Masamoto Sohonten VG Cobalt (VG Series) Yanagiba 270 mm

Masamoto Sohonten (正本總本店) is the knife house at Azumabashi in Sumida-ku, Tokyo, and is the holder of the MASAMOTO registered trademark. The company says a separate Masamoto business was established independently in 1951 and that the two businesses have entirely different products and organisations.

It began with Minosuke Matsuzawa, born to a blacksmith in Osawa, Bushu (Saitama Prefecture). He went to Osaka in 1862 to learn genuine knife forging, came home to Osawa in 1866 and began making cooking knives. The company's history says it was the first in the Kanto region to make and sell genuine tempered blade cooking knives, in 1874. In 1890 it opened in present-day Azumabashi, Sumida-ku.

The name came from Minosuke's mark: he engraved the masa character (正) on his knives as proof he had made them himself. When trademark registration began in 1884, the second generation, Kichizo Hirano, tried to register that character, but a knife shop in Osaka already used it. On business partners' advice, since the knives used genuine steel, he placed the moto character (本), part of the Japanese word for genuine, under it. Masamoto was registered in 1903 as trademark No. 20269.

The company lists six generations: Minosuke Matsuzawa, then Kichizo Hirano, who led the house from 1891, Sakichi Hirano, Masakichi Hirano, Morisuke Hirano, who was conferred the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, and Masahiro Hirano, the sixth generation. The company says only Masamoto Sohonten has carried on Minosuke's methods of hardening, tempering and polishing, and that its range grew from chefs' feedback. It marked its 150th anniversary in 2016.

The lines we list include White 2 Hongasumi (KS) single-bevel knives in yanagiba, takobiki, kiritsuke yanagiba, deba, mioroshi deba, usuba, kamagata usuba, mukimono and hamokiri, alongside KS sujihiki, petty and gyuto, including a K-tip gyuto. The White 2 Kasumi (KK) line includes deba, usuba, yanagiba and takobiki. White 1 appears in the KI Hongasumi yanagiba, Blue 2 in the Aoko Hongasumi yanagiba, and the honyaki yanagiba comes in both White 2 (HS) and Blue 2 (HA). The stainless lines include VG series gyuto, santoku, petty, sujihiki and honesuki, VG Cobalt yanagiba, and MV katana and kiritsuke shapes. The Swedish steel SW line includes gyuto, K-tip gyuto, sujihiki and petty.