uwe

Me too, Piers!

“吉氏” or “吉武” I guess…🤔

“清心子正行” (Seishinshi Masayuki), I would assume. Oh, Moriyama San beats me…

Yes, the lacquer seems not well done in these places. Along some of the suji as well (or are picture deceptive?). Anyway, we need a glimpse inside 🤓 Colin, can you take some close ups of the shikoro in order to get an idea of its construction? Are there “lacquer noses” along some of the suji?

Yes 🤓 There are several oddities leading me to this assumption. At first have look at the strange placement of the sankō no byō 😉

Unfortunately the ukebari is hiding the internal appearance, but from what can be seen and despite the rather nice shape of hachi and shikoro, I dare say …. Not Edo!

Very suspicious… Do you have a picture from the underside or/ and interior?

Hence we can be sure…!

Hello David, at a glance I would say resin copy of a Bayo-jingasa. The cracks are looking kinda strange…different than one might expect from the materials commonly used. Internal surface looks “unreal” as well. However, as you know, judging by images only is always tricky. So can you take more pics? Especially from the damages on the top and the whole inside?!

Hi Gary, guess I agree with Luc! Interesting helmet. Can you try an endoscope checking for a signature?

Welcome Saad, at first glance it seems that both pieces were once lacquered and for what reason ever, the urushi was stripped. Maybe too much damaging?! The kabuto has a nice shape. Paired with this Nara-men and the matching tare/shikoro (kiritsuke-kozane) makes it a “set”, one can say… Estimating age is, unfortunately, not that easy because Zunari-kabuto as also Nara-men were made over a longer time span. However, provided that the shikoro is original to the helmet, the small fukigaeshi pointing rather to an earlier date, backed by the overall shape of the hachi itself. I would agree with your assumption that the tsunomoto is a later addition. The two holes above might suggest that a narabi-tsunomoto was initially fitted (or the maker changed mind during his work 🤔).

I would suggest “吉明” (Yoshiaki), although one stroke is missing.

Let’s start with the far right, an address… “碓水郡”, 坂本町, 群馬懸” (Usui gun, Sakamotomachi, Gunma ken?) Not sure about the kanji after Gunma… And there is “左藤” (Satou). Probably a name… It’s late this evening, so I’ll leave the left two columns for someone else 🥱

Fuchi seems to be signed “利壽” (Toshinaga), but I’m not sure…

So maybe 啓司 (Hiroshi), do you think?