Vintage Nihonto : Japanese sword: Fujishima Tomoshige katana (友重)

友重 Smith is Fujishima Tomoshige. Fujishima is the name of a place in Echizen Province and it is said that the first generation of Tomoshige lived here first then moved to KagaProvince later.

The founder of the Fujishima school was Tomoshige, a pupil of Rai Kunitoshi. His work dates to 1334-1338. Smith is Fujishima Tomoshige-mono or majiwari-mono. The characteristics of the swords of the Fujishima school tend to combine the traits of two or three of the Gokaden (five main schools). Some said that it brings Yamato and Soshu styles to mix.

Certain of the Fujishima smiths, and the later Sanekage school smiths, worked in one or more of the basic traditions and incorporated several of the characteristics of these schools into their work.

Tomoshige and Nobunaga tempered gunome-midare with sunagashi in nie-deki which reminds one of Sue-Bizen smiths and Nobukuni of Yamashiro Province. I have seen sugu-ha of Tomoshige and gentle notare of Nobunaga with hotsure and sunagashi. They normally forged ko-itame-hada or ko-itame-hada combined with masame. I have seen pure masame-hada by Nobunaga. Tomoshige occasionally makes wakizashi and tanto in kanmuri-otoshi-zukuri that was favoured by Yamato smiths. There are some extant works with the mei of ‘Fujishima Yukimitsu’. Yukimitsu tempered notare-midare and Kiyomitsu favour tempering chu-sugu-ha and hiro-sugu-ha, rather than gunome-midare. The production age of the extant works by Kiyomitsu is limited to the Genki and Tensho Eras.

Tomoshige line of smiths who had ten generations of the name during the Koto period and six generations up until the Shintoshinto period.