Miura

Hi Colin, Thanks for letting me know. We have a rule on there about listing elsewhere, but sometimes sellers offer individually or take it down to list elsewhere which is fine. I also like to see how wide the client base is reaching. I believe that you don’t have to be on facebook to see some of the posts as its not a private group. Not sure if you can participate/interact, but you can carouse the page if you have an internet connection. Authentic Samurai Arms and Armor Sales Page https://www.facebook...ups/208940831882776/

Hi Colin, Just out of interest, did you find that set for sale on my facebook group? It was for sale there until it was sold I believe. Id just like to know if people are finding the page ok. Thanks.

I do believe that one of the photos above is mine, though it is in a museum and I havent seen if for quite some time.

When I was young, I knew a guy who always started fights and then blamed it on other people. In Japan they have the saying “boketsu wo horu” - which means “dig your own grave”. Why do you have to continuously go after people. 1. Ill thank Henry for explaining about Miura Anjin. Yes, thats basically the way my name was changed. Miura sensei told me to use that name. I discussed it with him as I careated my LLC using that name. Its the name of my trading company for christ sake. And yes, there is a connection to William Adams in the history whether the bloodline is direct or indirect. I am just the person carrying on the tradition that came down from the Edo period, though that was inherited by a long line of rather famous artisans. 2. Yes, I do have a lot of issues with you. But it has nothing to do with Miura sensei. You met him for all but 20-30 minutes because I was kind enough to introduce some of the important people in my life to you. This has proven to be a terrible mistake. One of the biggest mistakes in my life to trust you. The meeting with Miura sensei amounted to this: 1. I introduced you. 2.You gave him some sake and beer which I told you to buy for him as a present. 3. you showed him some of the lacing that you made on a shoe lace machine. 4. Miura sensei said “its wrong”. You said, “why?”. He said, “no front, no back”. Then you asked to take a photo with him so that you could say you met him and say that he praised you, which is not true. 5. we left. That was EXACTLY how the meeting went. What you didn’t know was that I really had to say some nice things to Miura sensei about you for him to meet you because he didnt have time for you. This was a grave error on my part. He was absolutely NOT impressed with your lacing, and did not see any of your work. 3. You do not now how I write. I think you are mistaking “how I write” with "things Dave Thatcher is afraid to be confronted with." The number of people who know what is actually going on with you is growing. 4. There is a lot of my work on instagram and facebook. I even show how to do urushi. And I did a bunch of Lacing tutorials so that people can see how easy it is, and do it themselves rather than ask other people to do it for them. When you took an afternoon of my life to teach you the simplest thing of putting legs on byo. I walked you thoughand taught you and took you to the specialized tool shops to get the necessary tools, and when you went home, you said you couldn’t even do what I told you. Waste of my time. You came in to my library, and asked to see my work. You were so jealous, you took a photo when I was not looking to try and defame me later. People should never even allow you in their orbit. the old Japanese saying “ada uchi” or more specifically; “on wo ada de kaesu” - to "return indemnity with vengance” is a perfect slogan for you. ******I never showed Dave Thatcher any projects that I was in the middle of. The one time I allowed him in my workshop, I put away all the commission work or anything I was working on. I have strict rules about keeping my work confidential. Dave even claimed to having a meeting with me that never occurred. I have not answered emails or made contact with him for a long time now. I wonder what else Dave Thatcher claims happened with myself or others that never actually took place.

Yojimbo = Mifune = Date Masamune = Botanmaru = Samurai Art = Dave Thatcher = KNKBSK Lets stick to one ID here “Samurai Art"

1. Its funny, in one of your other recent posts, you spoke of how great some of the other Katchushi’s work was as your used their names to bolster your own attempts. So you used a very short meeting with them to bring yourself up, but then you defame them here. Whats wrong with you? 2. Does your son know that you are speaking of him here? Does he even know he is studying under you? He should probably be warned of how hostile the environment has become since you started. Its why a lot of the actual professional Katchu shi have stopped teaching people so liberally and are keeping to themselves. On this I CAN speak for others. So if he wants to train over here….. 3. From all the tutorials you tried to give me on your shortcuts which used chemicals that do not match with real urushi, and your uses of cashew etc. , I would wonder what the heck you have compiled. What I took many years to learn, is a culmination of a thousand years of history and improving the art. 4. Who is your teacher? In your previous topic, you basically said that there is nobody to learn from in Japan. I will state here, the techniques for Iron and Leather are very different than with wooden bowls and other products that urushi is used on. Though sometimes there is an overlap. 5. On my instagram account miura anjin samurai art where I teach various urushi and lacing techniques, also facebook, you can see some of the people that I support with free adverts showing to their shops and website addresses. Watanabe shoten is one of them. So if you want information try there. All of this was done voluntarily to support the community. 6. Rawhide….. you just have to know what your are doing. Of course they didn’t make kashi gusoku over three years! It is however a different art, and different armor specialists made it. 7. ITS A MURO not a FURO. A “furo” refers to a bath tub.

Hi Dave, I heard you invoked my name here. So I felt like answering this while waiting for the airplane. 1. You got the names of the urushi wrong. 2. You got the ingredients wrong 3. You are not retired. If you are a professional and not an amateur, who trained you? 4. Who are the posers you refer to, and give an example of their monstrous works. Im sure they could give quite a few examples of yours. 5. If there are no books on the subject, how did you learn? You have not spent enough time in Japan to learn. Who taught you? 6. There are indeed quite a few books AND tutorial videos. My students read them. But you have to do your homework and be able to read Japanese, and or find a qualified mentor. You can also check my instagram page where I have done quite a few tutorial videos showing various steps for the process. 7. Mr. Nishioka, who I consider a friend, is not taking any more apprentices from what he told me a couple months ago. Thanks to people like you I think he is turned off to the idea of having internationals in particular. The other armor makers do catch wind of what is going on with the foreigners by the way. And they dont like it. He also expressed to me that he is worried that there will not be enough work for people in the future. Keeping the number of workers necessary to the demand put forth by the economy is a very responsible thing for a teacher to do. currently all of his students are Japanese. You spelled his name wrong -TOYOTA san is not a teacher. Please stop calling him sensei. In Japan to call somebody sensei they must have completed a body of work in their field and make a living in that field, or be a professor with students, or have written works of note as a professional in the field. Toyota san is a hobbiest, who works on armor when he is not busy being the president of a company or volunteering his time for small displays of other people’s work. He realistically does not have to teach students and is not a professional armor maker. His work is mainly limited to several Kozane style yoroi/haramaki and very little iron work, which is what katchu shi specialize in.

I'd say this is a good call. Correct this is modern. Did you make this Gary? Or did you purchase it? Something like this can be seen in the north part of Japan in Sendai, Fukushima etc. Its related to the Shingon religion. In this case Fudomyo. For Hachiman - Daibosatsu you would usually not see such a sword design. Sometimes it is seen on a kuwagata though, paired with Kasuga and Amaterasu (Ise). But you would have had to have done your homework to know such nuances in religion and art, and whoever made it was probably an amateur. Knowing Japanese history, religion, art, manufacturing techniques is what makes an expert an expert. Keep that in mind when you make your purchases, and if you don’t trust yourself, find somebody who knows what they are doing. You can check my resume on Facebook.

Good legitimate, lower ranking armor. Early Edo 17thC. You can buy something like this in the $2,000 range on my facebook sales page. Sometimes with shipping included. So I would estimate it around that. Auction houses tend to charge a lot for the fees usually between 15-20% so buyers should think about this. I sold a rather nice armor on my page (a kaga suit) for around $1,000 but the urushi was only so so and it was out of the barn condition. This one is in somewhat nice condition so that should also be taken into consideration. There is your favor Brian. Id be on here more often to help if you didnt let people defame me and then lock the thread.

Let me see if I can upload to facebook. You know what Ill put it up on the authentic samurai arms and armor sales page (facebook). Need to get it sold. If somebody wants an excellent example of a leather Iwai Mempo they have a chance! Most iwai armors have the mempo lost because they are so nice. Then they get replaced with light weight Leather mempo from a different armor...... Anyway, have a look.

I have seen signed examples by Iwai made from the same form. The mask that I have on my instagram for sale is from the same school and had a very similar kabuto with it. These types of armor are made with super thick leather. Most of them date to the mid 1800s.

Hi Graham, Hmm... could be old. Or could be somebody made it in the last ten years or so. Messaged you a couple times recently by the way. Getting my messages?

I think we are getting over suspicious here.... sometimes it helps to have better photos though.

The toppai from that auction is absolutely hilarious.

Oh god no! They totally ruined that Iwai kabuto. Why!!!

Dont know about you guys. Looks prety good to me. If you are interested, you can follow Jess' adventures in samurai culture on Facebook and instagram. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jessintokyo Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessintokyo/

By the way, the helmet and mempo are very recent manufacture.

Here is somewhat of a sad story. Back in February of this year a group of artifacts from a relatively famous sengoku period samurai started popping up for sale on Yahoo, local auctions etc. I did what I could to get a hold of the armor pieces as I knew they had significance because they belonged to a huge guy. Around 2m in height huge. All of the items had the same family crest on them in the form of a gilt coppery brass kanamono that was a very unique christian kamon. VERY sadly, the dou which originally was decked out with these decorative mons all over had been vandalized by a faker who wanted to put them on a composite armor composed of some original pieces and this fake helmet. That way if they all had the antiqu mons on them it would look like a non-composite armor. But it was done at the expense of an important christian daimyo's armor. Just another reason you should support properly trained restorers.

no.

Those were the good old days. When the large Ginko tree that the last Minamoto shogun was assassinated was still standing. Yes a bit too early. But a good time to visit. 😉

Thank you. I consulted Tsurugaoka Hachimangu shrine in Kamakura for the sale of the armor. It is now the main attraction at the shrine museum. I wonder if anybody here has visited the museum and seen it...

Thank you. I really liked the cinematography actually. I think they still play it on ANA flights.

This is not the best Advice to give to the young man. What you should say is: "Learn your stuff so that when a GOOD yukinoshita dou and a GOOD akoda comes your way as a mismatched set, you will hand over your money and know you got a good deal." this of course would be the opposite if they were bad.

Hi There. In short, yes. If not done properly. The "coffee shop prop" armor was a complete strip down. At the point that I found it, it was in such bad shape, I would never recommend anybody to try to save it. Leaving it the way it was would have resulted in it only getting worse over time. I had a short time and a zero budget. Rather than make an armor, I took the basket case that was sitting around in the window and made it into something beautiful and representative of the company. Something that looks like the painting that hangs on the wall. So people could see what an edo period armor would have looked like when it was new done in the same way. Total re-do and made to look like something else than it originally was. To address your query though, yes, armors can be ruined with bad restoration. Especially with epoxies and other things that dont jive well with the original materials. We have a saying with armor. Urushi is alive. urushi expands and contracts with the seasons. Epoxies, resins, fake urushi does not. What happens over around 5 years is when the urushi starts to "breathe" and the parts dont, then it starts to crack and pop and de-laminate. The sad part is once this is done, it cant be removed without a total strip down. Another way to ruin an armor with a restoration is by not knowing what is proper for an armor, sometimes its a cultural mismatch, sometimes its stylistically anachronistic or a mismatch of styles. If you are well trained you will know and be able to do the proper restoration or replacement. the armor I showcased here was a re-make more than it was a restoration. Though it was done traditionally.