IanB

Mark, Since Ieyoshi used the kanji ..義. I think we can definitely rule out the Haruta as Sasama lists only Shimizu Chubei as using 家義, although It is worth saying that the list of armourers recorded by him and anyone else is far from complete. The kanji Ie... was not especially popular among the Haruta, only two smiths being listed as using it, One never actually signed Haruta but was claimed to be an Haruta in their genealogy, the other seems to have been linked to Ikeda Terumasa and seems to have mainly produced tsuba. Two other points about your helmet I think are interesting: Firstly not all, but a large proportion of the helmets by professional armourers have what are known as shiten no byo - anachronistic protruding rivets that originally protected leather ties for the helmet cord knotted through holes below the rivets. This helmet does not have them. Secondly, when the lacquering process was carried out, the suji or ribs would be applied using hemp cord stuck in place that was subsequently given all the undercoats and finishing lacquer layers. In this case note that the person doing the lacquering has not bothered to level the tameshi dent but run the cord into the depression. Ian Bottomley

Uwe, You have proved me wrong about honorary titles on armour. As I said something I have never seen before so I stand corrected. The old rule is never say never when it comes to armour. I wonder if Ietsugu was related to Ieyoshi. I have a helmet signed Ietsugu but by the Soshu Myochin guy. Ian Bottomley

The Haruta armourers were one of the oldest to sign their work and did indeed originate from Nara. They made 62 plate helmets, as well as others with fewer plates, that are generally fitted with a concave peak above which is a tsunamoto for attaching a front crest or maedate. Their 6 and 8 plate helmets again had a tsunamoto. I repeat that the most curious feature of your helmet is the honorary title in the signature. Something I have never come across on any other piece of armour. This virtually precludes it having been made by a professional armourer. Ian Bottomley

Mark, An interesting helmet bowl, which as you say, has been 'modernised' during the Edo period to look like a 62 plate helmet. You say it is signed by an Ieyoshi. As Uwe has said, much depends on the kanji used for -yoshi which is not visible in your photographs. If the kanji is 吉, Sasama (in Shin Katchushi Meikan) lists two smiths. One is a Saotome Ieyoshi which this isn't, and a Sagami Myochin smith, who made multiplate helmets rather like derived akoda nari bachi with gilded fukurin over the suji and igaki around the base of the bowl, which again this isn't. A far better bet is a certain 家義 whose real name was Shimizu Chubei who may have been a professional armourer, or who may have been a samurai who made helmets as a hobby. He is recorded as having made an 8 plate helmet in collaboration with the swordsmith Iga no Kami Kinmichi who worked in the early Edo period. The latter was the person who arranged honorary titles for swordsmiths and since this helmet maker had a title this seems significant. On the whole armour makers were regarded as the lowest of the low since they handled leather, but helmet making was considered OK and quite a few bushi indulged in the hobby. The fact that the helmet is tameshi is also about right as contrary to popular opinion, modern research suggests the gun only became a significant weapon during the Korean invasions. And by the way, the shape is goshozan - that is a 'high sided bowl that is raised at the rear'. Ian Bottomley

Dwayne, I have had a couple of these over the years and both had signatures of 'Masamune' as well as the signature or the real maker - both of which were Mino smiths if I remember correctly. Clearly they are nothing to do with breaking helmets. They are almost certainly sword catchers with a useful spike. Ian Bottomley

Dear Anonymous, Yes typical, a common style of mounting these things.. How old is another matter. Ian Bottomley

Bit tricky this one as I haven't time to struggle too much, but there is the date Koka 2nd or 3rd year there - 1845, 1846 as well as Edo and the name which looks like Yukimasa. Sasama doesn't list anyone of that name but that means little. Could you supply images of the helmet and another shot of the inscription and I will have another go. Ian Bottomley

Having been a member of this Forum for years, I thought it long overdue to write a short note of thanks to Brian and all of those other members who freely contribute by sharing their knowledge and experience with others. The study and appreciation of Japanese arms and armour is a complex subject, the study of which is complicated by a labyrinthine terminology, and to most of us, a complex foreign language. I well remember my early days of collecting when the only source of information available to me was Basil Robinson's 'Primer of Japanese Sword Blades' and how I struggled to understand something of what was being described in its pages. Forums like this have opened the door for so many on a wonderful world of study and interest. THANK YOU BRIAN AND ALL WHO HAVE CONTRIBUTED YOUR HARD WON EXPERIENCE. Ian Bottomley

Jason, I would also suggest you take Uwe's wise advice and perhaps leave this alone. Permanent maedate, that is fore-crests, are not unknown but think of the problem of fitting this helmet into an armour box. Ian Bottomley

I agree - half past six o'clock last Tuesday. No real mask has any hardware exposed inside as it would rub the face. Ian Bottomley

I'm afraid I must agree, Pinterest is a pain in the a*s. It might pull up a couple of interesting images and then floods page after page of what it considers comparable items. Goodness knows what algorithm it uses to work out what is 'related', but it isn't anything I would recognise. Ian Bottomley

Rokujuro, As someone who has worked with metal in an amateur way all my life, I do have a little empirical knowledge and have machined, and tried to machine, quite a lot of castings. I also know that craftsmen everywhere develop techniques that maximise their productivity. There is a delightful Youtube video of a guy making the beads for soroban that illustrates this perfectly. Basically he has a hand driven spindle which protrudes through an angled plate on which he pops a rough bead and then slides a blade along the plate. It takes seconds to produce the shaped beads what would be quite tedious to make any other way. There is no doubt that there are vast numbers of tsuba made by forging a plate and decorating it by piercing, chiselling and filing, but there are also a large proportion, of which some of the more delicate sukashi tsuba are examples, which would involve considerable labour to make considering the amount of metal that would need removing. Modern tsuba makers resort to piercing saws to produce this kind of tsuba - something they did not have in the past. We know that kettles were cast and decarburised, so why not use the same process to turn out the basic forms for tsuba? They would need additional work to finish them, but at least a large amount of labour would be eliminated. Having said all that, I have no proof whatsoever that this is what was done, other than Yahoo Japan quite often has tsuba for sale with bits broken off. I once owned a sukashi tsuba of drums and lightening which had a section that had snapped off and had the broken edges filed smooth. Had this tsuba been forged iron, it would have bent and could have been easily straightened. I suspect it was incompletely decarburised. What this whole saga needs is as you say a metallurgist to cut up and examine some junk tsuba. Ian B

Rokujuro, Yes I think there is. First there is the hoary old tale (can't remember the precise details) where a spear-man advocates putting the tsuba in a rice mortar and selecting those that don't break when struck by the pestle. Since the pestle and mortar are wood, this is a clear indication that the tsuba being tested were brittle - i.e. cast iron. Any tsuba of forged iron would at the very worst when subjected to the pounding would bend not shatter. Secondly - the so-called bones that are revealed by wear on the rim of some tsuba. I am convinced these are simply small regions of the original cast iron that have not carburised, and, if you think cast iron is soft but brittle, it isn't always. Anyone used to machining the iron castings knows what happens when the metal chills when being moulded. It forms white cast iron where the carbon fails to crystallise out and forms an alloy that will take the edge of a hardened steel cutting tool and can just about be machined with a carbide tipped tool. Ian Bottomley

Sand casting would not be practical for an item like a namban tsuba as the columns left in the mould that would form the perforations would just collapse when hit by the molten metal. . I used to have a book, which was stolen years ago, written around 1900 that dealt with the Arts and Crafts techniques for making jewellery, but which had a big section on Japanese techniques written by someone who taught at the Tokyo School of Art. The casting technique he described was to model the object in wax and then cover it with a coating of fine clay mixed with paper fibres. Over this was a thicker layer of clay mixed with straw. Before casting, the mould was heated to red heat, melting out the wax, but also burning out the paper fibres and straw to leave a porous mould from which gases could escape but the metal could not, ensuring the metal filled the mould and finest details. I have advocated for years that a lot of tsuba were made this way, the resulting cast iron being converted to malleable iron by subsequent heating in iron oxide. Ian Bottomley

Gary, The helmet is probably Meiji period. I say this for two reasons: Firstly, what would have been stencilled leather on the peak and fukigayeshi of an older helmet is in fact cloth dyed with the same patterns used on these leathers. This was a short-cut you see on Meiji copies for the tourist trade. Secondly the scales of the neck-guard are rather large and only notionally lacquered - again a dodge to save the long and tedious process of lacquering real scales. Nevertheless, an interesting helmet that has some age that would make a nice display. Ian Bottomley. .

I have a tanto koshirae with a drawer instead of a blade for carrying money. All the fittings are stag antler and it is virtually identical to one illustrated in the book of Edo period tanto koshirae,on p45 - the top example. The only difference is that mine has carvings of feathers as menuki. I also once had a long wakizashi with a horn drawer concealed inside the cavity for the blade. You had to hook a fingernail into a little notch just inside the koiguchi. Ian Bottomley

Uwe, I also wrote on FB that the Shige- written as above is listed in Koop and Inada 'Japanese names and how to read them' as an acceptable variant for 重. Ian B

Uwe, I suppose it is worth comparing Okisato to Hankei who switched from guns making to swords. Despite the similarities, switching trades seems to have been rare. About 25 years ago I took Yoshindo Yoshihara to York where there was an exhibition of European armour on. After seeing it he expressed the wish that he could make a European style helmet. I said 'why not you are a metalworker with a forge and tools'. His reply was that it would not be possible as he made swords and that was that. Ian Bottomley

The above image is a little unusual in that the tachi or katana is often shown pushed through the tsurumaki. Today, kyudo practitioners still use them for carrying spare strings. Ian Bottomley

The one on the right in the above photo looks like a working replacement. Notice how the flower-shaped washer is thicker and does not sit against the mask as well as the other. Ian B

I think you have cracked this one Uwe. The spirals on the cheeks are distinctive and I know I have seen another somewhere but the old brain has let me down. Ian Bottomley

A great loss. Ian Bottomley

I am also surprised the kanji are written side by side - there is plenty of space to have written them in a more conventional column. There is no Nagatomo listed in Shin Katchushi Meikan either. Rather a puzzle this one. Ian Bottomley

Does a shirt and sweater count? Ian Bottomley

Years ago, before computers became household items, I tried to compile a book based identification system based on a series of questions such as 'If the blade has XXXX then go to page 45'. Whist it worked to an extent, the problem the Ken has pointed out meant it was too fallible. You cannot accurately define in words the almost infinite subtle details on which identification is based. Ian Bottomley