Aoe sword hunt

While working on Sword Database I occasionally do deep dives into the works of a particular school or smith. Not too long ago I recorded 99 Awataguchi swords (the number may grow by the time you may be opening this link) in various books/magazines/internet articles. Recently I found a good number of swords of Osafune Kagemitsu - this is an interesting one because Kagemitsu left many signatures with dates.

My next target is Aoe school.

This is a placeholder page where I will be tracking my progress.

Swords by school

Aoe

Ko-Aoe
Chu-Aoe
Sue-Aoe - none recorded yet

Ko-Aoe

I'll start with Ko-Aoe smiths.


Aoe Nobutsugu 延次 vs 信次

It appears that Meikan (and derived sources) lists Nobutsugu using 2 readings, 延次 and 信次:

Nobutsugu 延次 NOB92 <--> Nobutsugu 信次 NOB540
Nobutsugu 延次 NOB94 <--> Nobutsugu 信次 NOB541
Nobutsugu 延次 NOB96 <--> Nobutsugu 信次 NOB542

Ko-Aoe mumei swords

Senoo

Zuikan records

Ko-Aoe: p. 861-875 [1]
Chu-Aoe & other: p. 875-895 [1]


References

  1. Nihonto Zuikan, Kataoka, Ginsaku , Volume Koto, Tokyo, p.1067, (1984)

All Bitchū smiths cross-checked against NMK, Sesko

I went through all 555 smiths from Bitchū province and reconciled them against Nihonto Meikan and Sesko's Index of Japanese Swordsmiths.

This is a good foundation for further research on Aoe, but for the moment I'm switching to Ichimonji :-)