Help With Mei (two smith sword)

[cookiemonstah47]

Greetings,

 

I am looking at this sword (in person) with two smith signatures. One is slightly obstructed. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Khalid

 

 

[cookiemonstah47]

[Jussi Ekholm]

I am just on my phone so I cant help that much now but it seems to me that the smiths are 綱広 Tsunahiro & 則広 Norihiro (they use this old style Hiro 廣)

[mecox]

Khalid,   no.2 katana-mei,  looks to be XXX Minamoto Norihiro  (with old "hiro" 廣 noted by Jussi.  Possibly is Sagami no Kami (from Sesko):   

NORIHIRO (則広), Jōkyō (貞享, 1684-1688), Settsu – “Niwa Sagami no Kami Minamoto Norihiro” (丹羽相模守源 則広), “Sagami no Kami Minamoto Norihiro” (相模守源則広), real name Niwa Den´emon (丹羽伝右衛門), he came originally from Kii province and belonged to the Ishidō school, dense ko-itame, hiro-suguha or chōji

 

                　　

[cookiemonstah47]

I would like to ask a couple of educational questions:

 

1) What is "old Hiro" indicative of?

(I presume the kanji character changed.)

 

2) What does "Sagami no Kami" mean?

 

Also I attached an inverted photo of the first mei.

 

 

 

[eternal_newbie]

4 minutes ago, cookiemonstah47 said:

(I presume the kanji character changed.)

 

Correct. The "old-style" hiro kanji is 廣, the "new" kanji is 広.

 

4 minutes ago, cookiemonstah47 said:

What does "Sagami no Kami" mean?

 

An honorary title given to a Sagami smith. For more information on how these worked, Markus Sesko has an excellent writeup:

 

https://markussesko.com/2013/02/19/how-honorary-titles-were-conferred/

[cookiemonstah47]

Is this reference correct?

 

https://nihontoclub.com/smiths/NOR84

[mecox]

@cookiemonstah47  Khalid,   about your top blade (below) I have not had much luck.

Upper kanji is rusted but it looks to me like:    紀伊國綱廣    "Kii no Kuni Tsunahiro"   but cant  find him.

 

However, there are similarities to others like " Kii no Kuni Yasuhiro"     but its only guessing.

 

                                                                       

[cookiemonstah47]

I just wanted to take a minute to thank everyone that has taken a look at this sword for me. It came home with me today. I'll try to take some really nice photos of it once it's cleaned.

Edited December 18, 2025 by cookiemonstah47