Bugyotsuji

Looking at some old Kanji and this is Masanori or Sho-ou 将応 ...not a bad name.

三代備後三谷住　Third gen Masanobu, living in Mitani in Bingo Province (?)

Don't normally attempt these Showa Mei, but I think I am seeing Ueda Kanetada... (there is a distracting scratch, down through the Ta/Da that you correctly mention above).

Yesterday I had a phone call to say that my Tanegashima is ready. He had cleaned up the barrel on the long gun that I usually use for demonstrations, scraping off accumulated rust down one side and cleaning off the gunk that a well-meaning friend had slurped all over it. As a result, all the various Kumamoto Castle numbers and maker's numbers, and the date, and the Mei now show up sharply and clearly. Where I had rubbed the silver Mon and exposed gun barrel steel, he has toned it all down for me and made it look how it was originally. He has stiffened the pan lid so that it does not swing open as it used to, and he has added putty to the Bizen screw so that it stops tight and square with the breech and with the square receiving hole in the stock. It looks so much better. As to the three-barrel Chinese/Korean pole arm, he has spent hours flaking/chipping and working away at the rust until he has reached firmer and darker metal underneath, and then 'fixed' it to finally stop the creep of the red rust. It really does look healthier and smarter and leaner, almost as if it belonged in a museum. The insides of the barrels are not quite ready so he has asked me to wait on that. I am eager to get it back and fix the old oak haft into it to see how it looks. In return I handed him the boy's Chigo-zashi and asked for a Shitate-age rather than a full polish in order to take the roughness off that one side of the edge of the Ha. The blade should come up looking good, I hope. Also I asked for a new Tsunagi for the Tachi. The old one had snapped in two during a demonstration in November just before Portugal and it had emergency repairs to it. The wood used for Tsunagi is only to hold the Koshirae together on your display stand and never very strong; certainly not designed for the hard knocks during Enbu (demos). I have asked for a stronger type of wood. Kashi? Finally I handed him the matchlock pistol and asked him to do the same with the Bisen which goes round too far when you tighten it. The square head then does not fit into its receptacle cavity, so you have to back off about an eighth of a turn, which allows for some escape of gas etc. backwards. After 400 odd years some tightness was inevitably lost. All the relative Toroku certificates have to travel with them too, BTW, in order to stay on the right side of the law.

Great find, Eric. I think they should be using the word 'match' instead of 'fuse', but what a fine display.

Apologies for the quality. I keep the pixels at their lowest setting for the site. The other two arrowheads from yesterday were surprisingly cheap!

Oh dear, that doesn't sound very good. Hope the recent activity does not impinge on your wonderful world, Ian. In the meantime here are some Yanone/yajiri shots. Later I unrolled my other ones to compare them, and to do the winter dusting and oiling, and these new ones suddenly looked small. Remember the old adage with Yanone that the longer the Nakago the better... The smallest one was the most expensive, perhaps because of the polish. The cross-section is diamond, close to square. Tried to shoot this with my clever camera but it was averse to focussing on the very tip of an arrowhead. The other two had been crudely polished by a previous owner, (arrowheads tend to go rusty quickly without TLC) but you can see the remains of Shige- and Suke.

No, that would be a tragedy. That's where we were yesterday. The one that closed down was at the Kannon-in in Saidaiji. It started with about 50 stalls some ten years ago or more, but in recent months they were down to four of five. They blame the recession, but there were more forces at work. The Yxxxxx in charge had to go into hospital and that was the final blow.　 I'll post some piccies here when I get time to take the shots. Very soon! :lol:

Been very busy recently, and almost penniless, but in the last week had a chance to visit three antiques markets and to spend some leisure time wandering around. One of the markets has had to finally close down so I went along to say thanks and good-bye. A few Yanone/Yajiri had suddenly appeared so as genuine ones tend to be few and far between I went for them. Too many fakes around nowadays. One was in polish (semi) and was more than a little over my budget, but I asked the dealer on Sunday to throw in a tiny (signed) bashin with it and he agreed. Because of the cold? Because it was the year-end? The other two today had evidence of Mei (?) on the blades 重on one? so I asked if the dealer would be willing to sell me both, for a combined reduced price. Again, the cold? Year-end? Not opened them to check them properly yet... Small purchases which should slip under the wife's radar. Am I very sick, doctor?

Is it Kanehisa 兼久　?

Early Christmas present then...

John, yes, forgive me. I thought there might be a little more curiosity out there! Shall I award you Kantei points? Actually the blade does not suggest who the Mei might be, so an absolute exercise in impossibility! The date is 文政三年二月

Quote from above: "The Mei appears to be too good for this sword, so the possibility presents itself that a top Mei was inscribed as a sort of incentive for the boy, as good luck, or as a mark for him to aim for." No-one was able to guess the Mei on the Nakago. Everyone has given up then?

Harry, yes, that's right. Literally This (object above) has (a length of) Just to narrow it down a little further for you, has or have yu/ari 有or 有りis a generally useful Kanji to learn anyway. 之 kore (=this) is old and rare, but does crop up in old writing and on swords (normally in general Japanese nowadays written in Hiragana これ). So, one character for your general box, and one for the specialist box.

Guido, if you look at the sheet, the Shaku-bu lengths are written down the right side of the column, and 'ari kore' underneath refers to that, I believe. If the length had been written in meters and centimetres, it would have been written vertically to the left of the Japanese measurement, but Western measurements have not been given... no?

The small writing at the bottom is a service provided by the certificate maker, allowing for two measurement systems: the Japanese dimensions down the right, and centimetres/centimeters = senchi センチ on the left. PS Re Suwo. Place names often have aberrant readings. Thus Suwo is a very difficult reading for anyone not familiar with the place. No need to memorize this to help your Kanji study, unless you are collecting Japanese area names for Mei.

Well, if you look up when Kiyomitsu was active, and find an era with a minumum of three years in it, then you can maybe find a crossover. Tenbun ran from 1532 to 1555 and there was one Kiyomitsu at that time, so the possibility...

The most important part is the two lines on the right where they give the length, the date and the signature. Unfortunately the rectangular box indicates where the actual year is missing; the bottom of the date has also been cut off. What the line says literally is: Item. Katana. Mei. "...Year Three, Eighth Month... (cut off below)(Osafune Kiyomitsu)"

Hi Muki, that is just about my situation too. Good luck with your studies.

Peter, the first is for the Wakizashi, the second for your spear.

Mr Jones, yes to what you say, and yes to the picture. (Well, it's quite a long example, but yes.) Very good point. I believe that matchlock pistols were also made in one Middle Eastern country, (Iran?) but that throughout the world they were then and are today very rare. The reason is as you state. What makes our castle matchlock company unusual is that every member carries and fires a genuine old pistol. Varying lengths. We have to be careful to call them "Bajo-zutsu" as the J cops do not like the idea of the image conjured by the other word for the short version. Other troops are trying to equip themselves, but the genuine original article is almost as rare as hens' teeth. (I have seen cut-down long guns designed to look genuine Tanzutsu or Bajozutsu, and there are some modern repros, rumored to have been made in Kyushu, which are totally illegal. Some of those have even managed to get paperwork, but who could guarantee their safety under live firing? There is no 'body' or organization to check such things in Japan.) As to their use on horseback there are woodblock prints of riders firing them. The most famous usage was during the battle of Sekigahara when the Satsuma troops needed to break through the Tokugawa lines to escape the field. A body of horsemen set their matches to their pistols, charged, and broke through, eventually making it back to the south of Kyushu. Incidentally my own pistol was probably made around 1600-1615. Ah, sorry, to answer your question as to what their merit was. Well, as a foot-soldier the pistol gave you a second shot once you had discharged your main weapon, if you lacked time to reload. All you had to do was fire with both hands, or move your match to your right wrist and fire with the right. The pistol on horseback was much easier to hold and fire and load again than a long gun, and the match could be kept burning on the right arm. Certainly in the early days the element of surprise would be with you, as ashigaru had probably not foreseen horsemen shooting at them. One of the distinguishing features of Bajo-zutsu is the Ude-nuki-no-kan, a rectangular (sometimes oval) hole in the stock for passing a cord through and lashing the gun to your arm/holster etc. in case you should drop it from your horse.

Hello Anthony and welcome to the site. I visit here every day. It's great! PS Please tell me how you succeed with your wife!

Izumi (Iwaizumi) Daijo Nobusada.　（？） for the Wakizashi, but cannot see the Yari Mei. Nice looking set for the Yari. Not as old as some, I would guess from the shortness of the collar.

The quality of the fittings suggests that a Daimyo might have had this made for his son. The missing Kozuka may well have had silver arrowheads on it. There is a slight scratching along a section of one edge of the blade, (just above and to the left of the flash reflection) which may necessitate a polish of some kind. Whether it will then need a new Saya, would be a question. I have had the Seppa and Habaki re-goldplated. The Mei appears to be too good for this sword, so the possibility presents itself that a top Mei was inscribed as a sort of incentive for the boy, as good luck, or as a mark for him to aim for. Ian, are all Kozuka of differing widths? The slot seems to be very close to two Kozuka that I have, (1.4 and 1.5cm... the Kogatana will fit, but not the Kozuka) but slightly narrower, at about 1.1 or 1.2 cm. Actually (having an afterthought) it's not so much the dimension of the slot that limits the choice, but rather the size of the Hitsu-ana in the Tsuba. There is a good chance that yours might fit. Can you PM me a price? In other news I have sent the crumbly rusty three-barreled gun for tidying up and impregnation with something to stop the rust. I have also found a section of old oak Kashi pole (half of a Yari with Ishitsuki) which should be a good solution for recreating this polearm to look more like the illustrations in old Chinese texts..

Last couple of shots