Nick

Hi all, Many thanks for your help. It's does make a little more sense now. I kept coming up with Atsu, shu, obi, too, but it just didn't make any sense as I was trying to correlate it to a smith. Also, on the dedication, according to my 'Nelson's Jap-Eng character dictionary pg 36, those 5 kanji relate exactly to the translation "Amaterasu Omikami, Tenshoko. Without the 3rd kanji it translates to Amaterasu Omikami. Nobody, is there a difference between Amaterasu Omikami, Tenshoko and Amaterasu Sume Omikami? I'm assuming that either way, it's a dedication. Once again, thanks all for your help

I've wracked my brain and scoured allmy books trying to figure out the translation on this wak. The opposite side has a dedication to the Japanese Sun-Goddess "Amaterasu Omi Kami Tenshoko", but this side is really giving me a hard time As far as I can figure out the middle character might be "tane" but the other two have stumped me Any help would be appreciated. Thanks