| 金山尽富 |
| KANAYAMA TSUKUTOMI |
| Kanayama Tsukutomi was a blacksmith from Tokyo and the blade pictured below was made by him in the 1940's or 1950's.. |
| This blade is marked down the center KABUTOWARI (reference to weapon*), and to the left MINAMOTO (Kanayama's nom de plume) and TSUKUTOMI-ZO (made by Tsukutomi) and to the upper right is the makers logo. |
| Kanayama Tsukutomi was an active 1930s -1940s Tokyo blacksmith who designed and forged his own blades for the traditional wholesale market and was a member of the Tokyo Blacksmith Union. According to his son, Tetsuo-san, his father also helped to fill orders a for several other blade makers including Chiyozuru Korehide. Kanayama Tetsuo-san explained on 2 separate occasions to me that his father sometimes worked behind the scenes anonymously as what was known as a "shadow blacksmith". In this capacity he took up the work of filling overflow orders for some blades for other blacksmiths and the wholesales who placed those orders. The tool wholesalers held a strong hand in the market and it was they who often owned the copyrights to some of the blade patterns and designs and they could in those cases accept orders and fill them as they wished. Now this seems like an odd claim that Chiyozuru did not make each and every one of his blades by his own hand but most blacksmiths did have several lines of tool, those that were single hand creations and those of lesser lines that were a general wholesale type that cost less but still carried their stamp. |
| Kanayama Tetsuo |
| His son Kanayama Tetsuo pictured above, was born in 1950 and has continued the craft and traditions of his father in his shop near Toyama. He has gained a reputation and following for his fine small kiridashi kogatana knives and large survival type knives. One of blacksmithing trademarks Tetsuo-san is known for is his inventive and artistic use of kamaji and watestsu. |
| Below Tetsuo-san is showing how to use a large wheel that was used for grinding out the ura on a kanna blade. The two wheels are nearly 5 feet in diameter and are impregnated with abrasive. These type of wheels were used for large production orders. I saw a similar wheel in the Ishido shop that was used for the same purposes. |
