Bugyotsuji

Kirill, the first one has all the marks of a late 1800s Meiji okimono, the central nerve channel being used to pay lip-service to netsuke. Good work, the artist was possibly a netsuke carver first before the end of the Bakumatsu and changes in fashions. The second one (stork?) is hard to make out; if it is not resin it could well be a legit boxwood netsuke. The third one, bamboo shoot and toads(?) gives indications of later Chinese work, the signature written typically in a ‘casual’ manner to suggest Japanese, but not.

Sweet tomobako, and one looks like a nijūbako double box. Dare we ask to see the jizai, or is there a better thread for them somewhere? That reminds me to update this thread myself. I’ve come into possession of some nice bits over the last year or two.

Further thoughts above!

Ah, thank you. *The second one could start with Yoshi spelt not the standard 吉 with 士, but with known variant 土 on top. Borrowing -hisa from Ray above, Yoshihisa? 吉久？

Hi Ryan, No that’s it! Make sure all the details of the registration card match the gun, and send off the change of ownership paper to the Education Board of where the gun was registered, or do it online. It also asks for the previous owner’s name and address and contact details. You will need to keep the reg card preferably with the gun or within reaching distance, and you’ll need to keep the gun well wrapped if ever you need to carry it somewhere. Also if the police find it in your car for example you’ll have to provide a good reason for its presence.

What do you mean when you say you 'found this by google'. Are you wanting to buy a blade, or did you run a search for unreadable Mei? Usually posting one photo alone makes the job exceptionally hard for anyone to decipher. Two or three photos from different angles is more friendly. Re 'help me identify the smith'; by reading the characters alone you might not be identifying the smith, since it could easily be gimei. Confused in Gotham

The mon all look suspiciously close to Toyotomi Hideyoshi's, not Tokugawa Ieyasu! That would annoy Ieyasu for a start!

Hmmm… a present from a friend. Adzuki bean manju from Fukuyama Castle. Expecting a guest today my wife put these out before she went out. This thread is easy stuff, not for you Colin, master of the arcane.

4. Thread your doubled cord through about 20 eyelets in the leather. This is a fiddly job requiring all kinds of useful tools, and plenty of free time and patience. 5. Somehow get the loop and the two loose ends to all go through the ojime. (Note that many beads will look like ojime, but the central channel of a typical ojime is usually larger than most ordinary beads.) 6. Final result with new black cord. Jabara concertina mouth pulled shut with tightly fitting ojime.

To start this thread here is a leather kinchaku drawstring purse set hanging from a stag antler netsuke, with a red glass(?) ojime. Four braided cords passed through the ojime, but two had snapped. I sourced some black cord (not string) and after a couple of hours restored it to working condition. Some would say to keep it the way it was found, as is, with frayed and snapped cords. There is no absolutely ‘correct’ answer, but if it’s an easy job, I like to resurrect without damaging what is solid. 1. Photograph original stringing for later referral if necessary. 2. Remove Netsuke by undoing internal knot. Observe how the knot was tied. 3. Find a cord of similar braiding and strength, four strands of which the ojime will accept. (I like to collect natural strings and cords, old and new.)

Now you tell me Colin!

Matsukawa-bishi and yajiri-tsuki chigai-ya. Needs a bit of TLC!

As in the two pages above too, the MCI seems to have more detail.

“Worked between 1840 and 1875…”

Pay peanuts and get monkeys! Some time ago this example came along. Too badly damaged to be repaired, missing a hand, but plenty here to enjoy!

Not really, no John, but they would have had drills at hand for making Netsuke and himotoshi holes, so it would be an easy way to add decoration, and lose some of the unnecessary weight of stag antler. There is actually a third large hole on the one above, (see to the left side). Tsuba holes. We have a thread running here on the NMB concerning holes in tsuba. Sometimes they are said to be udenuki no ana, for lashing a sword to your wrist when on horseback, and when they are a large and small pair, sometimes they are said to symbolize the sun and the moon, 日月 jitsugetsu.

Today I found another example of a 'hanaire', still attached to a kinchaku purse. Thanks to this thread I recognized it as such (Jean!) and we can clearly see which himotoshi hole(s) was/were used for the himo cord. The other holes look decorative... except that on the back this one has a tiny slot as if to hang on a peg or a nail. Bamboo (stag antler) Hana-ire hanging wall vase container. Behind

Thanks Pietro! There are many ways and means of finding good netsuke at a reasonable price, but you do need to train your eye on good examples first in order to be able to spot the bargains. Then get out and about to fairs and auctions and discover the sweet spots and the places to avoid. I found one this very morning. Definitely if you don’t mind a little damage you can buy a very good Netsuke, even signed, and admire the carving work for a huge saving compared to a ‘perfect’ example. It will also educate you as to the hand of a particular master carver. Step by step one gets to Rome!

Yes, there was a Koshosen Nagaharu Kinko around Bunkyū, who was Shuei of Kyoto Gosho.

On the left is Chōshun (Nagaharu) 長春　作

5-3 Kiri Mon. After derusting I discovered that each paulownia ‘imprint’ is carved out in fine detail, not merely stamped. Three on front, two behind. Detail

Assuming for the time being that these really are Korean (i.e. not Chinese.) With poles…

We have a thread running titled ‘Chinese Cannon’, but no dedicated thread for old Korean guns. The other thread can be found below for those that have missed it so far. Any further Korean updates can hopefully be found here in this new thread. In the meantime that thread is still open for Chinese cannon or gun candidates. Korean cannon were supplemented by smaller pole weapons for infantry, single or triple-barrel guns set off by a lighted fuze/fuse. (What we think of as matchlocks probably first started to replace these older weapons as the Koreans defended the peninsula against Hideyoshi’s armies in the 1590s. There is a Korean matchlock example in the Gun Museum on beautiful Tanegashima Island, just south of Kyūshū.) Today I started work on making a disposable haft for the bronze long gun, and the video gave me some hints. (It’s in Korean but sufficiently visual to follow to the end.) The bronze socket is 20mm in diameter internally so I sourced a suitable pole, whittled it down and stained it. There are two holes in the socket so I drilled a hole in the whittled end of the pole to receive some kind of mekugi or locking pin. Length of pole? The records talk about overall length including socketed barrel of 110~200 cm, but if you think about it, loading needs to be done with the muzzle upright. The pole cannot be too long for the average gunner. I made it short enough to load easily when standing in a ditch or behind a rampart. Counter-weight? Some records suggest these guns had a blade on the other end of the shaft, so the weapon could still be used as a club or a spear if you were to be caught while trying to reload. The barrel is really quite heavy, so I would be happy with any extra weight added to the other end of the haft, anything, even an iron ishi-tsuki from a spear for a start. (A blade could be dangerous for friends passing behind you.) Ballistics Although the video shows insertion of pachinko balls and patch material, the records mention it was mainly arrows that were used, either in bunches, or as single bolts with rounded feathers and flat enforced ends.

PS Just found a great video, with unearthed examples of Korean long guns of this type, with very similar inscriptions.

After a little further reflection, it makes more sense for my collection to have a couple of opposing weapons of the type that the Japanese would have faced in Hideyoshi's (mis?)(ad?)ventures over the Tsushima Strait.