Forged by Shosui Takeda of Takeda Hamono, in Okayama Japan.

This vintage Yanagiba was forged in 2008 in memory of an old mate of Takeda’s from Germany. In 2015, we visited Takeda’s workshop and stumbled upon this knife and 14 other knives, but all were in pretty bad condition from years of sitting around in the workshop not being taken care of.

After some pleading, Takeda-san allowed us to re-finish this Yanagiba, so we took it to a talented sharpener in Sakai that restored and improved the geometry from its original state. A lot of careful work was needed to not waste any of the rare Blue #1 forging from Takeda-san. (He normally works with Blue Super steel only) 

Then, Tosho's own Ivan Fonseca gave it the full Japanese natural stone treatment to bring out subtle characters in both jigane and hagane (cladding and core steel, respectively), elevating it to a whole new level. 

All of this took a lot longer than we hoped, but in the end, it was all worth it! We hope the lucky owner of this blade loves and cherishes this blade for years to come.