Significance of a Date

[Justin Grant]

I just purchased a Showa period O-Yori and in the fabric has a repeating date all over the armor.

 

It reads Shohei 6 Year, 6 Month, 1 Day. The armor has the Maeda Mon on it, so not sure if that ties into the date or not.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Thanks

 

Justin

[Nobody]

It is only a part of design.

Google "Shoheigawa (正平韋)".

[IanB]

Justin, You say you have bought an 0-yoroi. Technically this style of armour has the dou in two pieces: a section of lamellar that runs round the front, left side and back, with a separate solid plate attached to the right of the body before the rest is put on. It is also characterised by having only four, trapezoidal, kusazuri and the entire front covered in a sheet of stencilled leather. If yours is like that it is an o-yoroi. I did notice one on eBay so maybe that is the one you have acquired.

For many of these Meiji and later armours I have noticed their makers have used fabric printed with traditional leather patterns instead of the more expensive stencilled leathers. These latter varied greatly over the ages, but a lot are based on the 'shishi ko sakura' design and incorporate a date in their design. Despite the name, they are actually decorated with shishi and foliage, generally in blue with flowers, that are peonies not cherry, in red. The dates do not indicate when the leathers were made but when that particular design was licensed for manufacture.

Ian Bottomley

[Justin Grant]

Moriyama-san and Mr. Bottomley

 

Thank you for the information. I thought I was doing well to come up with the Shohei date... Hummmm.

 

I knew it was not related to the date of my armor, just wondering the significance of it.

 

My armor was purchased from this board viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8241

 

Thanks for the information, off to research this information!

[IanB]

Justin, Not an o-yoroi in fact but a copy of an okegawa nimai-dou gusoku: that is a two piece dou made up of horizontal plates. It was a very common style during the Sengoku Period for all ranks since it could be made up quite quickly from relatively small pieces of iron. The way it is constructed also allowed the maker to get a good shape quite easily by trimming the plates to lenticular shapes and positioning the rivets in the right. As I get older I am beginning to realise that these sorts of considerations had a profound influence on armour styles.

Ian Bottomley