petethe canadian

This is the end of one of the scrolls I found at my in-laws, generally where we find dates and often names are written. I have a date of 1633 but I am not sure thats accurate. Maybe there's a date here and the insect damage may be right where the date once was. If anyone sees a date please let me know. Thanks.

Agreed, one day everything we found at my in-laws place will be returned to Japan, thats where it belongs, had I not found them they'd still be there deteriorating more and more, here they're safe with us and they're small enough for my wife to pack in a suitcase when the time comes and she will bring them back on one of her trips to see friends and family in Japan. This is the second of 2 pages I got in Sendai, appears to be written for the same occasion, possibly by the same person.

The rest of the archery scroll images won't load. Here's an 1825 painting of the layout for a samurai feast for the staff of the place that was hosting the event. The colours are still very vibrant, the washi paper has some damage along the creases but still a pretty cool piece.

This is the start of the scroll about building archery targets, first photo loaded no problem so I hope the rest will too.

where do I find the photo resizer here? I looked but must have missed it. OK found it and I'll just load the photos that I can, most are just too big, unfortunate we have some great stuff.

can't load the next section of the scroll

I'd like to add more photos but I can't, too bigI

I got this while living in Japan, there are very few online but the ones I saw call this a hanging amulet but I have also read that these were used to carry scrolls or important documents while traveling, not sure what it is actually called. Since I have found very few like it dating it is guesswork, but to me it looks like Edo period with a possibility of it being early Meiji. The metal end caps are original but the metal strapping looks to me to have been added at a later date possibly because the wood split from end to end and rather than throwing it away or replacing it previous owner[s] had it repaired. Whoever added the metal strapping left all the small nails they used protruding through the wood into the interior making it impossible to store anything inside that needs to be retrieved, just too risky putting a hand in there with out it being punctured a hundred times. Still a very interesting piece and I will add photos of the end caps, the metal work is outstanding and it was done by a highly skilled artisan, with several auspicious Japanese symbols. The himo looks original to me and if it was replaced at some point it was done a very long time ago.

I have to cut them off somewhere they're too long to capture in one shot if I want them to be legible. This is the start of a scroll, it has insect damage further along I''ll post photos of the entire scroll section by section.

was I getting carried away? didn't realize it.

Domo mina san. Here's a look at another hanko from a different scroll, I have photos of all the scrolls, taken section by section and I can post more pics of those if anyone is interested. They took scrolls like this very seriously, on the ones I found the receiver was not allowed to divulge anything he learned not even to his family, it was all very secret. I found 5 books altogether and the thickest one seems to be an encyclopedia of sorts filled with all kinds of information a samurai head of a household needed to know from battlefield medicine to presenting gifts to superiors to how to use lacquer, plus j=how to make oneself invisible, no kidding. There are recipes for the energy balls samurai needed for long marches when they couldn't stop for food etc. Other books I found are how to write, the wrong sentence or reference to a particular season could be regarded as uneducated in Edo city so they took all of this extremely seriously. Another book is about samurai laws, all hand written on washi paper that has dragons embossed in the paper on the covers. Someday we will return these all to Japan either to a museum or university, thats where they belong. I have them to photograph them and catalogue them and hopefully try to get them translated but the encyclopedia is 144 pages so thats going to take some time. My brother in law wasn't interested in any of this so my wife and I brought them to Canada with us. ,

Under the maewa brass metal I saw some washi paper sticking out and when I looked closely I saw these 5 shims wrapped in old washi paper, I read it was not unusual for makers to do this to stop the rattling of the metal. Plausible. The sellers said it was a samurai saddle, their country so I figured they would know, even if it isn't it's still a very cool piece in our collection. The washi paper looks old, apparently in the Edo period washi was very expensive and was recycled before recycling was cool, the washi here contains a lot of particles, could be from the recycling process or it was made that way, we brought washi back with us and some pieces are white while others have bits of different things like leaves etc. The monkey motif was not added, it was cut out from a solid piece of brass then some mother of pearl was added behind it. I would wager saddles evolved over the generations, if mine doesn't look like every other saddle out there, that could be one reason and they were not all made in the same place, perhaps different regions had different designs not uncommon in Japan at all. Some saddles were made for battle some were made for exhibitions like parades, I am not saying my saddle has seen battles, I wasn't there so I don't know. One thing is certain, I was not going to leave it behind.

This is an image I saved from the web because it looks a lot like my saddle. When I got it the saddle was held together something like this photo. I have both ends, the maewa and the shizuwa. I took it apart when we sent 110 boxes from Japan to Canada in a container. I could put it back together to look like the one in this photo, wouldn't be hard but it is easier to store in two pieces.

yes

I got this old samurai saddle at an antiques jamboree in Tokyo, I have both pieces and there is a monkey motif on both parts, I have read that monkeys were protectors of samurai horses so seeing them on a saddle makes sense. I am not sure how old the saddle is, could be Edo or Meiji, the monkeys have the Maeda mon on their chests so quite possible it was made for that clan I just don't know when. It is well made and does not appear to be a tourist reproduction, it looks authentic and the sellers said it was.

This scroll describes how to build/make archery targets with dimensions and the rules to be followed in making targets, as you can see there is a large hanko on the scroll. It has been dated to one of two dates, 1781 or 1841 following the 60 year cycle. We have other documents that are dated to 1841 so thats year is plausible but evidently it does have Anei 10 = 1781 written on it. My father in law didn't know these scroll were there and he had no idea how they got there but my wife's family still live in the same neighbourhood where her archer ancestors lived, near Nishi-koen park in the city, from what I have read before it became a park it was the training ground where her ancestors taught and practised archery. We have a lot to translate and it's going to take time but it's all very interesting to me.

visible in this photo are the ghosts of some of the brackets that held the blades in place along with the holes where the nails secured the brackets. Over the 206 years of its life many things could;d have happened, I wasn't there so I can't say for sure. There are many possible hypotheses regarding this chest/box and I'll probably never really know what happened with Mohei's chest, every square centimetre has a ding, dent, scratch, bump, bruise and/or chip, there is a lot of writing all over the piece and not all done by the same hand. This chest was used for something else I mean I am using it for something else, in 206 years I'm certain the chest was used for different purposes along the way, it's a fascinating piece, to me anyway.

I changed the u to an o, pommel, domo. Of course all of what I suggest is speculation as we can not ask Mohei himself, I saw and owned other katana bako and this is the only one I saw that has wood that was gouged from the end where the tips of the blades were stored, both ends look different and my guess is because of the different ends of the katana. In some photos the ghosting from where the brackets were fastened on the bottom and sides that held the blades in place in the chest are visible, the wood is a lighter colour and there are holes where the nails once were. Most of the interior staining is at the end of the box where the tips of the blades rested, a slip of the hand while cleaning or replacing a katana is a possibility. I believe the 4 hinges that attach the top to the chest were added at some other time, probably not original to 1820 and who knows, could be whoever added the hinges cut themself, there are a number of possibilities for how the blood stains originated, but having lived in Japan I seriously doubt any carpenter or person who worked on the chest/box would have left any kind of staining behind, too sloppy, just doesn't fit the meticulous craftsmanship of the Japanese. But again, I could be wrong on all of this but I'm basing what I write on what I see with my own eyes. There is writing on just about every surface of the chest, it passed through many hands before mine, there are many possible explanations for the stains. Adds to the mystery.

this is the opposite end of the chest where the pummel was stored, we can see a different kind of gouge, like the wood was compressed over decades where the katana pommel was lifted from and replaced in the box it was a tight fit, whatever all this is it's a piece of samurai history and it fits nicely with my wife's ancestors who were samurai but they were archers, I found an old scroll in their storeroom that shows how to build, measure and use archery targets, I can post photos of that as well if anyone would like to see that.

Two more photos of the stains that I believe to be blood, I can't say for sure they are Mohei's fingerprints and blood stains but I can't say they aren't. The chest is 206 years old, it passed through many hands before it got to me so who knows whose blood stains they are if they are indeed blood stains. Some folks have speculated that the stains are lacquer stains from the box but had I been the carpenter who made the box for a samurai I certainly would not have left my fingerprints on the piece, some have said hanko ink stains, could be but personally they look like the wrong colour to me to be that ink. In the right side photo here we can see where some of the wood on one end of the box where the tips of the blades were stored, perhaps Mohei acquired a different blade than he owned when he commissioned the box and needed to "make the new blade fit" so some of the wood was gouged out and it doesn't appear to be professionally done to me eye, appears to be quire rough, someone used a chisel or some other type of sharp object to gouge out enough wood for the fit. The opposite end of the box/chest shows where the pummel end of the katana was/were forced down and that created a different type of gouge which I will show photos of later. All very mysterious. I saw a LOT of old katana in my 22 years in Japan but never bought one, mostly because the ones I saw were crazy expensive and at some point historical katana were no longer permitted to leave Japan.

Hi, I appreciate the reply. The actual mystery of this chest is in the interior, I just wanted to upload a couple of pics to make sure I am posting this in the correct section and since you didn't; tell me to move it; I will assume this is the proper section. The back has been translated but of course I am not sure it's correct but from what I've been told it is signed by Sugiyama Mohei who commissioned the chest/box. So now that I am reasonable certain this is the right section, here are a couple more photos...there are quite a few stains inside the chest, anybody want to opine on the stains seen here? .

Another newb here, posting from Calgary Alberta but I am from Montreal Quebec. I just posted about my katana chest and hope to get feedback on the mysteries of the chest. I lived in Sendai Miyagi for over 20 years and while in the country we picked up a lot of Japanese antiques, we came back with all kinds of antiques most of which we use in our daily lives. My wife is from Sendai and I found quite a few old documents, books and scrolls in their storehouse going back to the days of her samurai ancestors who served the Date clan, they were archers, all very interesting though I have given up on AI trying to translate them.