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Ian, I have used gold leaf before, you probably have also, its quite thin and easy to apply, would it be that expensive on a small scale?

Piers, hopefully some pictures will be coming our way from the exhibit, for those of us who are stuck on the wrong continent.

Here is an item related to the ones just posted, its listed as a "Kayo-Zugara Kouma-Jirushi" http://www.yoroikabuto.com/cgi-bin/shop ... cgi?dno=86

There are people with money who simply want to own something without becoming an expert on the subject. Joe asked for advice . So now he has got an earful of good advice about buying books and waiting years until he can become an expert on the subject, but what if Joe like so many people want to purchase an item whether an antique car, gun etc and just want to know how to approach this in the best way. Telling Joe how to properly take care of an antique Japanese sword and who can be trusted to sell him what he is looking for would probably be helpful also. I would recommend Richard Stein's site for sword care. http://home.earthlink.net/~steinrl/care.htm As for who Joe can trust to buy a Japanese sword from I am sure there are many forum members who can recommend someone that they trust, also who not to trust (as in daimyou54eb ). I can recommend Moses Becerra, from the one experience I had purchasing a sword from Moses I was impressed. http://nihontoantiques.com/

Keith, you mean like this one?? http://www.jauce.com/view2.php?seturl=h ... 149168161#

I would like to thank Thierry Bernard for giving me permission to upload his images of the samurai armor exhibit in Paris to the Wiki commons image repository. I have started a category on Wiki commons for all the images from the exhibit that have been properly licensed including Thierry's and I am in the process of transferring Thierry's images there. There are of course a lot of images on the internet but most are not licensed for legal use by the public with the exception of Wiki commons. Without images such as this the only record of this exhibit will be the catalog. It is unfortunate that more people do not take advantage of this excellent resource for the permanent storage of their images of nihonto and other Japanese, samurai related items. Here is a link to the category:Category:Photographs from the "Samurai: Armor of the Warrior" exhibit http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Categ ... 22_exhibit

Laurent, any pictures of the flaws?

Plain simple kake that does not distract from the koshirae. There are a lot of these older solid simple kake for sale in Japan, not to expensive either.

If you have not seen it already here is good an article on the kusari-fundo/manriki on Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kusari-fundo

Very much so, my first thought was were the other one was!

Piers, what exactly is a "kamasu"?

Jeremy, since you brought up the subject of nanban tetsu I will post this link from a previous discussion. viewtopic.php?f=9&t=8526&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=nanban+tetsu

Piers, I have seen one other like that for sale, the seller suggested it my have been used on fishing nets. Here is something similar, there is a set of them in a bamboo carrying case.

Except when someone out snipes your snipe!

Joe, have you thought about posting a wanted add in the forum wanted/for sale section? I would suggest that if you eventually find a potential candidate that you post some images and the description on the forum so that the forum members can rip it to shreds ..if it passed through the gauntlet you can be fairly sure you are getting a good sword for the money.

Chris, you are absolutely right, allowing sniping costs Ebay sellers a lot of money, I have taken advantage of this myself , and have lost out on buying at the last second also on many occasions and have always wondered why Ebay would allow this practice to continue.

Another rarely pictured weapon, the kanamuchi or kanemuchi, a long tapered forged iron whip, this one is 39 inches long. These are mentioned by Serge Mol and Don Cunningham, another police type weapon.

Reminds me of the one discussed here. viewtopic.php?f=9&t=11723

Another unusual weapon mentioned by Serge Mol as an "aribo", an octagon forged iron cane, this one fits the description although I can not find another image any were, it has a small hole with a copper insert and it has a taper, 35.5 inches long and quite heavy, you would not have wanted to wreck your sword on this. An Edo period police or security weapon presumably.

On the subject of tools, I saw these tools labeled as "lacquer collection tools", I have never thought about how the lacquer was collected or the tools need, I have no idea if these tools are accurate but they are the only ones of this type I have seen.

Peter, John and Ian mentioned "tool" also, I was looking at the other end of them for tool possibilities but did not think about the little hook as the tool and the other end as the handle, the spiked one reminded me of the square dirk type hachiwari blade but it is quite possible that the hook is some type of scraper.

Piers, you are quite right, jutte are being replicated in a way that is quite remarkable sometimes, while many of the fake ones are just garish and have no signs of use or age the good ones are more subdued and replicate authentic ones quite well. I have seen bows and horse whips with a deer skin grip being sold recently but they are not being made to look old and are not hard to spot. Here are two jutte that I posted on the forum already that are good replicas, they sold for a lot of money, more than some plain but authentic ones.

John, since I have been able to examine it carefully I can tell you that the kabuto is constructed entirely from a thick wire framework, a few very thick main wires with a cross lacing of thinner wires, extremely stout, it could easily repel a good blow to the head in fact I think I could stand on it with no bending. As for the Japanese mail, as Ian noted the Japanese did have access to riveted mail at some point in the past but they also had some alternatives to butted mail, I recently found one panel of a kusazuri which had double butted mail, and then there was 6 in 1 twisted mail which is very thick and looks pierce resistant. Then there were the auxiliary armors which would be worn under or over the traditional armor, these shirts, pants, coats, vests, belts etc could be lined or covered with a variety of armors to increase the protection of individual areas of the body as desired. Many of the more advanced kusari and auxiliary armors are not pictured in books as there are just not many images of these items available. Riveted kusari 6 in 1 twisted link kusari Double butted kusari.

This kabuto is constructed with heavy wire covered by leather on top and a cloth lining, the unusually shaped shikoro (neck guard) is cloth covered with kusari (chain armor), I have never seen another kabuto that used this wire construction.

Good luck to everyone this year!!