Master bladesmith Murray Carter is a 17th-generation Yoshimoto bladesmith, one of a handful of people who can officially trace the lineage of their training back to one of the traditional bladesmithing families of feudal Japan.
Master bladesmith Murray Carter is a 17th-generation Yoshimoto bladesmith — one of a handful of people who can officially trace the lineage of their training back to one of the traditional bladesmithing families of feudal Japan.
“I believe he is the only Caucasian Japanese bladesmith,” says Joe Kertzman, managing editor of Blade Magazine. He says Carter may rank among the top 10 living bladesmiths in the world, and easily among the top 50.
After 18 years of making blades in Japan, the Nova Scotia native packed his shop into a 40-foot container and moved to Oregon in 2002. Carter’s relationship with steel goes further back — all the way to the Dark Ages or 1982, depending on how you measure it.
