname SUGAWARA) Kanenori was born as second son of brewer at Ô-kaki Takeda village Hôki county (current Ô-kaki Kurayoshi city) in Tenpô 天保1(1831). He intended to create swords, in Kaei 嘉永 3, he became pupil of YOKOYAMA Sukekane. He became hired swordsmith of Chiba-no-suke ARAO, the chief retainer in Ansei 3(1856). He offered his sword to Kômyô Ten-nô (in same year). In Keiô "慶応" 3(1867), he was titled as Noto-no-kami "能登守". In following year, he accompnied with Arisugawa-no-miya the house of Imperial prince, created the swords at the front camp. After SANJYÔ Munechika, he visited and stayed Inariyama Tsurugi-ishi, then created the tachi of Meiji Ten-nô, offering swords of Inari-sha shrine and others. After Haitōrei Edict, he temporalily backed to his home town and manufacture farmers' tools. Meiji 18 later on, he created and offered tachis, hokos, kabura etc to offer Ise jingü's dedication of new shrine. He copied and created Shô-sô-in treasure swords with HIOKI Kanetsugh and ISHIDÔ Kazumitsu. He was appointed to create several swords, such as Atsuta Jingû shrine goshinpô tachi, Yasukuni Jingû shrine kens "御宝剣", Iyo shô-kon-sha kens "御宝剣", etc. He created many omamori-gatana guardian swords for Kô-zoku imperial families and the nobility. With the help of Imperial Japan army minister TERAUCHI Masatake, by the U.K. army minister demand, he created hakashi "佩刀". In April Meiji 明治 39(1907), He was appointed to a member of the Imperial Arts and Crafts Expert same as GASSAN Sadakazu. In Taishô 3(1914), as an order of Ministry of the Imperial Household, he created and offered copy of futsu-no-mitama-no-tsrugi divin sword of Yamato Iso-no-kami Jingû shrine. He had wide range of creation, such as gunomes, Bizen-den, Sô-shû-den, Yamashiro-den and Ayasugi-style. He lived longer, 97 years old. Till his end, he created swords vigourously. In Taishô 大正 3(1914), he was so energistic for creating swords even in his 85 years old. He established the distributiion association of swords "製作刀剣頒布会" in order to protect the country and nation for long time.
Referenced materials : " Ilustrated Nihon-to terms dictionary" KAJIWARA Kotoken, "Nihon-to meikan" ISHII Masakuni, supervised HONMA Kunzan (Yuzankaku publishing), "Kanzan swords school vol.1" (O-tsuka-kogei-sha publishing), "Nihon sword whole history vol. 7" KAWAGUCHI Wataru (Rekishi Tosho publishing)

[ Conditions ] There is a flaking of ura side tsunoza(ivory) which surround mekigi nan hole. There is tiny pale rust.