Examples of wartime tachi koshirae with iron fittings

[Haon]

Well, I am looking for exactly this. Most tachi I was able to find online are either in shirasaya or mounted in a fairly fancy way, which seems to special / expensive for actual use. I am aware of the change in weaponry over the time, but if there arent pictures there might be accurate descriptions to be found or known by some of you.

 

Best regards,

 

Haon

[Geraint]

Dear Haon.

 

I assume that by wartime you are referring to Kamakura/Nambokucho period koshirae?  In which case there is not a lot of information around but you might find what you are looking for in the Tokyo Museum collection of Sword Mountings.

Of course this contains many examples of more recent manufacture but does have some early tachi koshirae.

 

 

All the best.

[Haon]

Thank you very much for your suggestion. While koshirae of that age would be great, I assume they are quite a bit rarer than blades from that era. I'm just focused on koshirae that was made with the intent of usage in mind, and not some fancy samurai-jewelry if it could be said that way.

[Larason2]

These aren't samurai jewellery. They look fancy, but they were made for use. Tachi had their own subspecialized artisans who did nothing but make furnishings for tachi, and later they also made tsuba. It seems strange that a warrior would go into battle with such elaborate fittings on their sword, but that is exactly what they did. If you're looking for plain iron tachi fittings or the like you're not likely to find antique ones. Also don't forget they considered spears and bows as their main weapon for most of history. The Tachi or Katana was kind of a last resort weapon, but it had a lot of symbolic importance.

 

That being said, a lot of the older iron tsuba were made for tachi, that's why they are so much bigger than more modern ones. They say that sometimes tachi and other swords had more simple furnishings back in the day, often with leather ito, etc. but hardly any of them have survived. Most of the tachi you see now had new furnishings made for them in the Edo period.

[rkg]

Haon,

 

Period Tachi are few and far between, and as you point out, many of the extant ones were "special"/not for use.

 

While I am sure there have been better special exhibitions put together at some point, the best collection I've seen of tachi (and actually armor as well) that actually saw use are at the Ōyamazumi Shrine on the island of Ōmishima in the Seto Inland Sea.  The place is somewhat unique in that individuals in armies returning from battle would go there and gift the swords/armor they actually used in the battle they had just participated in as offerings. A lot of the items are not in the best of condition, but at least stuff like Nambokucho period nerikawa tsuba were still threaded on the blade, etc. so you can see what was supposed to have been there.

 

At some point in the distant past there was a writeup by Jim Gilbert outlining his experiences there/had a few scans from the museum's book (I took no images in the museum when I was there - they get real mad if you do/go so far as to watch visitors on camera to make sure they don't - but I digress), etc, but the article seems to have vanished from the web.

 

Best,

rkg

(Richard George)

 

[Jussi Ekholm]

As I am lucky to have collected a very good library of books, I think I should have images and info of at least 100+ surviving tachi koshirae from Kamakura to Muromachi.

 

I think in general old battlefield tachi of Nanbokuchō & Muromachi were often quite plain when it comes to fittings, usually nothing too fancy.