Shigeiye Shinshaku Wakizashi
S0211
SOLD
A massive shinsaku wakizashi signed Shigeiye, and dated Heisei juni nen go gatsu hi (a day in May, 2000). Hirazukure, iroi mune. Hawatare: 1 shaku 2 sun 1.4 rin (36.8 cm or 14.48"). Motohaba: 3.37 cm. Kasane: 6.1 mm. Hiroi gunome midare in nie deki. Sunagashi and hataraki. Small mune yaki. Boshi is slightly midare, a sharp turn back with a long kaeri. The jigane is itame nagare, chikei. A very hade blade. Mounted in shirasaya with a good silver foil habaki.
His name is Shimizu Shigeiye and he was a student of Sakai Ikkansai Shigemasa who was Mukansa. Shigemasa was one of Kasama Ikkansai Shigetsugu's main students. This Shige kanji is distinctive of their line. My understanding is that Shigeiye lives in Saitama or at least was up until a couple years ago. You can find him listed in the Kasama Lineage in the back of "Modern Japanese Swords and Swordsmiths" by Kapp and Yoshihara.
Explanation of kanji by Mr. Akira Takasu.
Why the form has changed the
character of "繁" is explained.
A samurai is desperate.
Therefore, the ill-omened thing avoided as much as possible.
The portion at the upper right of the character of "繁" is the character "攴" a
long time ago.
Since this character was meaningful in being shot, the samurai disliked it.
It changed to the character "Hoko."
An upper left character is a mere contracted form.