Gents,
You all are the wealth of knowledge!
Piers-san, there are two characters at the end not one... I think the one before the last one has some features of 成, but I'll let you be the judge:
Many thanks for all the help,
Paul
Piers-san,
I was able to "excavate" these some more, not sure if this is more helpful.
You also mentioned writing to the right but we already looked at them before. I'll try to get some better images of these characters later.
Thanks,
Paul
Gents,
Please have a look at some of the kamons below:
It looks like Jinbo is the closest to the ones on the gun. However, Jinbo clan was from Toyama prefecture, a bit removed from Sendai...
Gents,
Couple more characters from the side of the ignition port.
Piers-san, many thanks for narrowing down the choice of gunsmith. Would Gen's correspond to some sort of timelines? I was curious if we could get a ball park estimate.
Also the cal is 56 or 1.42cm.
Paul
Gents,
I think I found a very similar gun on this forum also from Sendai with nearly identical set of characters:
http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/14915-matchlock-signature-help/
Hi Piers-san,
Please see couple of pics above. Bringing these characters to life was like excavating on micron scale... Please let me know if you can decipher any of them.
Many thanks,
Paul
Hello Gents,
You are a wealth of information. Please see some pics of the 39" barrel below. There is a stream of Katakana characters down one side but it is almost impossible to take a picture of. Maybe you might have some suggestion how to bring out the characters without destroying them.
Many thanks,
Paul
Hi Malcolm,
Thanks for your reply, please have a look at the link below:
https://wiki.samurai-archives.com/index.php?title=Jinbo_clan
Would Jinbo be better suited?
Thanks,
Paul
Hello Everyone,
I have recently purchased an original tanegashima. I was wondering if anyone out there knows the symbols that the gun is decorated with. I looked online and it looks like the symbol represents the Jinbo clan but I am not sure.
Any help is much appreciated.
THANKS,
PAUL