Go Yoshihiro

[klee]

Hello . I came across a some reading material and media that mentions the famous Go Yoshihiro.

 

Im still a bit confused since there are no signed works of him that exists and his blades are incredibly rare due to him passing at such an early age.

 

So how do they attribute a blade to him without any signed works to compare to ??

 

And are there blades that sit in attribution limbo with him also being a very faithful reproducer of Masamune's work ?

[Hoshi]

Hi Kevin, 

 

Great question. There is a tradition of attribution that goes back to the 17th century where respected appraisers wrote the name of the maker in gold inlay on the tang of the blade (Kinzogan). Some of the shortening were performed by this group, called the Hon'ami, and as a result they had access to many more signatures than we do today. The attribution "Go Yoshihiro" has a number of canonical traits (e.g., Ichimai boshi, first class nie, shallow sori, habuchi that increases towards the kissaki...) that have been studied since the Momoyama period. There is, of course, a substantial degree of uncertainty with attributed blades. Attributions on mumei works are best understood as "this is the most likely maker given what we know today" - and even more conservatively as a way to state that a sword expresses certain traits and a certain level of quality that is in line with reputation of a certain master smith. 

 

In this sense, there is a tradition of attribution that has been honed over generation of competent judges, based on ancient literature and oral transmission. I would advise caution on mumei Soshu blades to big names that are without Ko-Kiwame (old appraisal by the reputable judges) or established provenance from Daimyo collection with a high-level record of gift-giving. Makers during the Shinto era, such as Nanki Shigekuni or Shinkai came very close to Go, and one should always examine the sword critically. 

 

Best,

 

Hoshi 

Edited November 15 by Hoshi

[Tsuku]

On 11/15/2025 at 7:39 AM, klee said:

And are there blades that sit in attribution limbo with him also being a very faithful reproducer of Masamune's work?

There are about 40 Jūyō Gō and about half of those are den Gō. Of those, six are old daimyō possessions, two are meitō, two have Hon’ami Kōjō attributions. To this we should add the seven Jubun examples which are all denrai and mostly meibutsu. So as far as the gold standards we are indeed in rarified air here.

 

There are blades that passed Jūyō as Taima (recall that Taima can be very close to Yukimitsu) and Sanekage that were reattributed to Gō at Tokuju.

 

I also wouldn’t say that Gō was a “reproducer” of Masamune’s work. The original Sōshū group working in Shintōgo’s forge in Kamakura were Yukimitsu, Norishige, and Masamune, likely in that order of seniority. It seems like other smiths likely came and went as the school matured, and Gō has often been associated with Norishige as they were both from Etchu province. My mental model is more like a mixing pot of traditions and ideas than a strictly hierarchical structure, at least in the first generation. We do see significant change in working styles in these smiths. Early Yukimitsu looks like Shintōgo, and turns into something more flamboyant. Norishige’s iconic matsukawa-hada develops slowly over his career.

 

So I think perhaps Gō was following his own path, heavily influenced by the senior smiths around him of course. His work often has a little Yamato “seasoning” I think. There are blades that are attributed to Gō that have a distinct feeling of ideas from Yukimitsu, and especially Norishige and Masamune… but overall his work is characterized by being somewhat calmer in the chikei and kinsuji, but the jiba is always bright. The deki has incredible clarity. Despite the ichimai boshi being a kantei point, most Gō works do not have it. Certainly distinguishing between the top rank of Sōshū work can be difficult, but it can be accomplished….

 

Hope that helps.

[Rivkin]

The only early Soshu smith I personally would be exceptionally careful with is Masamune. There is a significant body of later 1360+ works which can move one way or another, but for earlier blades there is considerably better certainty, Sadamune, Yukimitsu, Norishige all having very arch-typical core body of work, so while there are "on the fence" examples, its not too great a problem. 

Go is also a relatively well defined cluster. Great (itame/ko mokume) jigane as most of the early Soshu, or possibly something more Yamato looking with masame; clear bright nioiguchi, wide and widening aperiodic notare filled with nie particles throughout. You would not see such width or widening in Yukimitsu, Sadamune tends to be a bit more periodic, the areas where hamon widens are  more wave like. Sadamune jigane is probably superior.

There are signatures in oshigata, but its an open question.

[Lewis B]

I'm not so sure Go was a "faithful reproducer of Masamune's work".

Some experts have postulated that he was not a Soshu smith at all and worked in Yamato. He could have been a journeyman swordsmith picking up new techniques that were being developed at that time. As Kirill says there are Yamato features like Masame in some of the blades attributed to him. Another theory says his father was Senjuin Yoshihiro, whose work clearly straddles Yamato and Soshu-den. Go is a bit of an enigma imo.

I think the historical attributions by various earlier Hon'ami appraisers, their oshigata in old books and blades with historical provenance are what guide modern day attributions. Has a Go ever been reattributed to Masamune or vice versa? As mentioned there are at least a couple of cases of Sanekage going to Go at higher Shinsa levels. Early Tametusgu when he worked in Etchu also has a lot of the Go flavour in the deki, but just not quite as accomplished as you would expect from Go and the sugata deviates somewhat. 

[eternal_newbie]

31 minutes ago, Lewis B said:

I'm not so sure Go was a "faithful reproducer of Masamune's work".

 

I remember Darcy Brockbank mentioning that there's a few pairings between the Soshu grandmasters and one smith from the generation below them who would often reproduce their style of work.

 

Masamune and Shizu Kaneuji: wild and bright hamon, intense and varied hataraki and ji-nie as far as the eye can see (Shizu is generally considered to be the closest to Masamune in style, even if Go is closer in skill)

Yukimitsu and Sadamune: finer, Awataguchi-like jigane, more sedate hamon, in a sense themselves shadowing Shintogo's style but with more experimentation and flair

Norishige and Go*: Influenced by their Etchu backgrounds and devoted to replicating ko-Hoki

 

* Go unfortunately died young and so was not around to learn from the later works of Norishige where he had perfected his matsukawa-hada. Nevertheless there are several later Norishige works that show distinctly Go-like traits; it's possible the influence may have gone both ways since they were close enough that, according to tradition, Norishige adopted and taught Go's son Tametsugu after Go's untimely passing. Lewis's comment about Sanekage sometimes being elevated to Go hints at the commonalities between Go and Norishige, since Sanekage is typically used as a "not quite a Norishige" attribution by the NBTHK.

 

 

[Lewis B]

If Go was a retainer for Momoi of the Matsukura Castle in Etchu Province, his responsibilities were split. The fact he achieved what he did, in the time he had to do it was nothing short of amazing. 

Norishige is said to have established a forge in the Neyama Fief, near modern day Nanto City, Toyama Prefecture. Thats about 78km from Matsukura Castle, typically a 2-4 day journey in 14th century Japan. So I imagine close enough that they could have had regular contact and to have influenced eachothers forging styles. Go would have been about 9 years his junior. 

The current ruin from the 16th century was built on top of the 14th century site, occupied in Go's time. The vantage point from the top of the hill is quite spectacular and you could easily see the strategic advantage it offered. 

[Rivkin]

4 hours ago, Lewis B said:

I think the historical attributions by various earlier Hon'ami appraisers, their oshigata in old books and blades with historical provenance are what guide modern day attributions. Has a Go ever been reattributed to Masamune or vice versa? 

That's reasonably common. "Classic" Go has not many options except go down to Tametsugu and the upgrade is probably Masamune. For Shizu it does not have togari, there is slight chance to go Sadamune, you can't go Yukimitsu because hamon is too uneven, Hasebe would typically be rather different jigane.

 

I do dislike dealers. They always write as if they've been family friends with most of the smiths, forcing them to keep in mind when Go's birthday is, and what did Masamune give him the last time everyone been drinking together. That rascal. They don't write "the earliest mentioning of Go is in X", "his birthday is first mentioned in Y".

 

Go, Sadamune, Yukimitsu and Norishige do have arch-typical different clusters; as a pure personal guess in terms of width of the hamon, which continuously increases with time in Soshu until hitatsura and Hasebe, Go is beyond Yukimitsu and at least in Sadamune's timeframe, but before Hasebe. His works are unusually compact timewise, but this might be relative because many others are unusually wide - Tametsugu, Yukimitsu, even Norishige.

 

Then again, nobody in Soshu was satisfied doing just the arch-typical, there are also many works that don't stick anywhere in particular and the early texts that everyone cites with respect to Masamune, somehow dismissing the fact they provide many names which disappeared from our mind because there are no signed examples... well, its not like there are many in Soshu overall.

[klee]

Thank you everyone for such great insight on the topic. I have very little knowledge of Shoshu so every bit of information is greatly appreciated 🙏🙏🙏

[Jacques]

On 11/19/2025 at 7:05 PM, klee said:

Thank you everyone for such great insight on the topic. I have very little knowledge of Shoshu so every bit of information is greatly appreciated 🙏🙏🙏

Take everything that has been said with a grain of salt....

[Tsuku]

1 hour ago, Jacques said:

Take everything that has been said with a grain of salt....

Kindly point out what I said that you feel like needs to be taken with a grain of salt (beyond the usual caution that anyone should exercise when dealing with poorly recorded historical events of 700 years ago).

 

Be specific, please.

[Jacques]

19 hours ago, Tsuku said:

Kindly point out what I said that you feel like needs to be taken with a grain of salt (beyond the usual caution that anyone should exercise when dealing with poorly recorded historical events of 700 years ago).

 

Be specific, please.

Brandolini's law.... 

How many swords from this swordsmith have you really held in your hands? Me, only one so i keep my loud mouth closed on the subject

[Tsuku]

5 minutes ago, Jacques said:

Brandolini's law.... 

How many swords from this swordsmith have you really held in your hands? Me, only one so i keep my loud mouth closed on the subject

 

Eight. I suspect that you won't believe me, but there's nothing I can do about that.

This is indeed showing the signs of rapidly following Brandolini's law, isn't it?

[Rivkin]

21 minutes ago, Tsuku said:

 

Eight. I suspect that you won't believe me, but there's nothing I can do about that.

 

Jeesh, you beat me at my seven. Photographed only two though.

[Gakusee]

Beautiful contributions by some friends above, who I know are fairly knowledgeable and I can attest they have handled numerous Go (as some of that was a joint opportunity). 
 

Elusive as Go is, they do come up occasionally in Japan and if one has the admittedly rare opportunity, they should study them. The nice organic hamon and clarity combined with the uruioi micronie in the jigane is beautiful. 
 

Apologies for the bad pictures below but this is what I currently have on my mobile below. I merely want to demonstrate with some photos the “connectivity” to Norishige (note that jihada in some of the Juyo Go photos below) and the lustre. That Go is not one of the most flamboyant but still educational. As Tsuki says, not as prominent chikei or very ostentatious kinsuji but they are still there. 
 

 

[Brano]

At last year's exhibition at the Shusui Museum of Art in Toyama there were 3 blades with the Yoshihiro attribution
The photos are not the best, the blades follow each other in a rightward motion

https://eu.zonerama.com/Nihonto/Photo/12422673/496973394

[O koumori]

Thanks for the images - beautiful!

[Lewis B]

The quality of blades attributed to Go are on a different level. This one went Juyo and was polished by Andrew Ickeringill

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1994822754423622&set=pcb.1994826924423205

 

 

 

[klee]

Amazing quality photos . Thank you for posting this @Lewis B

[klee]

just saw this on Aoi 

 

https://www.aoijapan.com/katanamumei-attributed-to-den-masamune-nbthk-tokubetsu-hozon-token-consignment-sale/

 

very thin and lots of ware but still cool to see anything related to Masamune / Den Masamune come up

[Sebuh]

Very cool and exciting whenever Masamune comes up publicly, will be staring at this piece for awhile. Was about to start a w hole other threat about it!

[klee]

Would love to hear from the experienced, knowledgeable soshu den members what you think made the NBTHK lean Den Masamune over other attributions.

 

It certainly must have been big decision

 

@Rivkin @Tsuku @Hoshi @eternal_newbie @Gakusee @Lewis B and anyone I missed

[eternal_newbie]

13 minutes ago, klee said:

It certainly must have been big decision

 

I think this is one of those cases where there are enough features of Masamune (relatively heavy ji-nie and wild hamon activity, even after being polished down to a toothpick, and kinsuji/inazuma so thick they look like black rivers flowing through the hamon) that they were willing to honor the existing Honami attribution with a "den". Given that the attribution was personalised for the previous owner and references an old koshirae, there was probably some provenance and/or politics involved in the original attribution that may have made a "Masamune" judgement more likely.

 

Were it to go to Juyo there would be more opportunity for them to add one of the usual qualifiers like "this is certainly the work of a high level Soshu smith" or "theoretically a Masamune attribution is valid" but given the blade's condition compared to other Masamune-den pieces there's a good chance it won't get that far.

[Rivkin]

I appreciate the question, but it is difficult for me to offer anything definitive.

First and foremost, I am in anti-Masamune camp.

Any other major smith - Yukimitsu, Norishige, Hasebe, if you take them out and try to write the history of Soshu, it does not make sense anymore. You can write a Soshu book without showing a single Masamune piece and you'll be perfectly fine. 

You also seldom will hear from a high end person "it papered Sadamune but its really X" or "its papered X but its really Sadamune". Note: leave dealers aside.

 

With Masamune you hear that constantly. There is no 100% consensus of what Masamune actually is and is not.

That is not to say there was no great smith who today is attributed as Masamune - the "fukure master" with crazy nie work, but he was relatively late (1330-1345?), did not work for a long time and did not produce many pieces.

Then ofcoarse there are suguha works signed as Masamune, which is another, opposite end of the spectrum.

And then there are works with relatively narrow hamon, but which is rich in nie, structured as long, winding "belts", and it can have ara nie and tobiyaki. Jigane tends to be a bit rough and large featured. That feels like the type of work we see here. And really not the best example of that. You can see those as done by someone who studied under Shintogo and made considerable changes in both hamon and jigane, but did not really go into later Soshu like Go and Sadamune... but sugata-wise such pieces don't necessarily fall into the "early" category.

Will this one be Juyo? Probably not.

Is it really Masamune? Hm.... There are many books that state "you can't mistake Masamune's work with anything else", but they offer very scarce hints regarding what makes it unmistakable.

If this blade is resubmitted today, can it draw something like Sanekage? I don't know. 

 

 

[Brano]

51 minutes ago, Rivkin said:

 

If this blade is resubmitted today, can it draw something like Sanekage? I don't know. 

 

 

TH papers are paradoxically from August 2024

[Lewis B]

Excellent points. According to historical references there was a signed Masamune blade, dated 1314, so he was active for several decades.

The condition of this blade will almost certainly hold it back. Very speculative pricing for a blade that, taken on its own merits, is far from appealing. 

This is the best 'Masamune' that I've seen on the open market. Very healthy and I think this is worthy of its attribution at Juyo level, also with early Honami family papers. The distribution of Nie is quite distinctive.

I doubt there would be Sadamune without Masamune's influence. Their style from what I can tell is quite distinctive compared to the other contemporary Soshu grandmasters. Who else had such control of Nie distribution? Of course with so much cross pollination of ideas and technology a great deal of overlap should be expected. Norishige with his Mitsukawa hada is probably the standout Soshu smith offering a unique style later in his career.

 

 

 

[atm]

It is somewhat rare when a Masamune comes to the open market. I certainly enjoy looking when they come up. But as others have said, Aoi Art's Masamune leaves a lot to be desired. In addition to the photos, there are plenty of hints in the listing about its condition.

 

This is not an entirely fair comparison since they have much different asking prices, but compare Aoi's Masamune with the TJ Masamune tanto that @Ray Singer has available for sale: link. The latter has a far superior condition, TJ papers, and Honma and Tanobe sensei sayagaki confirming the attribution. If you are among the elite who can afford to buy a Masamune attributed blade at 42M JPY, you are probably also able to buy the much nicer tanto.

 

This is not intended to be a slight to Aoi either. I think a lot of dealers would love to list a blade attributed to Masamune, regardless of its condition. It is a consignment sale, so Aoi is doing its job by listing what their client is offering. It is obviously working as we are drawing attention to the listing. Even if it does not sell at auction, I cannot imagine this blade sitting unsold for years. Someone will buy the attribution (and overlook the condition).

[Lewis B]

That tanto is magnificent. It’s the first time I’ve seen it so thanks for bringing it to our attention. 

[Rivkin]

The tanto looks like A+ item even in photos.

Going back to passionate discussion we had a while back, the person who stated there are no collectibles below TJ actually responded to a request to bring TH Masamune to an exhibit. In many ways he was right, there are TH Masamune where in the best case you hope for a few fukure which make it non-Juyo grade. In the worst... the attribution is something many people would not affirm.

Edited Tuesday at 09:14 PM by Rivkin

[Gakusee]

From memory, that tanto was Norishige at Juyo but on passing TJ they upgraded it to Masamune. If you read the setsumei, they expend a whole three sentences (proportionately for a setsumei that is a very substantial fraction of the text) explaining why they have changed their minds away from Norishige. I have only seen it behind glass but it is an amazing blade. Simply beautiful. 
 

The Aoi blade…. Well I think it is more likely a Tametsugu or a very very rough Norishige, but as Rohan explains above, there must have been some politics involved to upgrade it historically to a Masamune. It just does not look right for a Masamune in either nioguchi or jigane or hataraki. 
 

However, I shall leave it to others to explain why the workmanship is not fully aligned to the Masamune paradigm, hence the “den”. It has been a long day at work for me… 
In my view it is problematic that the NBTHK do not issue papers with attributions “Soshu ju no Saku (Kamakura)” or “Soshu ju no Saku  (mid Nambokucho)” etc at H/TH level. So as they don’t do that, hence the den Masamune, which is a bold call on this one.