estcrh

Thanks Ian and Piers. The drinking flask "Sui-tou" is quite interesting, when the straw is in the down position it will not draw, it must slip into some sort of chamber inside. Now I have to wonder if it was meant for sake or water? :D The cartridge box "Douran" is fairly large to be on a belt but it does have what looks like belt loops on the back, it must have weighted a ton, it sort of reminds me of the smaller ww2 version. To bad about the missing scoop on the power flask "Kayaku-ire" I would have liked to see what that looked like.

I purchased a couple of items without knowing the exact use, I thought that maybe someone here would have an idea what they were etc. Any ideas? #1. A large leather case which may be gun related. http://s831.photobucket.com/albums/zz23 ... ainer2.jpg #2 A canister with what seems to be a straw and a air relief hole on top. http://s831.photobucket.com/albums/zz23 ... flask9.jpg http://s831.photobucket.com/albums/zz23 ... lask12.jpg #3 A container, maybe a canteen or powder flask. http://s831.photobucket.com/albums/zz23 ... nteen1.jpg

I do not know how the owner makes any money, his help knows close to nothing about the items being sold and I have never met anyone in the Philippines who collects antiques despite going there for years and the 5th floor in a HUGE mall without a lot of American or European visitors does not appear the be a winning combination but there it was. I really wanted to see all the swords and take pictures but I did not have either of my 2 cameras with me...I did not expect to see anything worthwhile in a mall. I will be back in Manila for a couple of days and I really want to check out the swords throughly....you never know. How to explain to young Filipino girls who do not speak much English that I would like to remove the handles of their bosses valuable swords?? An interesting dilemma.

I am in the Philippines right now and on the top floor of a very large and busy mall in Manila (Robinsons Mall Ermita) I ran into a most unlikely site. There was a little shop with two samurai armors in the window along with a couple of katanas and some other samurai items and Japanese ww2 items. Inside there was a glass case with several gunto, two old wakizashi and assorted ww2 sword belts etc. The young shop girls knew next to nothing about the swords other then to tell me not to touch the blades and they backed away in fear when I removed the swords from the sayas. One wakizashi had a tag saying Hizen no kuni jyu tadayoshi 18th century and a price of around $2000. The shop girls did not offer to remove the tuska and I did not have time to try explaining to them. It was a rather interesting looking blade with an old but nice polish. This is the first time I have ever seen any antiques of this type in the Philippines and unfortunately the Japanese owner was out of town. I did not have my camera and took a couple of pics with my phone. I plan on returning in a few days if I can and try to take some better pictures. http://s831.photobucket.com/albums/zz23 ... 0antiques/

The nice message I got today from someone who is trying to ship me an item ( armor not nihonto ) from Japan.

Here is a good link for you. http://home.earthlink.net/~steinrl/nihonto.htm

I do not know if this is actually happening or if the person who sent me this notice has just misunderstood some aspect of a new regulation. I could not find any info online so far and was hoping that someone here might know exactly what if any shipping changes have recently taken place.

I just received this message from someone who sells from Japan. Has anyone else heard about this?

HISTORICAL CLASSIFICATION OF WAKIZASHI AND THE TAXONOMY OF NIHON-TO BASED ON THEIR BLADE LENGTH AND FUNCTIONS/PURPOSES.* S. Alexander Takeuchi, Ph.D. Department of Sociology University of North Alabama January 24, 2004 http://www.una.edu/faculty/takeuchi/DrT ... of_wak.htm

I think a sword rack would fit just about right on top (along with a sword or two).

For anyone who might want to bid on an item from this site. I contacted this auction site about an item that did not sell, they offered to sell it to me for the starting bid price. The emails back and forth were in perfect English and they had no problem quickly answering my questions about shipping and taxes and fees, ( I cant believe the tax Italians have to pay!! ) I just got the item and it was very well packed and as described.

Ian, are there any pictures of the Tokugawa Ieyasu exhibition online? I was talking to someone at the exhibit who complained that there were not enough armors displayed....having just priced shipping an armor and armor box between Europe and th U.S. at over $600 with insurance I could understand how few people would be willing to lend a heavy and or expensive item and pay for shipping both ways. I am sure we will see less of these kinds of displays in the future except for the largest cities.

Ian,you have a good eye, I had to search a little for some old kendo equipment I have and you are right, the haidate on the kusari gusoku displayed in the exhibit has 5 panels much like a kendo tare. I have seen several 3 panel haidate but this is the only 5 panel one I have seen.. I have posted a picture of a 5 panel kendo tare and a link to some other old kendo equipment. There is a story on the kusari gusoku, when I heard that Trevor Absolon would be helping with the exhibit I contacted him and asked if there would be any kusari displayed, he thought that would be a good idea and some how convinced Barry Till ( the curator of the exhibit) to include this particular armor in the exhibit. Trevor set up the armor with the head which was a good visual aide. Although it is a composite armor it is a very good representation of a complete kusari armor as used in the Edo period. I do not know of any other kusari gusoku that has been displayed in another samurai exhibit. After talking to Trevor and Barry I realized how hard it actually is to plan and carry out even a small exhibit of this kind. Convincing people to loan items for display is the only way to get items other then what a museum already owns on exhibit. Thats hard enough to do ( most nihonto owners would cringe at the idea of loaning their beloved swords I believe!! ) but then there is the shipping and customs problems as well as budget concerns...it is a miracle that any displays of this type ever get off the ground. Everyone involved did a great job with what they had to work with. http://s831.photobucket.com/albums/zz23 ... equipment/

Thanks for the clarification. I have seen a couple of these huge swords and wondered about their possible use if any.

Any indication of the age? If if originally was a nagamaki wouldnt that make it older then the owner thinks it is?

A shrine sword or something else? http://cgi.ebay.com/Katana-Japanese-swo ... 1452wt_934

I just got back from seeing the Return of the Samurai exhibit in Victoria Canada. I was able to attend 2 lectures on samurai armor by Trevor Absolon and had a chance to look at a preview of the book he will be publishing soon on samurai armor. Trevors book will is really incredible and anyone with an interest in the subject should think about getting a copy when it comes out. Not much in the way of nihonto due to space limitations, just a couple of swords and some tsuba. Barry Till, curator of Asian Art from the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, did a good job with what he had to work with as far a space and money. I took a lot of pictures but with flash not allowed, dim lighting and a reddish room back round color I had trouble getting good shots. Here is a link to all the pictures I have. http://s831.photobucket.com/albums/zz23 ... ?start=all

You make Edo period samurai sound like a bunch of idiots who had to have their mothers spoon feed them rice! Were do get this information from anyway? "By the time of the "47 Ronin," more than a century had passed since Sekigahara. There was no one alive who had fought in a battle"....... Did the samurai turn into HIPPIES?? "Come the turn of the 18th century, few knew even which end of the sword to hold." ....... This forum is about enlightenment not spreading misinformation. Do you really think that endlessly butchering tens of thousands of people made samurai better men then the Edo period samurai that were able to unite, control and run a country?

http://www.ndl.go.jp/nichiran/e/index.html

http://www.sangiorgioaste.com/eng-site/ ... ESI&ris=10

Lotus pod

An interesting discussion on cast tsuba. viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7588

This old kendo armor is about as basic as it gets. For those of you who are interested in martial arts etc. http://www.japanauctioncenter.com/view2 ... /r70776341

Hello, do you know this site? http://www.hizento.net/index.php Roger Robertshaw's site dedicated to Hizen

It seems that swords with any faults are worthless and if you can not afford a "perfect sword" you should not bother. Do not bother learning how to spot flaws and faults because you should only be looking at "perfect" blades and they do not have any faults or flaws, you might go blind if you even look at a less then perfect blade. In other words most people should just throw the swords they have away as they are just so much trash taking up space. FUN is not an option.