Honami Kōtoku and the Establishment of the Origami Certification System — Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Sanctioned Authority on Sword Appraisal

Honami Kōtoku was a sword appraiser active from the Azuchi-Momoyama period into the early Edo period. Around Keichō 1 (1596), he was recognized by Toyotomi Hideyoshi as the authority to carry out official sword appraisal and valuation as the touken kiwamedokoro, and he established a system of issuing appraisal certificates in the form of origami (folded papers). This system became the starting point of Japan’s culture of ranking and grading swords and had a decisive influence on sword culture as a whole.

Honami Family and Kōtoku’s Career

The Honami family was a lineage whose household trade, said to date back to the Nanbokuchō period, was the polishing, cleaning (jōshoku) and appraisal of swords. For generations they served the shogunal house and the daimyo houses as sword connoisseurs. Kōtoku was the ninth head of the main Honami line and succeeded his father, Honami Kōsatsu. He had such a strong appraisal eye and talent for organization that he is regarded as the restorer of the family (chūkō no so). His historical significance lies in establishing sword appraisal as an institutionalized specialist field, not merely in being a single craftsman.

Kōtoku’s dates are given as Kōji 2 (1556) to Genna 5 (1619), and his active years spanned the times of the three great unifiers: Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu. His descendants and successors also inherited the main Honami line and kept the family’s standing as sword appraisers throughout the Edo period. The authority Kōtoku built was not limited to one generation. It was institutionalized as the Honami family organization and maintained through successive generations. Its historical significance lies in this: it went beyond individual virtuosity and functioned as a lasting system.

Kōtoku was deeply trusted by Toyotomi Hideyoshi and is said to have served as an adviser on Hideyoshi’s sword collecting and gift-giving policy. In the process of unifying the realm, Hideyoshi had to manage the many famous swords that had been presented by daimyo or confiscated from them, and he relied on Kōtoku’s eye as a specialist who could judge their authenticity and value.

Hideyoshi’s rule coincided with the period when weapons were collected from the common people under the Sword Hunt Edict (Katanagari-rei) of Tenshō 16 (1588). Under a regime in which the state sought to control the possession and circulation of swords on a national scale, the existence of appraisers who could professionally judge the authenticity and value of famous swords gathered from the daimyo had practical importance for the government. The background to Hideyoshi’s trust in Kōtoku is thought to lie in this administrative need for sword management.

The Honami family’s original trade centered on polishing blades and wiping them clean. Kōtoku greatly developed the function of appraisal (mekiki), judging authenticity and value on top of that trade, and raised the family’s position from mere technicians to an authoritative appraisal house. Kōtoku also inscribed appraisal marks in gold inlay (kinzōgan) or red lacquer on the tang (nakago) of unsigned swords. Today these are prized as “Kōtoku zōgan” and as important clues to a sword’s provenance.

Establishment of the Origami System

Around Keichō 1 (1596), Hideyoshi formally appointed Kōtoku as touken kiwamedokoro. He is said to have granted him a square seal inscribed with the character “hon,” together with the authority to record the value of swords in origami (two-fold appraisal certificates). This is considered the beginning of the origami system.

Origami were issued for high-value swords. Later, origami were limited to swords with a valuation (daitsuke) of five ōban or more. The existence of an origami itself functioned as proof of first-class quality. Many origami issued by the Honami family bear the date “Mikka” (the third day). This is said to derive from the day on which Kōtoku was appointed touken kiwamedokoro, and from the practice of the branch houses gathering at the main house on the third day of every month to conduct appraisals by deliberation (uchi-yoriai).

Origami recorded the smith’s inscription, confirmation of authenticity (shōshin) and dimensions, along with the appraised value converted into money (daitsuke). The system went beyond a simple authenticity judgment and served as a public guarantee of the economic value of swords. In this respect, the origami system also functioned as market infrastructure for circulating swords as art objects and property.

Succession and Development Under the Edo Shogunate

The Honami family’s authority in appraisal was carried over to the Tokugawa shogunate after the end of the Toyotomi regime, and it continued as a sword appraisal house throughout the Edo period. The Kyōhō Meibutsu Chō, compiled under Tokugawa Yoshimune, is an important document that systematically records famous swords. It was built on the Honami family’s accumulated appraisal records and origami, and it is positioned as an extension of the appraisal system Kōtoku established.

The Honami family also continued the polishing and wiping techniques as part of its household trade, and remained involved in preserving the value of Japanese swords through both appraisal and polishing. Throughout the Edo period, origami functioned in warrior society as proof of sword sales, gifts and rank. They also played an important role as a tool for displaying status in gift rituals between daimyo houses.

For daimyo houses, possessing famous swords together with their origami meant more than mere property. It was also a means of outwardly showing the dignity of a gift from the shogun or a family treasure handed down from ancestors. For this reason, the daimyo houses paid the Honami family fees to have origami issued.

Significance and Limits of the System

The origami system was a groundbreaking mechanism that evaluated Japanese swords by objective standards and made their value visible. At the same time, it was a structure in which authority concentrated in the appraisal judgment of a single family, the Honami house. As a result, while the Honami family’s judgments were treated as absolute, problems also arose. These included the arbitrariness of evaluations depending on the family and, in later times, forgery and overissue of origami. Even so, with the establishment of the origami system, Japanese swords came to be valued systematically, moving from mere weapons to art objects and cultural properties.

Influence on Later Generations

The framework of the origami system and the touken kiwamedokoro established by Honami Kōtoku is positioned as the intellectual source of the modern sword authentication system of the Nihon Bijutsu Tōken Hozon Kyōkai (NBTHK), including its ranking of Hozon Tōken and Tokubetsu Hozon Tōken. This holds even after the dissolution of warrior society through the Sword Abolition Edict in the Meiji era. The event in which a single appraiser was given official authority under the great unifier Toyotomi Hideyoshi is the institutional starting point at which Japanese swords came to be treated as cultural properties bound up with national authority. It remains important in the history of Japanese swords as the origin of the mechanism by which swords are valued to this day.