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Peter Bleed

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Everything posted by Peter Bleed

  1. Dear Friends, Please allow me to show images of a gun in my collection - and in so doing beg the expert help of this community. The overall appearance of this gun makes me wonder if it might be a "Sendai zutsu". But, the the barrel which is very rusty seems to have a mei to" Eshu Kunitomo Minamoto Shige somebody else" Please advise! Peter Sorry, My images are too big - and I am a slow learner!
  2. Collector friends, This article is worth a read! https://www.academia.edu/s/096d6faf59 Peter
  3. Dear Jason, You are being laudably responsible in becoming a Japanese sword collector. Good on you!. Please let me try to help you by asking you to think about plywood, - that is 1) a material made of a bunch of thin layers of wood. It can vary 2) based on the kinds of wood that were used, and 3) the ways they were attached. And 4) you have to remember that plywood always has two sides – the stripes and the flat. ( it is tempting to call those masame and itame, but it is a bit different) Beyond all that, you also have to realize that 5) plywood has been used in lots of different ways, by craftsman 6) in many different areas and styles. So what do you do when you find a great Eames chair that a used furniture dealer is selling as a “Plywood Seat”? Do you argue with her? Do you question your understandings and tastes? Or do you say, “I like it, but can you do any better?” The gokaden was a way of classifiying Japanese sword making procedures before 1250 or so. To begin with those procedures were routine and supported by rather narrow tool kits and local resources. Basically, they were like slightly different ways of making plywood. Then, by about 1400 or so, mixing and reorganization and increased demand had begun. And so, smiths in different AREAS developed differences. They used established techniques, but developed distinctive ways of making effective weapons – call them regional styles. Soldiers in those regions got used to those weapons, And so you get things like “Hokuriku style” That usage is like talking about a “Kentucky Rifle.” Then you have to understand that in Japan, you learn a skill by entering into a close relationship with a social superior. These situations can be called SCHOOLS because the boss teaches you how to operate and he exposes you to a narrow and specific set of 1) skills and 2) tools. This means what you learn is narrow and specific. It is about how to behave NOT how to innovate. After the late 1500s there was great persistence in several of these schools. They were all making plywood, but by that time the medium and the techniques had changed a great deal… Let me also speak to Kunikane. He claimed to be a descendent of Yamato smiths, but I can’t understand how that could have been. And furthermore I do NOT think there is a gene for blacksmithing. I think he was a GOOD smith who figured out how to do masame. He also seems to have been a good local citizen. He earned the support of rich guys in his hometown. And he started an enduring “school” that lasted like 14 generations in Sendai. The second Iyesada was a student of Kunikane, but the swords he made, and those by his son and grandson don’t look TO ME like the swords that Kunikane produced. Peter
  4. I won't be at all positive about this item. It is ugly and crude. The only - ahhh - positive issue I can raise is about it terrible condition. I wonder if it might not be a bit older than others have suggested. How, I ask, could a Showa-era piece get so uniformly and deeply covered with surface rust? Peter
  5. Good job, Uwe. I was challenged! P
  6. My first reaction was that this could be a much thinned ayasugi blade. I'd still bet on Gassan. Does anybody else see trace of a signature? Peter
  7. My "thought" is that this is a nice Echizen no Kami Nobuyoshi with what looks like a very early registration. Very collectable P Well, let me amend that to simply collectable.
  8. What a wonderful thread! Very informative and positive. NMB at its best! I just made a post to the Ethnographic weapons forum and got directed to Wikipedia! Thank you all! Peter
  9. Indeed, this was an interesting read, altho my 'cynic sensor' kind of buzzed a couple of times. I suppose that kitting out you son with a trip to a mainline department store could have happened.I suspect, tho, that the Army had ways of helping young officers. It is also worth re-reading page 138 in John Yumoto's classic where he says "On the other hand, Japanese officers could buy sound samurai swords forged 150 to 300 ago for 150 to 300 yen ($40 to $75)." Peter
  10. Dear Friends, Please let me beg the insights and wisdom of this august community! I am curious about what collectors consider to be the importance – and value implications – of modified Japanese teppo. I am personally interested in how “old” guns were modified and updated in the late 19th century. There was a fair amount of this going on in Japan altho it is not clear to me who was doing this, when it was done, or what the goals were. I would love to understand all that, but let me start with a question about crass economics. What do collectors think the conversions do to teppo values? Does conversion destroy, lower, or re-direct collector value? Are converted guns at all interesting to collectors in Japan? Are they allowed into Japan? Are converted guns being "de-converted"? Peter
  11. Steve hit the nail on the head - - IMHO P
  12. Marcos, This is a very interesting paper. Thank you! Many people are challenged by the idea that Japanese swords and fittings are - not mere craft - but "art". (I certainly am!) This paper helped me understand why and how sword values were managed. You may even be right! In any case, and as I said, Thank you! Peter
  13. Indeed, Piers is correct, Bazz. The bottom one is a Dixie Gun Works Repro that I bought some years back in case I got a chance to do some shooting. So far this is still "unfired..." The fittings of this "Made In Japan" gun convince me that somebody over they is making good(enough) stuff. I'm pretty interested in the ways that "old" weapons were "modernized" at the end of the 19th century which is why I acquired the reworked guns. Thanks for the comments P
  14. I am still picking at this teppo that needs a hibasami - eventho the overwhelming evidence suggests that not very many others in this fine community are finding this question at all interesting. I have examined the locks on my other teppo (which is totally a 'lag deposit' of odds and ends) and I am not sure how hibasami were made. I have also assumed that they were basically cast and cleaned. But were they actually forged of malleable brass? Here's a snap pf the guns. P
  15. Thanks, Piers. And I think you are right in telling us that Japanese specialists don't share knowledge freely. And the sort of hands-on do-it-yourself mentality that has evolved in gai-koku just doen't operate in Japan. Still, I just bet you that there are sources of "raw" fittings that come in a variety sizes. How in the world did Turner Kirkland - of Dixie Gun Works (OMG) come up with the parts he used to sell? Do you suppose they were all made in Liege? Could be, I suppose. This situation recalls for me a conversation I had in a very rural Tohoku store that sold tourist trinkets and had some old stuff. There, in the rack of long narrow stuff, were a couple of tanegashima stock tips. When I asked why he had cut them off and he smoothly replied, "They were too long." Peter
  16. It appears that the world is NOT beating a path to my door to acquire the teppo this fine community has allowed me to muse about for the past week. I really and truly learned a lot from this "project teppo." Just in case that it will remain a project for me - as opposed to someone lurking on the buy and sell section - I have been scouting for replacement parts. It looks like my revered sources at Dixie Gun Works no longer offer Hibasami etc. Can anyone here point me to another source. Does Fred Lohman provide such things? Or, is there a contactable shop or individual in Japan that could be contacted. Thank you and I will go back to waiting for someone to read the "for sale" column and feel like dickering . I await the expert advice of the community! Peter
  17. Piers, Thanks for the reaction. But tell us, please, what this thing is. Why is it so short? Does it - somehow - fit with this gun, or is it a bobbed-off rod that somehow got hooked up with bigger arms. Is bamboo right for these things? Two of my other teppo have ramrods - both of which are as long as the barrels they came with. Both of these have drilled holes at the "breech" end, but both of them are "wood"rather than bamboo. And are they viewed as a normal kit associated with a gun? Peter
  18. Thank you Brian. I have posted a note in the Tanegashima section of the ramrod that came - and will go - with this gun. What is left of this gun is pretty nice, but finding the missing parts would be a challenge for me. I' sure listen to swaps - I'd really like nice little cannon. For something like that I'd even offer up some more matchlocks.... Cash value of this piece, $500, you pay the freight and tip the gypsy. Got to start somewhere Peter
  19. I discover that Brian has moved the of the teppo project from discussion to marketing, and that is all right. I'm sorry if it was abrupt Reassembling the gun was remarkably easy - given how hard it had been to take it apart. I cleaned the barrel and the barrel groove lightly and used a thin coat of Renaissance Wax on both, so that they came together much easier than they had come apart. I think this gun had not been disassembled since the Edo period! I did a bit more work with the ramrod. It is clearly made of bamboo. It measure 77+ cm. This is a good deal shorter than the barrel (remember it had been 'lost" in the ramrod hole), but I think it is intact. Measured in shaku, the rod is almost exactly 25 1/2 shaku long. Both ends are neatly carved. They are not broken. Both ends also have lines marked 0 lightly carved - around them 1.5 shaku from the end. On the broad end, there is also a round black dot near the end. And of the opposite end in addition to the ringed mark, there is a hole near the end.
  20. I am feeling like I am nearing the end of this project, but just in case somebody/anybody is still interested, here is a picture of the inside of the lock. It seems basically intact, altho I have not explored many of these things. It always interests me that Japanese gunsmith used brass AND steel springs. Given the skilled of kaji, I have to wonder why they used brass...
  21. Haven't see the blade, but based on the nakago, this is certainly a Mino-to. IMHO Peter
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