An excellent important Tanto published in the Shinto Taikan
With Superb Aikuchi Koshirae with highly detailed Fittings and Shirasaya.
Blade is Katakiriba with horimono of Ebisu
From the Shintō Taikan (新⼑⼤鑑), page 450
Signed: Heianjō-jū Fujiwara Tokikuni – Dō Inshū Tottori kore o tsukuru
(平安城住藤原刻国・同因州⿃取作之)
– “Made by Fujiwara Tokikuni, resident of Kyōto, in Tottori in Inaba province”
Nagasa 28 cm, sori 0.3 cm, motohaba 2.8 cm, kasane 0.55 cm, omote side in hira-zukuri, ura side in
katakiriba-zukuri, tall iori-mune, ubu-nakago with sujikai-yasurime, a flat nakago-mune, two mekugiana, and a kurijiri. The jigane is a standing-out itame, the hamon is a hoso-suguha that somewhat
tends to kuzure in places, and the bōshi displays a ko-maru-kaeri. The omote side is engraved with a
koshi-bi and above that with a bonji, and the ura side with the three-dimensional nikubori relief of
Ebisu in a round vignette. The blade is overall of a classical style, and we have here an early work
of the smith who later went by the name Tadakuni (忠国, died 1666).
