rouellette916

Hello all, just a quick question. I have been planning to purchase an antique firearm from a local antique dealer here in Japan, and I have been reading up on the laws regarding it. However, since my Japanese is limited and I don't want to rely entirely on translation apps, I just wanted to double check what I need to do. (For added context, I am in Niigata-ken) Basically, if the antique, non-functional firearm I intend to purchase already has a registration certificate, do I only need to submit a notification of change of ownership, or are there any other permits or forms I need to submit? I am not exporting it as I will be living here for the near future. Thanks for your help!

Interesting! I figured that might be the case. Do you have any idea what it might have been produced for? Plays or festivals or something as a costume? Or just a plain-old knock-off? If you have any images of similar examples I'd love to see. Could be fun to give it a proper headband again.

Hello all, First post here, looking for some help identifying this piece of armor (?) I recently purchased at a thrift/junk shop in the Japanese countryside. My initial thought was that it was a hitai-ate/hachigane, and the shopkeeper seemed to think it was the same (admittedly I am still learning Japanese so communication was limited, but he got the idea across that it was for the forehead and was attached to a headband). However, looking at images of other forehead protectors, I've only been able to find one similar looking one through a reverse image search. I'm by no means an expert though, so that's why I came here! So, my question is, what is it? Is it actually a piece of armor, or is it something else? It only cost me 2000 yen so if it's not the real deal it's not a huge loss haha. Any help is appreciated!