IanB

Matthew, That is indeed a curious decoration and not as far as I can see a kamon. As you say it may well be a compliment to the French military advisers. When the Japanese sent King James I (and VI) of England armours, one which was composite has dragons and clouds in those places which would normally have kamon. I have always assumed they did not either know or understand the heraldry used in England at that time and played safe. Ian Bottomley.

Alex, Although I have not bought a sword from outside the UK recently, but I went through the hassle a few times in the past. The first thing is to print off all the details of the advertisement and the sale price. It is important this states the age, even if it just says 'Edo period' and even if it is in Japanese. When shipped the customs will write and say you have been trying to import a prohibited weapon (in the case of a sword) together with a bill charged at 20% or whatever. You then need to write and state it is antique and should be charged at 5% and include the sale documents and proof of age. You will then get a refund, but it will often be several weeks or longer before you do. Ian Bottomley

There is far more to this story. Back in the Tensho era in an attempt to prevent Philip II of Spain sending Franciscan monks to Japan, the Portuguese Jesuit priests in Japan sent a delegation of four Japanese youths, who had been converted to Catholicism, to Spain to demonstrate how successful they were in converting the Japanese to their religion. Not only did they meet King Philip II, they then travelled to Rome and met the Pope, met with the Medici in Florence and visited Turin before returning to Japan. Wherever they went they gave gifts of armours and swords, the Duke in Turin being given an armour, and almost certainly there would be swords as well. I went to Turin and saw the helmet of the Tensho armour, but could not find the rest (however, Dr. Orikasa says he saw it when he went there). In addition to the do-maru shown above was an Edo era horse harness and l also saw a magnificent daisho on a superb katana kake when looking around the stores. As I said, I could not find the earlier armour nor any swords that may have been part of the original gift. Ian Bottomley

Udenudon , Whilst I do not buy and sell armours commercially, I am always willing to offer comments, except on price - which must always be a private matter between the buyer and seller. Ian Bottomley

You can always contact me here. Ian Bottomley

Fuuten, Sawari when used on armour was often applied as 'droplets' on the russet iron background to imitate raindrops. It was clearly a difficult effect to achieve. A helmet attributed to Ryoei in the shape of an egg-plant (nasu) in the Royal Armouries collection has been over-heated slightly causing what should be individual droplets to 'flash' and spread as a film over the surface. The term gama hada seems to be confined to its use on sword furniture. Ian Bottomley.

Axel,Sawari is actually an alloy of copper, tin, lead and arsenic. Ian Bottomley

Autodex, Please excuse a small fetish of mine but I normally like to know who I am communicating with. However, If you compare the two tsuba you will see the soft metal one is crisper and the cuts made in the signature are sharp compared with the somewhat blurred ones in the iron (?) version. If you look below the signature, almost in line with the first column, you will see two dots on the iron one that are not there in the other. There are other examples. In my opinion, and it is just that working from photos, the iron (?) is a copy. Ian Bottomley.

Greg, I have a data-stick with the collection on but have no idea which image numbers are the two daisho. If I get a bit to time I will see if I can find them among the thousands of items. Ian

If you visit Berlin you must include a visit to Peter's Janssen's Museum. The quantity, and more importantly the quality, of the items on display are staggering. It certainly rates as the finest collection of its kind in the Western world and you would find it difficult to find its equivalent in Japan. His curator, Martyna Lesniewska, has written a catalogue of some of the more spectacular and unique helmets in the collection, which she is planning to publish later this year. Her knowledge of the cultural significance of the decoration and shapes of many of the helmets is profound and there is no doubt it will become a classic work of the subject. Do not however imagine it is all armour. There are blades of outstanding quality and koshirae of such outstanding beauty and workmanship that you would expect to see only in the finest collections in Japan. For me the star is a daisho with shakudo mounts by Omori Teruhide of dragons in clouds - the saya done with the tachibana and Hosokawa kamon in gold. Even more rare is a daisho with fittings in opaque pale blue glass which if nothing else is possibly unique. Add to these dozens of other exceptionally fine koshirae, tsuba and other mounts and you will come away dizzy. Ian Bottomley

All, Fakes abound, not least on Japanese Yahoo. One way in which a lot of fakers fail is by omitting a proper 'neck' between the blade and tang. This should normally be concave and polished. I have noticed a good number of what at first seem really desirable ones that are of the forked variety, which I know as karimata, with a diaper pattern in gold nunome zogan. I got a bit excited by the first one I saw, and thank goodness I didn't buy it because I was broke at the time. Since then I've seen quite a few and they look good. I have never managed to acquire and fancy pierced shield-shaped ones, supposedly fretted out to minimise the effect of a cross wind, but I do have a selection of the armour-piercing variety that are often almost square in cross-section that were fitted to a bundle of arrows I once bought. A few are signed on the blade, with a kanji on each side, most of the others in tiny katakana characters on the tang. Ian Bottomley

I will try and find it. Ian

I once found a printed prayer paper sewn between the layers of fabric on a kote. Ian Bottomley

Justin, I have exactly the same problem. What they do is chisel the outline and details and then add the silver using the normal nunome zogan technique of cross-hatching the surface and applying silver foil inside the outline. Ian

Meikeru, Uwe has said it all. Mon, or rather kamon to be pedantic, became common on armour during the Sengoku Jidai and the gyoyo as well as the fukigayeshi on the helmet became an ideal place to display them. What is annoying is that so many are simply tied to the fastening cords on many armours and not being permanently attached have become lost. I have a pair on a late Muromachi do-maru that may or not actually belong originally but do match in style and apparent age. Another pair on an armour with a helmet signed by Nagamichi are actually hinged to the shoulder strap itself so I know they do belong.The first pair have no kamon but the latter, like many other parts of the armour, have a kamon in shakudo. What is rather nice is that the hinge pin on the latter is like a 'split pin' and is tied to the hinge with a thin silk cord so that it doesn't get lost. Ian Bottomley

Piers, I will try. O-yoroi lost their dominance following the Mongol invasion when galloping around on horseback shooting arrows had proved totally ineffective against an enemy who did not know the etiquette. As a result, the aristocratic samurai abandoned their traditional armour and adopted the do-maru (which were actually called haramaki at the time) that had been worn by their retainers and added to them the helmet, sode of their o-yoroi. This change was for the simple reason that the multiple kusazuri of the do-maru were better for fighting on foot than the four big ones of an o-yoroi and also eliminated the separate plate on the right, the waidate of the o-yoroi. Archery also lost its predominance in favour of staff weapons such as naginata and nagamaki. As has been said, the old sendan-no ita and kyubi no ita which worked well for archery, were replaced by the gyoyo that on a retainer's armour had been fastened to the side of the watagami and sat on the point of the shoulders. Ian Bottomley

Nothing ever is in this field. Suriage Bottomley

Something niggling in my mind prompted me to return to this thread and I was struck by the fact that the helmet illustrated on the now sadly defunct 'Samurai Armour Forum' also had a reinforcing plate riveted to the top of the front plate just in front of the tehen to stop the top of the plate springing upwards. Perhaps this was necessitated because the bowl was assembled with only four rows of rivets rather than five. I also decided to consult this smith in Robert Burawoy's work 'Etude du Meikan Zukan' where it states that in the Myochin genealogy Munehisa is described as being a pupil of Yoshimichi yet differs from Yoshimichi's work in signing on the front plate and using only four rows of rivets. He never seems to have used the name Myochin and it states he worked in Shimotsuke. In the Zukan is shown a helmet with this signature dated to Tenbun 5 (1536) and the suggestion that he was contemporary with Myochin Nobuie but was probably not a Myochin smith nor a pupil Yoshimichi but in all probability was an independent armourer. Ian Bottomley

Piers, point taken. Ian B

So far nobody, including myself, has alluded to or mentioned the kanji following -naga. I have had a good look for a possible reading and drawn a blank. It does not seem to be related to the helmet's making (such as SAKU), the maker's age, a title or clan name or anything else I can think of. Help!! Ian Bottomley

I've loaded the signature image into other software and applied filters and I am not wholly convince the first kanji is Teru.. It is possible that it is a bady written Mune.. and there are plenty of Munenaga to go at. Ian Bottomley

I have a scruffy old binocular microscope from the 1940's fitted to a long horizontal arm that allows it to be swung over quite large objects. It came in its original box with three objectives and three pairs of eyepieces giving me magnifications from around x10 to arround x100. Compared with the posh modern one you see in Ford Hallam's videos it is positively archaic but it works and that is all that matters. If you every see one, grab it. You will find it invaluable for working on small fiddly tasks as well as for examining objects like kodogu when you can see exactly how the artist created the effects they wanted. Having a 3D view can reveal so much more than a 2D image from a magnifying glass. Ian Bottomley

This really has me beaten. There are features that are unusual, not only the fleur-de-lis tail on the haraidate, but the single hole in the haraidate, the very large mabezashi held in place by a kind of zaboshi as are the shiten no byo, and most peculiar, the concave shape where the mabezashi meets the koshimaki. I am ignoring the rather odd shaped shinodare and higaki plates as they may well have been added later. My gut reaction is that it is a Myochin piece, but not mainline. Ian Bottomley

Uwe, Didn't we see a helmet where the haraidate ended in a fleur-de-lis recently or am I imagining it? Ian Bottomley.

Absolutely fabulous. When I was at the Royal Armouries Museum I borrowed a daisho pair of tsuba for an exhibition and the nanako was so fine the surface looked like black velvet - I just could not see the hemispheres at all without a lens. The infinite patience, as well as striking every blow with the same force, defies belief. Ian Bottomley.