In reply to Henry Wilson's query, dated 25 December, as to whether sword fittings were ever made of Namban tetsu, this begs the question 'what do you mean by Namban tetsu'? Clearly, iron that was maufactured in Japan by the smelting of local iron sand can be excluded from such a label, but the admixture to this of any iron of a foreign origin probably constitutes Namban iron.
The importation of iron from Korea into Japan occurred as early as the third century AD. A few centuries after this, Japan became self-reliant until the importation of iron by the Dutch from China, Korea and India around 1600. In 1882, in spite of the abundance of local iron deposits, Japan produced only 5,000 tons of iron while she imported an annual average of 11.000 tons over the preceeding ten years.
In the absence of any definition of what we mean by 'Namban tetsu', and of any present method of detecting its presence, we can only assume that, from 1600 onwards, most Japanese iron contained an unknown, and variable, amount of the imported iron. Whether or not you label such iron as 'Namban' is a matter of personal choice. I do ...
John Lissenden.