Bugyotsuji

That was quick, Eric. Many thanks.

Yesterday at the sword society meeting, the 一号 sword was a lovely thing that obviously attracted (and puzzled) the members, and line 1 was conspicuously long. It turned out to be 天文 Sue Bizen, and was signed 在光　 Questions. Have any honorable members ever seen a sword by this smith, and would you have been able to read the Mei? Spoiler below

NB Although the dragonfly above is correctly identified as a トンボ Tombo, in this context it would be more appropriate to refer to it as a Kachimushi.

Some more images https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%E6%A ... 31&bih=399

Apologies for my late contribution to Ron's really fascinating article(s) and thread. There is a Bo-hiya (the remains of a shaft and head) that was dug up in 2003 out of an Edo Period firing range in Okayama City. It has been on display in the Castle there and I have an article in Japanese about it back in Japan. ousar.lib.okayama-u.ac.jp/file/43548/arccr_030.pdf Apart from that one, obviously genuine, I have seen and handled three or four of them, all slightly different in design and methodology, but as with your excellent effort illustrated above, they tend to be later recreations from the literature. As for fire lances and fire arrows, endless varieties have been hurled by one or other method of ejection since Roman times and ancient China. Gunpowder was surely just another method of propulsion within that evolution. Bo-hiya in Japan were lit by their own gun's explosive gases, I was told over there, but from what time onwards I am unsure. It would be good to find some definitive source material. Which usage came first, Japan or Korea, is like the chicken and egg question to me. In popular thought they were effective against a castle roof, and the Osaka summer and winter campaigns fit that profile perfectly. This may explain why castles suddenly lost their efficacy/usefulness, not simply because of destructive cannonball against stone wall, but more probably heavy iron-tipped bohiya flaming rocket onto tiles.

Hello Brian. On a notebook in London.

The first part is Niju Makibari, ie double bound/twisted steel barrel. The second part is GoShu (Ohmi), Kunitomo Ta-Ko-Suke, KatsuMasa. (Also recorded as Tayosuke) He would seem to be a smith in group 3 at Kunitomo, according to one list here, although I do not yet understand what these groups refer to exactly. There are other known guns from this group or family, including a 50 Monme gun in the Nagahama Museum, a 5 Monme cavalry gun (also Niju Makibari) owned by a Mr Yoshioka, and another Niju Makibari 100 Monme Ozutsu, once owned by the famous Mr Anzai.

Is anyone going to the Token meeting at the Senate House Library near Russell Sq this Thursday? Never having been to one of these gatherings in the UK before, I thought I might dare to venture along and observe.

Chris, sadly there is no better list, which is why I am carrying this one resource with me at the moment. The other gunsmith list is back in Japan, but it is less comprehensive and generally covered anyway in Urabe's work which Justin quotes above. One of the Ikawa smith family produced a gun there on that page dated Bunkyu 2 Nen, putting it at the end of Edo. Sawada Taira produced an illustrated booklet about the Settsu smiths which may give you more information, but I do not have the details here. I have a copy back in Japan if you can wait until late March. Otherwise an internet search brings up... hmmmm. It may be this book here, an old auction listing, although the blurb below does not mention that it covers your smith, merely confining itself to the three or four most famous Sakai smiths. http://aucview.aucfan.com/yahoo/g111808426/

His records cover only guns recorded within Japan, but there must be hundreds around the world that escaped Japan before the present registration system was introduced. I doubt that he has any way of including such finds abroad, such as Chris's one above. For this reason I doubt that later volumes will be radically different from yours, Justin. My own copy is from Heisei 20 (six years ago) and looks the same as your entry above.

The larger one of the left, the main coarse powder flask looks pretty rough and ready, but difficult to tell from those shots. The smaller one on the right, the priming powder flask, looks to have a decent body to it, but without taking it in hand I can not be sure. Several of the part are missing from it and the string is completely wrong, though. You would need to rebuild it. Not impossible but it would take study, time, a delicate touch and patience. They may have come together, ie they were from the same 'lot' in an auction, or someone later kept them in the same drawer, but there is absolutely nothing linking these three objects together.

Eric, a lot (but certainly not all) of such decoration was added to existing teppo barrels at the beginning of Meiji by work-seeking kanagu artisans. Our teppotai leader looks down on such decoration as distracting for the serious gunner. "Bah, Hamamono!" he says. (One theory is that they were more highly decorated in order to catch the eyes of and be sold to visiting ship-borne Westerners along the shores of Yokohama Bay, thus short for Yokohama but also having the meaning of Hama (=beach) mono (=things). Naturally there are still some here floating around Japan, and there are also collectors who like bright and cheerful guns. In fact there is a rather senior red-faced gentleman in the Prefectural Education Department here, head of one branch of the sword society, who sits on the committee for registering (or not) guns. He actively collects Sakai guns with lots of lovely flashy brasswork all over them, much to the secret disdain of others.

Bill, in order not to be disappointed, do not get your hopes up regarding a signature under the barrel. Most Tangashima-stye matchlocks did not have a Mei under there, though many that have found their way to the West do. Just imagine that there is no Mei, and you will not be disappointed if there isn't. All those brass rings look like protection against a barrel burst. Why are they necessary? Just decoration? Next time, do not buy a gun without clear photos of the inside of the pan, the state of the touch-hole, and shots of the BISEN breech screw in the end of the barrel. Without these, you are essentially buying sight unseen, like buying a car without getting the engine checked out first. Fingers crossed that everything inside is better than these outside pix! (That's a lovely gun, Mark. Bet you were sad to part with it!)

Only just spotted this thread with Ron fighting his corner sturdily but almost all alone! It was interesting to read this and see that Ron is almost 100% on target with what he is saying, and hedging his words wisely when he is not sure. :lol: (I just bought a Tanegashima long gun yesterday with an iron external spring.) Not diplomatic perhaps, but his words are weighed and fair. To me this gun looks like a tourist gun, or something a pirate might have carried, cobbled roughly together with a few leftover genuine bits. Too dangerous for a child's toy, too big for a child's gun. The whole thing is wrong, as has been said above, from the texture of the wood, to the shortness of the barrel (sawn off?) to the odd decorations on it, to the shape of the serpentine, having very little Japanese feeling to it. If you had said Chinese, or south-east Asian, then just maybe perhaps. How much did you pay for this, Bill? You must have liked it when you bought it.

You cannot reason with people who are in love. :lol: Take a cold shower. :| If you think it is not worth the price they are asking, make them an offer and see what happens. Often in Japan, silence means "No". Have you bought from them before?

浦?

KOZUKA 100, Claude THUAULT Collection, has many examples of Kao in it. (If this is too obvious, please ignore.)

They won't place a monetary value on it, Bernard, but some of them will give you their opinion on its merits. Umimatsu is fairly rare. If you cannot get a hold of the MCI, someone there probably can show you a photo of the pages I quoted earlier. If not, then I will take some shots of the example, and of the written thoughts of Meinertzhagen regarding Sessai.

How old does it look? There is a very similar 'Umimatsu two dried fish, apparently representing Iwashi (sardines)' by Sessai on p.724 of the Meinertzhagen Card Index of Netsuke in Archives of the British Museum. Ed. George Lazarnik. He warned back then that there were many fakes around.

It just happens that in Urabe's gunsmith list there is a Daishido Jinzaemon in Settsu Province who signed a gun with the date 安永4年, (1776) which (assuming this is the same smith) tells us that he was making guns before and/or after 1776, (An-Ei ran from 1772-1781) , the year of the US Declaration of Independence, shortly before the French Revolution in Europe. In the middle of the long Edo Period, right about where Ron's educated intuition was pointing him.

Great to hear you are happy, Jon. Some of your questions will be sadly unanswerable. Unlike swords, very little is known about Japanese gunsmiths. Even having a name you are lucky. This Jinzaemon could be old, as far back as the beginning of Edo, but that would take quite a bit of detective work to suss out. Very interesting to hear of your exploits, and I was surprised to learn that there are Tanegashima shooters in the UK. Where are you based? The pan has been drilled out as step one in refurbishing it. They corrode over the centuries until a) The Yaku-ike bowl is too large and deep, and b) the enlarged vent allows too much blowback. The operation is called "Bugu Naoshi" in Japanese. You get a new circular plug inserted below. Then the pan is drilled and plugged sideways, entering through the outer edge of the pan. A new vent hole is drilled into the new plug, and finally the rim is plugged and smoothed over. You can recognize pans that have been renewed by the circle under the pan, and the dotted circle on the outside rim of the pan. The silver rim around the muzzle looks in the pic to be a decoration to balance the one at the other end... but is the metal actually different? If so, it's a first for me and I have seen hundreds of these guns. Sometimes you will find a barrel that has been cut down, and workings or artificial ageing around the cut edge to make it look old. Stock, Japanese Akagashi, red oak, yes. "No 23" highly likely production number of gun, with the same number written inside the stock. Cannot see the stamp well enough to comment, but quite unusual. Whether to have the inlay freshened up is your decision, but often people polish them to death when they reach the West, removing much of what was good. Consult an artisan and see what he would charge. The dragon is chasing a 'Hoju' the precious jewel of life and mystery. As to quality, I would say medium. Many of these decorations were added in early Meiji to please Westerners, but they are slightly frowned upon in Japan purist circles. It is not low quality, but it is not top quality either. Even so, probably a better example than some of the guns that have found their way to the West, a good standard gun IMHO. PS The file marks around the muzzle and the darker staining area may indicate some repair work done to the muzzle...

Yes, Ron, I know of many smiths who were attracted this way and that by competing Lords for their gunsmithing know-how. Often smiths will write a place name with Ju 住 indicating that was where they were living, whether temporarily or permanently. Lack of this may simply indicate he was not living in Settsu at the time. Interestingly a quick check of the Kunitomo smiths list shows some Kunitomo Jinzaemon names, possibly descendants of this chap. (?) Was he an early migrant smith then? If he was early this might also explain the lack of any strong regional or Ryu-ha characteristics in the gun. As if starting from neutral? I like the shape of it, but many Tanegashima really do have no strong defining characteristics. I also find them puzzling. Things are easier when the hints are clearer. I would have expected the brass retaining band to be much wider for Sakai, for example. You would never guess Sakai from those photos alone.

Not much to add really, as Drago, Ron, Morita San etc., have already answered most questions. On the face of it, a nicely presented gun, I agree. You may want to source a proper hollow hinge pin. Strange marks on the barrel were often made by the vice when trying to open the large Bisen breech screw that Ron mentions above. (The screw sometimes gets split and destroyed in the process if not done correctly.) How is the inside appearance of the pan? Can we get a shot of that? Most importantly, once you know the barrel is clear, how badly pitted is it? If I am teaching my grandmother to suck eggs, please forgive me. Many extant examples were not kept clean inside, for a number of reasons, and blackpowder residue is especially unkind to steel, so you may want to take it easy on the charge in the beginning if you are planning to fire ball from it. As we know, these Tanegashima are pretty toughly made, though. Although it looks more like a Kunitomo gun, as Ron says, (lacking any of the gaudiness of Osaka guns), the smith Daishido Jinzaemon is a true blue Sakai/Settsu smith. Slightly unusual with a signed gun not to have the region 摂津住 inscribed above the signature. Congratulations on your purchase, by the way.

Not according to my wife.

Dango? Yes, Malcolm, that sort of thing! "Okashi-Ya" I think the couple said. All the instruments came from the cupboard of one old shop, but of them I found these three to be the most interesting, the rest being slim brass spoons of which I already have a couple. Not quite sure if a brass pastry cutter counts as Nihonto though...