HITOFURI Japanese Sword Letter Opener: Open Letters The Samurai Way

How many letters do you receive these days? Not many, I would imagine. With that said, a good letter opener is probably not on most people’s “to-buy” list. But that does not stop Nishikan-san from embarking on a journey to create the ultimate letter opener.

But what exactly makes for the “ultimate” letter opener? Obviously, that would be a Japanese sword. Created using traditional Japanese sword craftsmanship by Hiroyasu Ando of the famous Bizen Osafune school of Forging in Okayama, the HITOFURI Japanese Sword Letter Opener, as it is called, is essentially a scaled-down version of a Katana.

You need not have a lot of letters to open to be wanting this letter open because it is a display-worthy piece in itself. Man, just look at that thing. It is a thing of beauty. Combine that with the sword stand, it is practically a collector’s item. No letters? It does not matter. I’d say it is the perfect unofficial companion to the Montegrappa Samurai Fountain Pen from a few years ago.

You got to appreciate how Hiroyasu Ando managed to use the age-old swordsmithing techniques to make such a small piece of stationery that is significantly smaller than the ko-wakizashi, a backup or auxiliary sword carried by samurai of feudal Japan.

Unfortunately, this is a Japan-only product, currently available from the Japanese crowdfunding website Campfire. However, if you are a resident of Japan, you can secure a unit by pledging for a product with at least 13,950 yen (which is about US122) of your hard-earned money.