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UPDATE ON : Early Japanese Cannon


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Spot on Ron.

 

I remember in the naval depot I was in, opening the cord container for the kit, and was amazed by the uniform and neatness of the line stowage. It had to be machine laid, as a human would go mad trying to get that right.

 

And John.

 

Your post indicates that even today, its a reliant system. Now what was that about arrows? I seem to digress :lol:.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Ron, this may interest you, I just ran into this picture, no way to tell how old it is but an interesting solution to aiming one of these.

Hiya-taihou (fire arrow cannon), 19th century, iron on a wooden carriage, with an applied copper triple oak leaf mon. Length of barrel 40.8cm., bore 8.54cm., total length including carriage 143cm., diameter of wheels 67.5cm

cc57d45b55dda2333c381d3f0a66af9b.jpg

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Not wishing to butt in here, but the question of age is what scares me off cannon, having seen many clever fakes. My immediate feeling, and entirely subjective, is that someone has more recently made up a gun carriage for a barrel. Whether the barrel itself is old or not is another more difficult question for me. Do the swirly lines around the muzzle indicate a poor cast, or is that how it would look after the addition of the muzzle surround and foresight? Personally I cannot say, but I will certainly show it to the regulars and get some feedback from here if you like?

 

Ron's opinion, I too would highly value.

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Not wishing to butt in here, but the question of age is what scares me off cannon, having seen many clever fakes. My immediate feeling, and entirely subjective, is that someone has more recently made up a gun carriage for a barrel. Whether the barrel itself is old or not is another more difficult question for me. Do the swirly lines around the muzzle indicate a poor cast, or is that how it would look after the addition of the muzzle surround and foresight? Personally I cannot say, but I will certainly show it to the regulars and get some feedback from here if you like?

 

Ron's opinion, I too would highly value.

 

Piers, all opinions would be welcome by me, however I am not sure how the current owner would feel about any negative findings as it sold in 2008 for $23,445!!!!...that would be an expensive fake.

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Dear Eric & Piers,

I must totally agree with Piers that the carriage is a later addition to what appears to be a genuine Edo period barrel. But ... first lets deal with the measurements : You say the barrel is 40.8 cm ( 16 inches ) ... the total length is 143 cm ( 56 1/4 inches or 4 FEET 8 INCHES ) .... something is not right here. The measurements are obviously in error. This error does not however account for the following errors in authenticity. An opinion ONLY.

 

1. The patina of the wood just does not look correct.

 

2. You may have noticed that the gun carriage wheels appear to be concave, or “dished”. We have the Romans to thank for this. The Egyptians, Babylonians and Assyrians all had war chariots, but with flat wheels (spokes, hub and rim in the same plane). These could run at high speed behind a team of horses, but could not be turned without stopping, dismounting and leading the team around to point in the new direction of travel.

 

When cornering, all the weight of a vehicle transfers through the axle to the outside wheel hub. The higher the speed, the more force is exerted. Putting pressure on the hub of a flat wheel would cause it to fail; they lost a lot of charioteers that way. The Romans looked at this situation and, with their superior engineering abilities, developed the concept of the dished wheel with an iron tire heat-shrunk onto the rim. With this design, the hub was braced by the spokes; there was not enough force generated in high speed turns to induce failure. For the most part, all wheels were made this way, including those for cannon carriages, up until the beginning of the twentieth century.

 

Regarding the above, ... for whatever reason wheeled transport was not terribly common during the Edo period. Excuses for this have been given that this use of wheeled vehicles ( carts, wagons or GUN CARRIAGES ) were prohibited by the Tokugawa to prevent the easy movement of armaments. It has also been put forward that Japan's terrain was not conductive to wheeled transport. It has also been suggested that since an individual was discouraged from travel outside their province this was the reason as wheeled transport would have been more pleasant and quicker. However many woodblock prints exist showing wheeled carts, ... so although wheeled transport was not terribly common it did exist and was well known. HOWEVER, .... the fact that the Japanese knew nothing of the concept of the concave ( dished wheel ) is fact, ...yet the wheels on the pictured cannon carriage appear to be concave and therefore POST Edo period.

 

3. Notice the crack or to describe it more correctly the cut down the sides of the main carriage, ... yet this cut does not appear in the muzzle end photograph ??

What is its purpose other than decorative. Yes, ... I noticed the fitting of a different piece of wood on either side of the muzzle near where the wide cut would have shown up. Look closely at the iron rivets or nails, and you will notice the cut running the length of the carriage does not match with the narrow cut on the muzzle part of the barrel bed.

 

The barrel on the other hand does to my eye look correct:

 

1. The irregularities ( swirls ) is an indication of an early casting and is often found on early European barrels.

 

2. The pitting on the inside of the barrel is in correct accordance of having seen use with the firing of black powder and to not having been cleaned immediately afterwards.

 

3. The patina on the barrel appears to be natural and not artificially induced.

 

4. The quality of the detail shown by the maker ( caster or foundry ) is first rate, ... something one sees in quality Japanese work and NOT the work of a modern day fraudster. Notice the lovely taper to the barrel, the superb work around the muzzle. These are details that the fraudster would find too difficult to copy let alone invent.

 

My opinion for what its worth is that the barrel is in all probability genuine ... BUT ... the carriage is not genuine but rather an over done imaginative representation. Others may have a different opinion. Not having the artifact in hand makes it difficult to form a definitive opinion, but the above reasoning as to authenticity is the best I can come up with. I may be wrong, but I was asked for an opinion.

 

... Ron Watson

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