Nihonto Club

Hi Allen,

Hawley lists 2 Tanehiro: TAN10 and TAN11. Even though it may be the same smith. I found an oshigata for TAN10/11 in Shinto Taikan [1] which looks very similar to your photo. I've updated the records for TAN10/11 with everything I was able to find about these smiths. It's not much though.

Regards,
Stan

References

Nice. Thanks Stan. The sword is pretty interesting in itself, but I think it would be more interesting to find out about the smith himself. Unfortunately I can't seem to find anything on him; this site has the most thus far. Job well done and keep up the good work

Hi Allen,

If you find more information about Tanehiro, please post here or add comments to the smith records. That will keep the knowledge growing!

Stan

Hi Allen,

When I was looking for information on Tanehiro, I was thinking it might be worthy of investigation to check the fact that he was also using the name Ichita. Having a looked at the smiths working in Hirado at that time, it may be the case that Tanehiro also used different names. It's not easy to find works of Tanehiro and it would be very helpful if you could post more photos of your sword (you may attach them to your original post). I'd like to check if it shows the workmanship of (the last generations of) Hirado Sa or other Hizen schools of that period.

Regards,
Stan

Stan,

Are there any specific parts of the sword that you would like to see?

Allen

Hi Allen,

Ideally I'd like to see:

1) full tang (the photo you submitted doesn't show the tip of the tang)
2) overall shape of the blade
3) the tip of the blade (with boshi)
4) close-up of hamon somewhere in the middle

Regards,
Stan

sorry for the long wait. havent been on in a while. ill upload the pics now

Hi Allen,

That's great. I'll look again into my notes and reply in few days time.

Regards,
Stan

Hi Allen,

The sword appears to be the work of the 2nd generation Tanehiro (TAN11). As I mentioned earlier I had a suspicion that it might have been the case that Tanehiro signed with different names. There was some exchange between Hirado and the famous neighboring Hizen school of Saga, and I was wondering if different names active at that time were the same smith. After looking at your sword which clearly shows Hizen workmanship, this idea can be neither confirmed nor disproved. If I find something new about Tanehiro, I'll write about it.

Well, thanks for posting the photos. It looks like a nice healthy blade.

Regards,
Stan