Shimazu

Curran, Morita-san, John, and George, Thanks again for your input, research and comments. They are much appreciated. John, yes, the translation was on the site (in Romanji), but I could not verify the translation myself, and needed help. I have gone down the wrong path before. I did not want to mention the website's translation, fearing it might sway opinion. I apologize if this caused any problems. Your research is excellent, and the information you provided was very helpful.

Thank you very much!

Thanks for your help Curran, here is the front.

Hi Curran, I'm not sure of anything except the ichi. :?

Hi All, Can anybody translate this? It is beyond my abilities to read, but here is a stab at it: 一東子　？翁 Thanks,

Thanks Curran, I was not aware of this. I sure hope your tsuba passed shinsa!

Henry, I agree with your groupings of 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 2, 4, 9, 10, but to my eye the variation within the two groups is just too great for me to accept just two ‘signers’. Just my opinion, nothing more.

Could you provide more details on this? Thanks,

Just my opinion, and sacrilege I know, but I see more than two ‘hands’ here.

Piers, Thank you for the references, diagrams and info. I don’t have the books you mention, and appreciate you posting the diagrams. I am able to translate the labels on the diagrams, so at least for me, you don’t need to bother translating them. Your comment that older abumi are generally longer than newer abumi is very interesting and valuable information, something I will eagerly investigate. The lacquered Kura and Abumi you posted are beautiful, and bring up another question I have had for a long time. Every pair of lacquered abumi I have ever seen has a “three diamond” pattern just under the ‘buckle’ on the side facing away from the horse. I have never seen this mark on the matching saddle. Does anybody know the significance of this design on lacquered abumi? Thanks,

Wow, thank you Piers! I have been collecting abumi for years, and, so far, I only have one book that covers abumi (Kaga Han no Wasa to dezein KATCHU – ABUMI - TOSOGU). It is in Japanese with many photos, but, other than names, dates and terms, the majority of the text is completely lost to me, as I do not speak Japanese. I have almost given up learning much more about Abumi. I truly appreciate you showing these abumi to a Japanese expert. I will watch this thread for anything you are able to relay back to me/us. Thanks again,

I have been frustrated by this for years. I use Acrobat Pro on a Win 7 computer, and you CAN search by kanji in several of the Haynes pdf files, generally the ones in the first third of the alphabet (I can list them If anybody wants). It would seem that some of the files were saved in a pdf format that included the kanji, in font form, but the majority were not. Also, if you want to search for words that include a macron (long vowel mark), you need to cut and paste the character from the pdf into the search box, at least I haven’t found another way to do this on a Windows machine. It would be fantastic to be able to search the entire “Haynes Index” by kanji. Perhaps someone who knows Bob well could discuss this with him to see if there is any possibility that the publisher might be willing to create a ‘kanji searchable’ set of files. I did talk to Bob about this several years ago, but I am not sure I was able to clearly explain the problem to him. I don’t believe that he is a computer user.

Jean, I wish I could remember that when I am tempted by a new goody! :D John, Thanks, but even with your help this is eluding me. :?

John, I totally agree! My question is concerning the Haynes citation (H 08003.0) which seems to use a different kanji, hence my question to Markus. Same guy? I don't know.

Markus, do you have a Haynes number for this Saneyuki? The one I find is, I believe, a different kanji, 真 (not 實 or 実)??