Bugyotsuji

I am forced to agree with Ron, :D except for the part about owning a signed Yanone! :lol: Well done Curran. Beautiful, Gabriel. Clever photography. No overall shots with the Nakago? I have a handful of assorted Yanone/Yajiri from the owner of the keys to the Kura of Kameyama Castle, but as you intimate, they are like most, sadly rusted and pitted. Nevertheless I have had some fun evenings with very fine sandpaper. Jealous in the Far East.

This is now on my 'must visit' list. Thanks for the detailed heads up Jean.

Welcome back indeed, but why Pittsburg? Are they still making steel there? I bet it's changed quite a bit since I lived there in the late 60s and early 70s.

Welcome indeed. One thing intrigued me, but forgive me if out of place. It sounds from the tone of your post as though your father has passed on. Did your father ever get to own a Japanese sword himself? Was he simply happy seeing you owning one?

As always, fascinating feeback, Ian. True, it is sad how much is lost forever, but even tiny little things are a revelation when they are rediscovered.

Just makes me angry. They don't even bother to cloud the issue. Just outright lies...

You'll notice in pic 1 of the rain covers that the whole contraption is supported by a vertical wire which passes through the hinge pin of the pan lid. This is why there is or should be a hole in a Tanegashima pan lid pin. If anyone's Tanegashima lid pin is like a solid nail, ie not a cylindrical tube, there is a high possibility that it has been replaced at some point, as they often get lost. As to gun bags, Eric, yes, there were various things available. We have about 20 red gun bags which we use when parading in public for our regular long guns. (Think sankin-kotai) I tend to wrap mine in a soft terry cloth to protect the butt. Recently someone dropped one of these boxes and it burst open, throwing the gun onto the ground. The owner was not a happy bunny.

Morita san, many thanks for reading thaｔ! Now the puzzle is: 小印　イモクシ　

Our troop carry their large O-zutsu in separate boxes like this. My gun weighs only 7.6 kg, (16.7lb) but some of them need two people to carry them, at up to 30 kg, or 66 lb each.

Two shots of rain covers are featured on p. 133 of Sawada Taira's book Nihon no Furu Ju. Will this do for the moment, Brian and Ron? There are others, but such photos are very rare. I have only seen one actual example of a cover, temporarily displayed some years ago at the local castle. For Eric some pics of the box and gun fitted. Note the separate ramrod. Early Bisen, Ron, were cut with a deep minus screwhead. Most extant examples are square, but Sawada Sensei says that the round Bisen was an early feature of the large Tazuke guns. I have seen further examples of round ones, some with a score to indicate the perfect place to screw tight. The beauty of a round one is that you do not have to worry about how it will sit back into the square breech butt hollow when you replace the barrel. As the Bisen and gun get older, the Bisen can become loose in the 'correct' position, but you can't tighten it as it will not sit at an angle into the hollow. The clove or daikon punch pattern I have only seen one other example of, Ron. This was a fine Kunitomo gun, and not Tazuke-Ryu. It must have been an available option when people ordered their personal gun.

Stephen, one of the honorable members asked me to do a write-up of this gun so I obliged. Took a bit of time and head-scratching though. Tried to remain factual and neutral. Certainly no intention of making anyone jealous! Glad you enjoyed it though. :lol:

Last of the pics. (The Kinokuniya gun was 1.9cm caliber, whereas mine is 2.2. Why are they so similar? Did they once live together? And who owns it now?)

This is a 20 Monme Daimyo-dogu gun. Stock/butt is black lacquer with 7 Maki-e gold 'Sasa-lindo' Mon. The bore/caliber is 2.2cm. Overall gun length is 103.5cm; barrel length 69cm. Weight, 7.6 kg. Classified as an O-zutsu, or big gun, but at the lower end of O-zutsu. The gunnery school, or Ryu, is Tazuke, one of the original big 3 schools under Tokugawa Ieyasu, and is quite distinctive. You can tell Tazuke by the flat diagonal cut-off butt-end. Tazuke had various other distinguishing features, such as a 'covered' rain-proof panlid, unlike the two-story sandwich type we usually see, and in the beginning anyway, a rounded Bisen. Mine is missing the Kemuri-gaeshi, another general feature of Tazuke guns. This gun is unsigned. I have been told many things, such as Tazuke are often unsigned, and that Daimyo equipment is unsigned, etc, but what is the truth here? Without a Mei or a date, we have to work with other factors. The Mon are interesting. Sasa-lindo in a circle was used particularly by the Ishikawa Daimyo who lived in Kameyama Castle near Nagoya/Ise. In late Edo this family moved to Takahashi City in the north of Okayama. I spent some time looking for a link between Ishikawa and the Tazuke school and discovered that a famous teacher of this school, Honda Masashige, 1580-1647 with his son Masatsugu 1610-1627 served the Kaga Maeda family. In 1626 his grandson 朝政　(?) was born and they moved to Ise. At the age of 6 the son was adopted into the Ishikawa family and took their name. This is why I believe this gun may have been in Kameyama Castle at some time during the Edo Period. The barrel is covered in choji (clove) or daikon (radish) intaglio, with gold and silver zougan of leaves and flowers and pine needles spotted here and there, a bit like fireworks in the night sky. The tops of the sights are gold and silver zougan, but largely worn off. An intriguing thing then happened. Kinokuniya had an auction/sale No. 187 in 2006 and a very similar but smaller gun was offered and featured on the catalog front cover. The explanation says that it was owned by the Lord Matsudaira of Tosa and is connected with the Yamanouchi family. The price was silly, and I am convinced that mine is by far the better of the two guns, but who knows? Condition, fair. The middle side Mon are worn where the left hand grips the gun when shooting. The gun needs more TLC and I have done quite a bit already. The next step is to ask a lacquer worker to touch up the cracked or peeled spots in the lacquer.

Note: I was just looking for a random photo of a Kemuri-gaeshi somewhere on the web. The site above is new to me and I know nothing about it, Eric.

Look at the little brass partition/wall right behind the pan to stop blowback and protect your eyes/face. You will notice a groove in yours where it is missing. Click on 2nd from left of the 5 complex photos, and then the bottom gun pic. http://www.seiyudo.com/GU-098089.htm

Thanks Eric for posting those. I was just curious to see how close your gun falls within the Bizen remit. This afternoon I was looking at a rack of 6 Bizen guns, and not one of them had all the attributes. Yours looks as though the original brass fittings have been plated at some point, but this plating has been largely removed by later cleaning. The pan lid and hinge-pin look to have been replaced, but it has been fired since then, and it is missing the Kemuri-gaeshi flashback protector aft of the pan. The pan is in very good condition as is the rest of it as far as I can see. The barrel is you say octagonal at the breech, all the way round? Have you had it out? Any Mei or date?

Thomas, thank you. Ron, yes, I think I could summarize what I have found out about this gun so far. As you say, when time permits, but it could be an interesting job doing the write-up. As to the oil on wood question, this thread has now given me reason to consider maybe lightly oiling the insides of the stocks. Many old Tanegashima have splits alongside the stocks where the wood has shrunk alongside the barrel, but the metal has refused to shrink correspondingly.

Even with improved accuracy this Wiki answers article suggests that it took 3,000 bullets to wound one enemy combatant during the Vietnam War. As is "normal", figures will vary from year to year, and especially from source to source. But more often than not, the figures given closest to the date of occurrence appear to be the most accurate. During the early 1970's the figure of 3,000 rounds of small arms fire, per enemy casualty, was given. This had a profound effect on individual rifleman tactics. Shortly after these figures were accepted by the US Army, the M-16 rifle's full automatic switch was modified for short bursts. Until there is another change made, Vietnam will be the FIRST and LAST time in history in which the individual rifleman had "Rock an Roll" (full automatic capability). http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_was_the_ ... ietnam_war

Surely that has to be the -fune of Osafune, Dave??? Osafune an old, old word meaning the place of a longboat; Osa is an ancient Korean pronunciation of Naga- or Cho- (long).

Talking of black lacquer, here is my 20 Monme on its stand in the hall.

Lovely story, Ian, and for some reason totally believable. Bullet molds/moulds. Note the unusual double one from this morning. Large Hayago, one with Umebachi Mon.

Eric, I wonder if you could take a shot or two including the pan and lid, open and closed. Thanks!

In massed attacking armies, you would only need to fire at the wall of advancing soldiers and your ball would surely hit something! Who hits whom might not be so important! I have just found some photographs of breech-loading Tanegashima(s), and a close-up shot of a bolt action Tanegashima. Today I had some luck at the antiques market. I found a couple of large bore Hayago, which was unusual as they do not come up too often. There was also a twin Tama-igata with two ball molds in the one head, a first for me.

I have only seen a couple of these here in Japan in recent years. They look a bit like butane bombs, or something! Probably designed to look like a miniature cannon. Size-wise and shape-wise, they could be used for a practical Netsuke, although they are a little heavy, but this would surely be a secondary function. The primary function would more likely be as you say as an eprouvette, with very little kick, and you could wear gloves or wind a cloth around it to avoid burns. They may even have had a rudimentary wooden rest/block/carriage originally. Netsuke-deppo or Teppo-Netsuke for display on a silk Obi would generally tend to be lighter, quite intricate, and decorated.

Eric, apart from the (?) silverwashed serpentine and lock, your piece is almost 100% typical Bizen, at least what I can see from that distance, even down to the Kanmuri otoshi on the offside of the butt. (Fujioka-Ryu) Can you get a closer shot of the lock area? Although you do find brass, the Bizen lock is typically of iron/steel, but usually goes a dark rusty color/colour. Possibly someone in the West may have cleaned yours up in some way? As to the bolt action conversions, M. Jones, they are mentioned in Perrin's book, but you are perfectly right. A nightmare proposition.