SteveM

Hmm, I'd have to argue against this. Cast-iron (鋳鉄) is a different thing. Nabe refers specifically to a cooking utensil: a pot or a pan. The cooking utensil may be made out of cast-iron, but you wouldn't use 鍋 as an umbrella term for any kind of cast-iron.

Both shiro and yo are viable readings for the kanji 代. In this case, I see other instances where the reading is Mitsushiro. http://sanmei.com/contents/en-us/p2015_%E8%84%87%E6%8C%87%E3%80%80%E9%8A%98%E3%80%80%E8%82%A5%E5%BE%8C%E5%AE%88%E7%A7%A6%E5%85%89%E4%BB%A3.html I don't know what the definitive reading is.

Close, but I think this is 以古鍋鐵作之 motte ko nabe tetsu saku kore I don't know how to read as kanbun. If I take a clue from James's (and Markus's) work above, I would say Ko-nabe tetsu wo motte, kore wo tsukuru Note the nabe used in the inscription is a variation of the kanji for nabe (鍋) in use today. Edit: Oh, I almost forgot... nabe means pot or frying pan.

I think its supposed to be 関之金高 (Seki-no-Kanetaka)... It looks suspicious to me.

I think the tang may be (paradoxically) easier to decipher than the box. The writing on the tang will follow certain known conventions, and I guarantee it contains some variation of the futatsu-dō (貳ツ胴) seen on the hakogaki. The hakogaki is more of a summary of handing down of the sword, rather than a summary of the act of the tameshigiri or the sword itself. If I'm not mistaken the last bit is a list of the descendants of Kuwayama who inherited the sword. Kuwayama bequeathed it to Densaburō (傳三郎) who bequeathed it to Hayato (隼人), who bequeathed it to Shikibu (織部), who bequeathed it to Ihei (猪兵衛).

I would have guessed 包清 (Kanekiyo). But my enthusiasm for this rendering is dampened because I can only find one, slightly suspect example of this smith on the internet (another kogatana), and I prefer the safety of numbers... http://aucview.aucfan.com/yahoo/f151651201/ I wouldn't have thought Masa, just because it is so unlike the previous Masa. This could be a case where, as Morita-san says, the a duplicate kanji is written in a different style in order to conform to calligraphy conventions. But it does seem a step too far from 正 for my liking.

The mei looks like Tomokata (知賢), but it seems to be done in a different hand than other Tomokata pieces. http://www.winners-auction.jp/productDetail/57859 http://art.thewalters.org/detail/19191/tsuba-with-leaves-and-cherry-blossoms/ The script that makes the design of the pieces is called Tensho script (sometimes called Chinese seal script). Note this is just a style, and it doesn't mean the pieces are Chinese copies. (Sorry, I am not a great decipher of Tensho script, so I cannot tell what message is on the pieces...probably a poem, or some proverb/maxim.)

Kanenami 兼波 was my first thought, but I'm not super confident about it.

The writing was done in 1974 (Shōwa 49), by an anonymous writer. This is the low-hanging fruit of the script. Everything else is hard work. The original owner (or the person who commissioned the sword), was Wada Shikibu from Sendai. Not sure about the reading of the personal name, but the other word in there Kokurō, refers to a quasi official position of elder statesman. The person who performed the tameshigiri, Kuwayama Sadamasa, executed a futatsu-do. He shows up in Guido's list of celebrated tameshigiri. As you mentioned, Kuwayama died in Genroku 13 (1700), aged 88 years old - which is noted in the writing. I can't make out what is in the two seals. The box also mentions something about 1600 goku, which is an old unit of value. 1600 goku is quite a lot.. maybe the equivalent of a hundred thousand dollars or more. I can't make out what this refers to...whether it refers to the cost of the thing, or if it is being used to somehow describe Kuwayama and his fief. On the front of the box lid: 桑山丹後守貞政貳ツ胴斬落 Kuwayama Tango no kami Sadamasa futatsu-do kiriotoshi 摂津守藤原永重刀 Settsu no kami Fujiwara Nagashige tō (katana) 桑山家傳来 Kuwayama-ke denrai There is also a reference to another celebrated tameshigiri, Yamano Kaemon Eikyū. I think it is describing the contemporaries of Kuwayama. Sorry for the piecemeal work. I'm picking out things as they become clear to me.

No help. Not a clue.

Did a quick search: In the Reimeikan in Kagoshima there is a history of gun production in Satsuma-han dating from 1601 written by Nanpō Bunshi, and it apparently has details of gun manufacturing in the 16th century. I think this is the primary source for much of our information on Portuguese weapons. The article below says that after buying 2 guns from the Portuguese, Tanegashima Toki was instructed to learn how to produce the weapons, and he succeeded in producing gunpowder and rifle barrels, but failed to produce the necessary screws. It took another year and another foreign ship to transmit the method for manufacturing screws, but in 1544 they were able to produce a few tens of guns. From there, the center of gun production moved to the Kinki area, and by the time the forces of Ishiyama Honganji battled Oda Nobunaga in 1570, they employed 8000 guns. Anyway, this history of gun production might have the details you want. The above was just taken from some random gun enthusiast's site in Japan. http://blog.zaq.ne.jp/shibayan/article/105/ https://www.pref.kagoshima.jp/reimeikan/ I guess the question of brass manufacture is really a question of zinc mining and/or importation, and the lack of a significant zinc supply in Japan seems to have retarded the Japanese development of brass. Wikipedia and other sources say that brass production (亜鉛, or 真鍮) by the Japanese followed their encounter with the Portuguese, although there is one article that notes the presence of zinc was discovered in the gold ink of a 12th century buddhist sutra scroll. https://web.archive.org/web/20140429205011/http://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/national/news/CK2014042202000144.html Other than this (apparently) minor amount, zinc seems to have been more or less overlooked/unknown in both China and Japan, until its production in China in the 16th century, after being imported from India. http://www.geocities.jp/hiroyuki0620785/zairyou/historym8zinc.htm Anyway, if you are looking for primary sources on gun production, I think the Reimeikan is one source.

No - its a mystery to me. The stamp is very unique, isn't it. Kind of like a pot, with two inscrutable kanji characters on it, but it also looks like the design of the pot and the lid might contain some bits of kanji characters also. I haven't seen anything like it.

I thought 明和 (Meiwa) would refer to the gengo Meiwa, maybe Meiwa 2 (1765). Zodiac sign for this year is 乙酉, which is tantalizingly close to what is on the painting, but not an exact match. 佛成通日 I thought might also be a calendar reference, but nothing pops out. Other than those very tenuous guesses, I couldn't make any headway.

This is the place... (or thereabouts) http://www.jcastle.info/castle/profile/362-Takada-Castle

If Sakushū (作州) is correct, then this would be Takada in the province of Mimasaka (美作), Sakushū being the abbreviation for Mimasaka-shū. The Takada in Oita would have a different province/country name at the beginning.

Regrets in both directions.... I should not have bought the mediocre pieces that I bought when I was first starting out, but I had more money than sense at the time and convinced myself (easily) they were good purchases. I enjoyed them in my newbiedom, but now I look at them with more experienced eyes and wished I would have had more knowledge or wisdom or patience when I was an early student of these things. Recently, I kind of regret not buying the exquisite tsuba I saw at the DTI.

Another puzzle. To me it looks like 作州高田住信包 Sakushū Takada-jū Nobukane I couldn't find much to support this reading, though. A couple of obscure references on Google...but that's about it.

囗囗於氏房作之 ?? oite Ujifusa saku kore I am struggling with the first two, which would seal the deal on which Ujifusa this is. I wouldn't expect there to be too much mystery about a showa-era Ujifusa, but I can't place this one. Maybe somebody can give me a hand.

雲龍図鐔無名（水戸元孚） 赤銅地丸形高彫 Tsuba with dragon and cloud design. Mumei (Mito Motozane) Shakudo-chi, maru-gata, takabori

Hello Philip, You nailed it. 兼 (kane) in calligraphy (especially on swords) is often written very differently from how the printed version looks, or how it displays using typical computer fonts. In fact, it is often abbreviated to the point where it hardly resembles the printed version at all. You do get used to it. The kane on this sword is about as abbreviated as it comes, but it is definitely 兼 Showa 1 = 1926 Showa 19 = 1944

Don't know if you got the other side or not, but this is what it is 於八幡宮社前切試ｼ並ﾆ武運長久祈ﾙ Tested and consecrated for good luck in battle at Hachimangu shrine Also, note that you want to be looking for 天秀, and not 大秀 as you have above.

Hello - here's your man http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/514-translation-help-please/

道辰 Michitoki

The kogatana says 金華山麓　於濃州長良川邉藤原兼長 Kinkasanroku (in large letters, "Kinka" on the top, "sanroku" on the bottom) Oite Nōshū Nagaragawa / hotori Fujiwara Kanenaga

The kanji in the far right picture read 越前 - Echizen - which is a province in Japan, corresponding to present day Fukui prefecture. (The picture is displayed upside-down. The orientation should be rotated 180°). Normally there would be the smith's name underneath his location, but in this sword the smith's name has been lost due to corrosion. The sword has been shortened from its original length, as you can tell by the shortened tang, and the addition of an extra hole above the original hole (mekugi-ana). But it kind of looks like it was already a short sword (wakizashi) to begin with. The writing has the choppy style that is often seen on WW2 blades, but there is not enough for me to say definitively what period this is from. The fact that it was shortened at some point, and the use of the old province name could point to an Edo (or older) blade, but those two things by themselves are insufficient to say for sure, and the choppy writing gives me some doubt. Usually you'd also look at the temper line (hamon), and the hamon area of the tip...so maybe some close ups of these areas would help.