Looking at Tanto

[Ooitame]

Hi all,

 

I was recently looking at a few Tanto and was surprised by the prices. Is the high price on average from lack of supply, makers, ownership restrictions, etc...?

[AlexiG]

1 hour ago, Ooitame said:

Hi all,

 

I was recently looking at a few Tanto and was surprised by the prices. Is the high price on average from lack of supply, makers, ownership restrictions, etc...?

Hi Eric,

 

are you asking why the price jumped of a specific tanto you are interested in? Or are you asking why a tanto you like is expensive? My cursory look as of late is that only prices in USD jumped as the USD/JPY exchange rate changed substantially over the last month, but the prices in yen are still the same, from what I can tell.

 

As you probably know, a tanto from a well-known smith/school may cost you very dearly depending on quality and condition. It indicates you have a good taste

 

Best,

Alexi

[Ooitame]

Hi @AlexiG,

 

 

Thank you for your reply and cursory search. I do like Soshu and Bizen, which does not help with price. Rather, I mean overall, for example most Tanto rival or exceed prices of Wakizashi. 

[nulldevice]

25 minutes ago, Ooitame said:

Hi @AlexiG,

 

 

Thank you for your reply and cursory search. I do like Soshu and Bizen, which does not help with price. Rather, I mean overall, for example most Tanto rival or exceed prices of Wakizashi. 

Simply put katana, tachi, and tanto command the most money and are the most collectible items typically. Even though they’re smaller than wakizashi, many top smiths only made tanto and many national treasures are tanto. 
 

the same can’t be said for wakizashi. Hence the difference in price. It’s not about the amount steel but the original intent and artistic/functional execution of the smith. 
 

tanto usually are ubu and retain their mei and we don’t have to imagine much if the tanto is healthy. It’s all still there. 

[Ooitame]

Thanks @nulldevice, that makes more sense.

[Bugyotsuji]

Also tantō were only made in certain eras, e.g. not much during the Edo Period when wakizashi were more common. More likely made when they were functional. There’s a Masamune tantō in the Hayashibara Museum of Art that allegedly cost more than a million US, if my memory serves me.

[Bugyotsuji]

Yes, just found the photos from 2013.

Named blade, the “Kuki Masamune”.

 

On display at Hayashibara Museum of Art, Okayama.

 

 

[ROKUJURO]

They will probably offer a discount in case you take two of them! 

[Lewis B]

Unfortunately, unlike for modern blades you're not paying per mm.

[Bugyotsuji]

A long blade can be a wonderful thing, but with a Tantō you can get some of the Smith’s finest work concentrated in one place, a sort of cameo, with no repetition. 

[Hokke]

At the end of the day I think it all comes back to charging what people will pay versus a scale based on attributes contained within in a length and weight. Im not saying thats right or wrong, just how it seems to me. Imagine though if nihonto had specific pricing based on the total length an attribute was present. Yikes

[Mikaveli]

Just looking at one Japanese dealers (TM) website:

 

Tanto price range, 250k - 500k yen (these happen to all be shinshinto).

Wakizashi, 350k - 1.2m yen

Katana, 600k - 3m yen

Tachi, 6.5m - 20m yen.

 

Admittedly a micro-benchmark, but data none the less.

 

If we compared similar era and smith, does it hold that tanto are more expensive?

 

Or, are people just looking at older tanto, more comparable in price to tachi around the same age (and quality/ maker)?

[Rayhan]

Some of my favorite Tanto smiths on one page 

 

https://nihonto.com/category/for-sale/swords/tanto/

[Mikaveli]

2 hours ago, Rayhan said:

Some of my favorite Tanto smiths on one page 

 

https://nihonto.com/category/for-sale/swords/tanto/

 

4.6m yen for a Nambokucho, Juyo tanto...

 

Tempting, can someone lend me 4 million yen! 😂

 

[Mushin]

In general, as an obsessive daily visitor to dozens of dealer's websites, I notice that top-class tanto are increasingly difficult to find, especially Oei and earlier. They occasionally pop-up, but the quality is often less than good. And finding zaimei tantos in decent condition even from the Muromachi and Keicho periods with really nice koshirae that weren't thrown together as an afterthought are also difficult to come by. Not saying that they aren't out there, just that they seem nowhere near as "plentiful" as they were even five years ago. Scarcity as rule doesn't generally help pricing. What lies behind this apparant shortage, I am not sure. Don't know if this is true, but I have heard that over the last decade, many older Japanese collectors have traded in their daito for tanto as they are easier to store and enjoy for aged hands and eyes. Might partially explain the shortage in addition to the fact that just fewer were made compared to other sizes. As I am a mainly a tanto collector, I have long ago embraced the idea that ofttimes less really is more. In the meantime, here is a great example that Fred Weissberg just posted on Nihonto.com, a mumei Juyo Sa Yasuyoshi with wonderful koshirae. I was fortunate to see this in hand in Chicago. Wonderful piece and a great package, but at a price.

[Lewis B]

The 3 on Nihonto.com are some of the best currently available online. 

 

 

 

 

[Bugyotsuji]

Of course you could say, and many do, that a wakizashi is a good way to enter the field. You can often find excellent work by a good smith but in a relatively affordable package. If the blade itself is everything to you, find something in shirasaya.

 

When you feel more confident, or when your slice of bitcoin has gained tremendously in value, you can branch out into longer or shorter.

 

Bobby above mentions why older people in Japan might be collecting tanto. Certainly it was traditional for households to have a last symbolic tanto. And I too have found myself gravitating towards tanto, my 'collection' now down to one last koto wakizashi, plus one koto tanto and three shinto/shinshinto tanto. All with koshirae, and all bar one papered.

[Mushin]

Not shilling for any dealer, but thought in the spirit of sharing and illustrating my point, here is one of those really nice Keicho Shinto pieces that I was saying rarely comes around these days. Like I said, they are still out there just harder to come by, especially at this price. Though Hida no Kami Ujifusa is loved for his wild-feeling midare hamon, he did do lovely work like this in suguha as well, often copying works by Rai smiths. I think the package is extremely nice and I can honestly say this is more or less a price you would have been asked to pay 10 years ago. Not a bargain basement deal but decent bang for buck. 

https://eirakudo.shop/203187

[Mark S.]

It was many years ago, and I am sure I have missed a bit of meaning with my poor memory, but at a Chicago Show presentation of blades, Bob Benson once said something like “a smith had to put extra care into making a tanto because you can see the quality or flaws all in a single glance.  A long blade may vary a bit along its length, but a tanto must be perfect.”

[Hoshi]

Hello, 

 

From the middle to Kamakura period to the early Nambokucho, great many tanto were made to the highest level of quality and intended for the warrior elite and the aristocracy. The customer base was exigent, and hence the quality was supremely high. The tanto was a specialty of the Awataguchi, Rai, and Soshu schools.

 

Tanto from this period and by these schools rank very highly and command high prices. 

 

Here you can see why, this is a tanto attributed to Soshu Yukimitsu. Notice the quality of the jigane, with rich ji-nie, and the soft nioiguchi that covers the ha like snow. In my opinion, the best tanto offered online at the moment. As said earlier, tantos cycle slowly as they are kept by aging collectors to be appreciated late in life. It takes a lot of time and learning to appreciate tanto sincerely, not out of memetic desire. 

 

Collecting tanto is somewhat of an older collector's thing, with business done in person, with the great ones rarely ever hitting the public markets. When they do hit the market, the prices are not for the faint of heart. Here is a sublime tanto by Rai Kunimitsu, sold for 240'000$, hammer price. 

 

Hope this helps, 

 

Hoshi

[Rayhan]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and state that Bizen Kagemitsu is the greatest of the tanto makers. Followed by Shintogo Kunimitsu. 

 

(OK ready for firing squad) 

[Lewis B]

1 hour ago, Rayhan said:

I'm going to go out on a limb here and state that Bizen Kagemitsu is the greatest of the tanto makers. Followed by Shintogo Kunimitsu. 

 

(OK ready for firing squad) 

Hard to define 'best' as these makers worked in different styles but were equally accomplished in technique. I would also say Rai Kunimitsu should also be up there. He and Shintogo Kunimitsu are regularly referred to as the best Tanto makers. As representatives of their respective schools I would say these 3 are the pinnacle of whats been accomplished.

[Mushin]

Hard to disagree with you Rayhan, but then there are the Awataguchi brothers, Rai Kunitoshi and Kunimitsu, then all the early and middle Soshu Smiths. The degrees of excellence in their small blades are often astounding and offer a wide appeal to various tastes. The TokuJu Norishige that just sold was, IMHO, the blade of a lifetime. So hard to choose the best. Also important to remember that tanto were almost always special order, often by higher ranking bushi and nobles, so the work was usually above average. And like Benson was quoted as saying, small canvases are less forgiving so the work has to rise to the occasion. That said, I am clearly biased.

[Hokke]

1 hour ago, Mushin said:

Hard to disagree with you Rayhan, but then there are the Awataguchi brothers, Rai Kunitoshi and Kunimitsu, then all the early and middle Soshu Smiths. The degrees of excellence in their small blades are often astounding and offer a wide appeal to various tastes. The TokuJu Norishige that just sold was, IMHO, the blade of a lifetime. So hard to choose the best. Also important to remember that tanto were almost always special order, often by higher ranking bushi and nobles, so the work was usually above average. And like Benson was quoted as saying, small canvases are less forgiving so the work has to rise to the occasion. That said, I am clearly biased.

I would say that coin has two sides. It seems reasonable that yes, a smaller canvas will make any flaws and messy work more noticeable, however, the smaller the work area, presumably the easier it is to create a billet without flaws. It’s very much like a diamond. It’s very easy to find smaller diamonds that are flawless than it is larger, which is why two flawless 1ct diamonds will never be as valuable as a flawless 2ct. More area, whether it be steel, canvas or mineral, the higher likelihood for flaws. Additionally, it is far less time consuming to scrap a billet and start over on a small piece of steel than one which has been drawn out daito length. 

[Mushin]

Not going to disagree with you Hokke. Yes, flawless katana will fetch higher prices than a flawless tanto by the same smith most days of the week. And market prices for longer swords in general are higher than tanto. But there is also no doubt that after daito, tanto are most in demand, second in price and are fewer. I can't comment on how much easier it is to work with a smaller billet than a larger one as I have no experience forging Nihonto. From experience with pottery, I will say that making smaller vessels presents very different challenges than throwing larger ones. I don't think one is "easier" than the other, just different. That said my and (I assume) Mark's main point is that in a longer sword, a flaw can be better hidden than in a tanto, which as you point out would more than likely have to be scrapped if one appeared as there just isn't enough steel to conceal it. Personally, what I love about tanto is the ease in which the entirety of the blade can be appreciated and studied. I also find that the nie, especially in older works, are often more predominant and spectacular in smaller works than longer ones. Just my observation. And when I comes to older blades, the beauty of tanto for me is that they are ubu more often than their longer counterparts, and therefore better reflect the smith's original vision than a suriage blade does. That said, I have many suriage blades that make me grin when I look at them. As the old proverb goes, "'It's all a matter of taste,' said the boy after kissing the monkey's bottom."

[Steve Waszak]

Just wanted to chime in here to say that I am really enjoying this topic and thread, and very much appreciate all of the excellent observations, insights, and viewpoints.  

[Tsuku]

On 5/2/2025 at 3:22 AM, Rayhan said:

I'm going to go out on a limb here and state that Bizen Kagemitsu is the greatest of the tanto makers. Followed by Shintogo Kunimitsu. 

I’m not personally the greatest fan of Kagemitsu.

 

Awataguchi smiths, especially Yoshimitsu, the core Sōshū group (Yukimitsu, Norishige especially), and Samonji should all be mentioned here as well.

[Jacques]

Personally, I'm not competent enough to say whether this or that swordsmith is the better tanto maker. There comes a time when you have to stay in your place or risk making a fool of yourself. 

[Rayhan]

1 hour ago, Jacques said:

Personally, I'm not competent enough to say whether this or that swordsmith is the better tanto maker. There comes a time when you have to stay in your place or risk making a fool of yourself. 

Then say nothing, please