Bugyotsuji

Thank you, Tony. Correct choices so far on rust removal. Great series of photographs, and I am working on your smith now, if Uwe does not beat me to it! Actually difficult to read as one crucial character is not crystal clear for me. For the smith it could be 摂州住榎並屋徳兵衛作 Sesshu Ju Enamiya Tokubei Saku As to the forging method, 地鉄鍛二重総巻張 Jigane Kitae Niju So-makibari Enami or Enamiya were a famous large family of around 150 gunsmiths through the Edo period in Osaka.

But the shape and quality of the blade itself should help you to narrow down the age and the Hizen smith who made it.

Dominik, it’s been suriagé cut short so all that is left is ‘living in Hizen’ Hizen no Kuni Jū 肥前国住

Out walking yesterday and saw some bulrushes. The heads explode into a fluffy kind of cotton wool. Actually they were probably not the only sort of tinder used for starting fires.

Maybe 勝正 Katsumasa 正和十八年八月 August of Showa 18

越前住 Etchizen Jū (Living in Etchizen) 伯耆平藤…前? Hōki, Taira/Hira Fuji (+Mae/Zen?) (The pronunciation of the last two or three kanji will depend partly on what was cut off.)

五つ鉄線 六つ鉄線 Does your clematis Kamon have five, or six petals? Six maybe…

Great Tony! Can we see the Bisen breech screw? (And that looks like a Kaō at the end of the Mei.)

They are a standard tool for shirasaya makers and artisans who work with sword fittings. Clients may request a certain Koshiraé be used for their blade, for example.

That’s why bamboo mekugi are better than wooden pegs!

The kind of thing you might hand to a giant Sumo wrestler in your army to scare the enemy. Saw one of these for sale at an Japanese antiques fair a year or two back. Seriously tempted, but two things stayed my hand. 1. It was more than I was willing to pay, although I remember debating whether to make a run to a cash machine anyway. 2. Without some clever packing, it wouldn't have fitted into my suitcase.

國友弥兵衛尉金次 Kunitomo Yahei no Jo Kanetsugu(?) Interesting to find a Kunitomo smith in … do you think that is that Sesshū Jū, Osaka? You would think they might be rivals. I can’t imagine a Settsu/Sakai smith in Kunitomo, so it does give us a measure of their relative status as bases of manufacture. 鍛巻張 Kitae/Tan makibari barrel forged with (spiral) metal binding(s)

Why? What is it about this sword that attracts you? The Mei screams ‘fake’!

Interesting idea, Chris!

This is such a huge subject that I am reluctant to get involved. Suffice it to say that the Mongols collected every last scrap of iron from their battlefields. Bushi would often leave money inside their armour to help pay for disposal and funerary rites, etc. if they were killed in battle. The problem in Japan was that battlefield weaponry might find its way into the hands of the peasantry. Feudal lords would designate merchants to clean up the battlefield, and to sort out what could be salvaged and what could be scrapped. Conversely, merchants would vie to get such contracts from the Daimyo. Cheaply-mended weapons were then sold on cheaply to the less wealthy Daimyo. Hideyoshi ordered huge national round-ups of weapons, in order to keep them from anyone who might be tempted to revolt. There were continued round-ups through Tokugawa times and on into Meiji. Essentially, Japan's governing bodies wished to maintain tight control over possible causes of unrest. Unlike in the west, battlefield clean-ups were the norm, and cleanliness and detailed bureaucracy still generally rule today.

Please do not measure your abilities with that signature! Very, very few Japanese could read that, let alone non-Japanese.

Aoi Art usually does a much better translation than that. Surely that must have been done by some early Google-type of mechanical translator. Normally 平 is read Taira here, I believe. Nice package. Good luck!

The Shimosaka smiths moved to northern Kyushu in preparation for the invasion of Korea by Hideyoshi. Would this Mei indicate the Yari as being pre 1590? Although one of these spears in full polish is potentially worth decent money, a polishing by a proper Japanese Togishi would be very expensive, even if you could find one willing to undertake such a difficult task as a Jumonji polish. And you would need to source an iron neck ring and appropriate saya sheath.

Had this one Alex, but there are two problems with it. 1. I may have sold it to a friend. 2. The Kaneie Mei is probably not legit. Someone told me Kaneie tsuba do not have fukurin. 3. The pine tree is on the reverse, with some flying Daruma figure on the front.

Check out: Kaseiin Kanjaku Nikko Shinji is the kaimyô or posthumous buddhist name of this actor. Mortuary poem: In the sky of the second month the sadness of the sparrow's flight remains https://jpsearch.go.jp/item/arc_nishikie-JA13029 https://www.bing.com/search?q=歌成院光信士&qs=n&form=QBRE&sp=-1&lq=0&pq=歌成院光信士&sc=0-6&sk=&cvid=D54E03FAACC24C8187EBE0448FBCD1C6&ajf=10

What size, Alex?

If I can find the photographs, here are two more examples of Tessen-guruma, clematis wheel kamon, one as an iron tsuba, and one in the sliver fittings of an amber netsuke.

Did you choose the frame, Jason? A page out of a book? Famous Kabuki actors? A winter (February) scene of a 55-yr-old travelling samurai wearing a cloak. In a shop? (Just guessing from circumstantial evidence!)

And a ‘nikuhitsu’ painting by the hand of (Isoda) Masakatsu, Hōbashi Koryūsai, active 1776-82. Kadomatsu with wrapped roots

My Kozuka shows nematsu or nebikimatsu with orizuru paper crane. (Shakudo gold and silver. Mei: Nagamine or Eiho. 永峯)