did most Samurai have a set of swords by only one smith?

[kusunokimasahige]

Hello all...

 

does anyone know (historically) whether Samurai had their swords usually made by one smith, or were there also Samurai who had a katana made by one smith, a wakizashi by another and a tanto by yet another smith?

 

KM

[pcfarrar]

http://home.earthlink.net/~steinrl/ronin.htm

 

Looks like it was fairly common for Samurai to have wakizashi/katana by the same smith using the 47 ronin list.

[kusunokimasahige]

wow, i did not know the swords of the 47 ronin were documented at all!!

 

do any still exist in modern collections??

 

KM

[Jean]

Interesting Article which is neither complete nor conclusive

 

In fact if we learn from this article that roughly 16/100 of the 47 ronin were wearing a daisho with a similar signature (Norinaga, Kunisuke, Norimitsu ..), We lack data from this descrption if they were the same smiths, all these smiths names are very famous and were used for generations, but :

 

- We do not know from the description if the mei were shoshin or not

- We do not know if blades were forged by the same generation smith

 

So I'll be cautious about the statement.

 

If I remember one of the sword was offered by the Lord and the other one has to be bought by the samourai.

 

Not an easy task to get another sword by the same smith futhermore if this one was very famous (too expensive for the common samurai.)

 

True daisho (referring to blades) are seldom found and when submitted to shinsa are on the same kanteisho, I remember Darcy solding one a few years ago.

 

Most time, you will find false daisho, meaning swords forge by the same smith but at a different stage and not meant to match the first one).

 

Daisho koshirae are more frequent than daisho blades