Bugyotsuji

So what? I hear you say? Well, it can go on the armour stand and complete the set. Decorative effect: Batsugun! On Saturday I had just visited a Menpo collector and he must have had 100 hanging on one wall alone. At a low average of 3,000 USD each, you can work out what he paid for them, and a couple were considered the best examples anywhere in the world. So my brain was full of unattainable Menpo and the very next morning there is was, in all its tempting ghastliness. For 12 dollars US... a real one, with real age to it, and genuine holes that still work for the string, and the cheek hooks solid, and a viable sweat hole in the chin plugged with a little wooden bung, and I learned so much without being afraid! Yippppeeee...........

Step 2, step 3, and then apply cord.

Brian, it's hard to shake you off the scent! It cost me 1,000 JPY and so I felt free to do whatever I wanted with it. A brush down with various brushes and a few taps and knocks cleared out much of the rough loose stuff. I covered all the rusty iron spots with a matt black quick-drying non-oil paint, and then went over the whole thing again with it. As I was wiping the inside I noticed faint traces of the original red interior inside the chin. With a first coating of 'adzuki' 小豆　coloured 'Cashew' it started to look a lot better, so I mixed that with こげ茶　Kogecha, another traditional colour of Japanese lacquer-type cashew paint. This went on the remainder of the interior lacquer, and some areas that looked like they would benefit from extra protection. A few hours drying outside in the shade with plenty of wind, and it was hard as a nut.

Well, put another way, would anyone have bought this Menpo? :D

Ian, was the auction not in 2008? A lovely-looking book.

Well, I sure hope so, Eric. It's lost all that crumbly flakiness and looks much better in this dark almost black guise. On Sunday I got up v early and drove about 50 miles to see some antiques stalls which appear once a month. Among the treasures I picked up were a lacquered armrest for when sitting on tatami, a small Kama scythe/sickle for flower ceremony (?) and a badly battered Bajo-hai or stirrup cup. There was also a Menpo in really terrible condition which after some debate I decided to purchase. Please have a look at it and then guess a) how much it was and b) what eventually happened to it!

I once had a Kusarigama with chain and ball, signed, and dated in the reign of Sakuramachi Tenno. I never polished it or looked closely at the blade. Kusarigama are exempt from the Toroku requirement in Japan, for some strange reason. Perhaps if you polished one it would then need paperwork! I too would love to hear the answer to this question.

Eric, you don't want to look too closely as it has some serious holes in it!!! One of the touch-holes is badly corroded too. Let's see what I've got for you...

I can't see facebook without logging in... Those seem to be quite expensive to start with, even if you are able to negotiate with them.

LOL, an excellent find, Eric.

A Merry XXXX and a Happy New Year in 2011. PS Did we have this one last year? "Christmas in Japan..."

Many thanks for the education above. Wishing you all plenty of whatever floats your boat and takes you nearer to where you want to go.

Have to agree with Steve. Nice decoration in the right place though.

Well, I am 99% satisfied with the way this project has turned out. The rust is black and settled. I had a terrible job trying to whittle Kashi oak. Spent hours and hours as I am not using power tools. Thought long and hard over how to fix the haft to the sheath, and eventually came up with a decent temporary fix solution. The sheath has a long oval slit in it. The answer needed to be something strong, which could also be easily undone as necessary, so I went for a kind of bamboo pin in Mekugi style, hard into the near end of the slit. The 'gun' cannot slip off. The pin has a groove across the top to allow one or two turns of the binding over it to hold it in. As I was playing with decorations I decided to use a Chinese good luck charm out of respect for the spirit of the object and the people who created it. Just hope it isn't Korean! :lol:

When was that originally published, Brian?

Eric, an interesting discovery there. As you know, the pronunciation Nip-pon is used by people proud of their country and wishing to make a point of it in speech, eg Nationalists, Right-wingers, etc. Since the war the softer Ni-hon has been the norm, but nowadays you do hear more and more usage of the Nip-pon on TV etc. With swords, however, I have not heard anyone calling them Nip-pon-to on the ground here in Japan............. yet.

No confidence in this but if those are flowers and a bridge, could the scraggly bits be chrysanthemum leaves, possibly truncated, chipped, and/or broken and filed off at a later date?

Going back for a moment to the subject of Nihonto and 'seeing' hamon and workings in steel and correct lighting etc., a funny thing happened the other day. :| I was at a year-end party for a group of sword-related people, smiths, shirogane-shi metal-workers etc, and I showed them the boy's sword. The room was very dim, each table lit by a sole flickering candle. One of our members said 'Let's see how well a candle works', and lifted up the blade to examine it. I held up the candle glass. 'Mmmm... actually quite good' he muttered.

It's lovely stuff! :lol:

Here is an example of one being fired, but probably before the guy had gripped it properly. You may see another clip there about firing a 'genuine' 15th C three barrelled gun. This came up before, but it is a modern Chinese repro. The 'nipples' are also wrong, apparently, from what I understand. They were probably fired with a fuse or a hot wire...

No Eric, but I will ask him. Ian at the Royal Armouries in Leeds should be able to tell us what they use in Britain for this kind of thing. In the meantime I found this pdf which looks quite good. (Not read it properly yet...) http://gpigun.com/Preserving.pdf

David, one tip with shooting a blade (not that I know much about photography) is that you do not need to get the whole blade into every shot. One overall shot from 90 degrees to the center/centre will show the general Sugata (shape) and then, just as you have done with the Nakago, you can focus on the tip for example, and choose 'windows' of active sections if any are visible so that people can see into the workings in the blade steel. Do not try to physically create windows if they are not discernable. A polisher will do that.

David, no, it just means that they are very hard to read! :lol: Very few people in Japan today could read these, I guess, unless they have studied Chinese calligraphy etc. I had to use my books. The smith's Mei signature, however, if it is not Gimei, is an indicator of age. At the very least we can say that this sword is not older than about 1790, give or take a few years.

Well, the characters are the old form. The name Masanori suggests Kansei 寛政. (Beginning of Shinshinto?)

Looking at some old Kanji and this is Masanori or Sho-ou 将応 ...not a bad name.