Bugyotsuji

Bizen Yaki yes, but the flask could be either Edo or Satsuma Kiriko. (?) It’s the wife’s, and she just plonked it there, and I never asked because she always says she doesn’t know. *Apologies for thread drift away from Tsuba themes!

Or as the original photo above, you can put them on a stand.

埋、梅 are different characters though. A known evolution, so... inscribed later?

Agreed with all of the above. Some will have a Mei on them, but these are taken out of the bundle first by interested people who may want an example of a particular Mei, or want to keep the Mei on a refashioned knife.

Reading a paper some time ago on various kabuto related to the Hei family of the Tōhoku region, they also discussed one that had been unearthed from under a shrine back in early Meiji, a strangely irregular, unprofessional work. It might have been a practice piece from a workshop, that was never able to fulfill its basic function of protecting a wearer. The kabuto bowl under discussion above however, probably was able to protect the wearer, even if of rather rough workmanship. Not a great work of art, not a masterpiece, but the work of a rustic armorer or an apprentice perhaps which may have been through the wars before another upgrading with later mabisashi (as many were). Just idle thoughts after a good night’s sleep!

It looks somehow like an old-style marui (round) hoshi kabuto-bachi. Very slight oval???

Probably not urushi, Lewis. I asked a Japanese friend not too long ago why some tsuba appear black and he said casually, "Oh, many people use XYZ". I made a note at the time as it was an unfamiliar word, (which I now cannot find) but it could be something similar to that. Sorry to be of little help!

But why go to the trouble of creating something not quite perfect? 32 plates. Imagine the time-consuming effort involved! The very unevenness suggests something early, pre-Edo, though I am not talking about 'value' per se, just age. By the same token, I too am ready to be swung by the inside details, especially the rivets. If it's a newer creation, I will be surprised, not for the first time in life!

It looks genuinely old from those photos, pre 1600.

Both nice finds John. Thank you. Will need to study these for a while. (As far as I know they did not yet use or even have large Ozutsu guns like that first one at the time of Kawanakajima, but never say never! The second gun does give the correct impression of a larger-bore battlefield samurai gun, say 10 Monme, unusual accuracy for a woodblock print.) PS Usually the names and/or titles of the historical figures on these Bakumatsu prints have been altered slightly to avoid giving offence to anyone or falling fowl of some arcane Tokugawa law. Yesterday I was looking at print of Ranmaru, a famous 森Mori family figure whose name was written 保里Bori Ranmaru, changed, but instantly recognizable.

It is giving me flashes of Nagoya-mono.

分福茶釜　bunbuku chagama a propos of nothing, apart from Dale's story above! Oh, and I had a cider or two with lunch...

Yoshitoshi was a bit of a handful I believe. Rebels add colour to the world This may be the same subject as the one above holding the gun the wrong way round…(?)

Well none of mine listed there but the closest has this description: ”Hunter Kanpei with a rifle on his shoulder from the Chushingura at the scene of the night hunting accident. The background shows the Tokaido between Sakanoshita and Tsuchiyama.” This is good info. It cuts deep, but not to the quick. (These are not rifles, by the way, if you’ll tell Artelino, and permit me to be a card-carrying grammar nazi.) As for theme-hunting, good shot! A typical hunter in the Edo Period (and around the time of the Ako 47 Ronin incident) would carry a smoothbore long-gun of less than 1.3 cm bore. Use of straw for mino, ajiro-gasa and waraji, as for the match cord also noted, also for the Sumo Rikishi’s skirt or loin decorations.

But then I found another single print, a partly equivalent scene by Ichiyosai Toyokuni, different border pattern, 32 x 21 cm roughly. Notice the netsuke and firestarter kit sagemono. Starting to notice some common themes? Detail