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Kevin from Ryujin swords has a good explanation of these swords on his site along with the tang stamp into. http://ryujinswords.com/shostamp.htm

Here is a quote by Ian Bottomley from another thread on the subject of ashigaru armor.

Of course "new" is a relative term, that work could be many decades old. The only time I would expect to see shoddy work on Japanese armor is in low end, very late Edo period armor of the kind that was actually used during the turbulent period of the mid to late 1800s., Wakidate would not be in that category I do not think, they are more for looks and do not serve an actual purpose. A picture of the interior would be nice, does it have a liner ''ukebari''.

Cant tell much from that far away, the brow may be original or at least old as the lacquer does not look new, but the ''fukigaeshi'' are strange, is that leather pieces attached to them? Are the wakidate attached or can they be removed?

Malcolm posted a good link here that might help, viewtopic.php?f=9&t=9455&p=78306#p78306

Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Philadelphia, The Society, 1891 http://books.google.com/books?pg=RA1-PA ... utput=text

As you know, the blades in these are usually not even nihonto, and this one does not appear to be any different. I was just wondering if there was something written on the tag attached to it or something significant about the mon etc that has some special unseen meaning?

I have seen this type being called described as a gun troop jingasa. You might try asking on this forum http://tousando.proboards.com/index.cgi a lot of people on it make their own armor and they might have some suggestions for you, Anthony Bryant contributes from time to time also and he might know of a method to help stabilize it. Trevor Absolons's samurai armor forum might be of help also http://www.toraba.com/forum/ . I think it is leather of some sort, not wood, lacquered leather has a wood like sound when you tap on it.

For $2,188.75 there had to be something that someone noticed that made this one so much more valuable then the average one.

I was just interested for future reference. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 8681wt_937

While I have learned that saying "never" when it comes to Japanese armor can prove wrong on many occasions, when it comes to flashy attachments you have to take a really close look as to how well the work was done and how recently. I have read (and seen) about plain zunari kabuto which have been decked out with embellishments in recent years (and even late Edo period) to make them more exciting (marketable). As Ian mentioned the neck guard "shikoro" does not appear to fit the kabuto properly, while it is not unusual for a shikoro to have been replaced, many kabuto (and armor in general) have had various parts replaced over the life of the item, how well the repair was done makes a big difference as the a period repair on anything other then a low grade item should be of the same quality as the item. The lace is not a quality job, and as far as the side crest "wakidate", I have not seen them attached in this manner but I am not an expert and can not say if they were "never" added in this way. With out more pictures of the brow or visor ''mabizashi'' its hard to tell if this is original or a period quality addition or a later modern one. Discrepancies between the lacquer ''urushi'' on the various parts can be a sign of restoration etc. Here is a etchu zunari kabuto with wakidate flanges that I believe are original to the kabuto. The shikoro lace needs to be restored but I believe the lace is original or at least very old and you can see how it should look, you can see how the shikoro fits the contours of the helmet bowl ''hachi''. http://s831.photobucket.com/albums/zz23 ... ?start=all

Check this out. viewtopic.php?f=9&t=8390&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=ivory

Roy, here is their response to my question about the meaning of that statement In addition, I have had several items on hold with them since before the earthquake etc and just within the last two days I requested the items to be shipped to me. I paid for shipping and received emails that the items have been shipped...so I guess I will see in a few days. ---------------------------------------------

I have contacted several Japanese dealers who I have a business relationship with in Japan and inquired about their safety etc. I have received a few replies so far and some are still open and would like to do business. I will leave the names of the dealers I hear from so that anyone who would like to purchase items and support the Japanese dealers can do so, I hope anyone else that has any information on people that they deal with will post also. One person who has not replied is ebay member daimyou54eb, who usually replies very quickly. eBay Member: fwic2803 Japanese Antique and Sword Yuubi http://www.samurai-gallary.com http://www.jauce.com worldofsamurai.com Toraba.com

I just received this message from Elisabeth, the widow of Armand, the former owner of World of samurai: Thanks for those of you that knew or dealt with Armand and sent a condolence.

Another slightly different type. These are leather or nerigawa kikko wakibiki,

Ron, please let us know if you can get an answer, and if you get a chance see if they have any idea were the brass-bronze was coming from, it must have been melted down from something.

Ron, someone had a lot of extra brass or bronze at one time, enough to make solid metal stirrups from them! I still have not heard a good explanation of were all the metal came from. http://www.google.com/images?rlz=1C1CHM ... 24&bih=513

Copper and or brass shot? http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/onli ... cles/bbl17

Wouldnt a grinding stone be a lot smoother?

While researching information on the source of the brass or bronze used in the making of a pair of so called conquistador stirrups I found some information on brass, bronze or copper shot being used in the Americas. I do not know how accurate it is though. The supposed source of metal for the stirrups alternated between coming from melted down cannon or bells. If I can find the info again I will post it.

Piers, does it look anything like this?

Terry,here is a link to a Japanese sword glossary from one of the forum members, it may come in handy!! http://home.earthlink.net/~steinrl/glossary.htm

In a recent thread one of our esteemed forum members happened to mention my participation in Wikipedia. viewtopic.php?f=9&t=9774&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=60 Since he was kind enough to bring up the subject I thought I would do a small informational on Wikipedia and Wikipedia commons. Wikipedia basically contains articles while Wikipedia commons is an image repository. Anyone can participate in either project, I hear a lot of negative remarks on Wikipedia articles and it is true that many are not well written or referenced, but since Wikipedia is an open project anyone can edit any article by adding valid information or removing invalid information. Of course the edits you make can be reversed by other interested editors and in case of conflicts there is a group of more experienced editors who make the final decision. While I have only created one article myself I have edited many articles which I have found to be seriously lacking accurate information and or references. Image galleries can be added to articles in order to more fully explain the subject. I store images on Wikipedia commons and use these images on relevant Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia has a huge footprint on the internet, if you do a search on many subjects the Wikipedia article will often come up in the first page of searches. Do a search for Katana, jutte, or kanabo for instance and see what comes up. Wikipedia commons is the image repository were ANYONE can upload images they own or have the right to upload. While doing some research on samurai armor and weapons I found some images that were stored on Wikipedia commons, I also saw that there was a serious lack of images on certain subjects that I myself had images of, so in Feb 2010 I registered (required to upload images) and started to upload images of items I owned and found to be hard or even impossible to find online. The images must be either your own work or images you have the right to upload due to obtaining permission (as in an email from the owner) or images that due to their age the copyright has expired. Once uploaded the images are put into the already created categories or you can create new categories what fit your images. I have created many image categories on Wikipedia commons such as "hachi gane" "Japanese kikko armor" "kanabo" "Japanese karuta armor" "manchira" "manju no wa" "wakibiki" etc etc. I also created most of the Japanese sword related categories under the category of "nihonto". Many existing images were just dumped into a category and needed to be put into sub categories. An example of this was the category "katana" which had many images of koshirae or tsuka with no seprate category for either type of image. When I find an image that needs a category I create it and transfer the images into the new category. I created a category for koshirae and a sub category called "parts of the koshirae" which includes "tsuka". I then created a sub category called "parts of the tsuka" and created categories such as "fuchi" and "menuki" etc. I created a category called "parts of the Japanese sword blade" and then created sub categories such as "nakago" which has sub categorys such as "mei" and "mekugi-ana"...well you get the idea. I have transfered existing images into the new categories I created and added images that I have to the appropriate categories. Anyone can register on Wikipedia commons and add images that they own to any category that fits or they can create a new category. Old images such as copies of Edo period prints are copy right free and can be uploaded. This is a great way to keep your images and have them available for people to see and use in the future. In case of theft or fire your images will be available and safe. There is a simple upload form to fill out and you can upload any image directly from your computer. If any forum member is interested in learning how to upload images, or how to edit or even create anything on either Wikipedia or Wikipedia commons I will be happy to assist. I have posted a link to all the images I have created and you can see the categories they are in, by clicking on the category you can see all the images in that particular category. If anyone finds an image or category that is not described correctly free to change it (you can do that!!) or let me know. http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense ... =0&max=250

Great looking work mark, it looks a lot like an antique leather jingasa that I have. Here is a link to a few different kinds.http://s831.photobucket.com/albums/zz23 ... ?start=all