Japanese Folding Tanto

The tanto is the shortest blade in the classical Japanese sword hierarchy, historically worn alongside the katana and wakizashi as the personal dagger of the samurai. At 15 to 30 cm blade length, the tanto's compact format concentrates the full range of Japanese blade construction quality into a small and intensely detailed collectible. A folding tanto - built with fold-forged or clay-tempered construction - brings the highest traditional craft standards to the small format, creating pieces that reward close examination with the same technical sophistication found in larger blades.

Japanese folding tanto in this collection include T10 clay-tempered pieces with visible hamon, shirasaya tanto in natural wood housings, Damascus steel tanto with layered patterns, double-edge tanto variations, and both traditional and contemporary configurations. The compact blade length makes folding tanto exceptional display pieces in cases or on small stands where a full katana would be impractical. For related collections, our tanto blade and shirasaya tanto collections offer further tanto format options.

A Japanese folding tanto is one of the most technically impressive pieces in the Japanese sword collecting category relative to its size. The full range of traditional construction techniques - clay tempering, fold forging, hamon - applied to the compact tanto format creates a collectible that concentrates quality into minimum dimensions.