Accessories for the Tanegashima

[Matsunoki]

B4me🙂

[Bugyotsuji]

And one other. So many of these powder flasks, small and large, have lost their original caps, up to 40 or 50% of the ones I have found in antiques markets.
 

 

 

[John C]

Saw this on auction listed as "hinawa gunball case." Looks a lot like a tabako-ire pouch to me. What features differentiates a gunball pouch from a tabako-ire pouch?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/168018118739?

 

John C.

[Bugyotsuji]

John, I think you are correct. That is for brushwriting paper, a billfold or a tabako-iré for tobacco, but it’s a nice old lacquered leather example! Always nice to have lettering and/or a mon.

Musket ball were downloaded from an ammo box, and then generally carried individually in small leather pouches, usually attached somehow to powder flasks. Many of these pouches had Karasu-guchi mouths, crow-beak dispensers. I’ll take some photos in a minute.

 

Assorted ball pouches and crow beaks

 

[Bugyotsuji]

Of course it’s possible they are thinking of Dōran hip boxes or bags for hayago quick-loading tubes and gunner’s accessories, but these have 3D depth to them for the tools.

 

[Bugyotsuji]

Ball molds Tama-Igata of various sizes. 
Lead ball, range up to 100 Monmé.

Lead ladle 玉鋳鍋 Tama-inabé

(Various chunks of lead for melting)

[Bugyotsuji]

On the ethics of restoration, I have been thinking a little more recently. 

 

If you look at the photo below, a lot that came my way last week, you'll see there are bits and bobs that would normally get thrown out in any kura clean-up. Pieces of attached rag and wire look like junk. And that would be the end of their history.

 

Occasionally I will find a powder flask body that has lost its cap and/or other fittings.

 

Conversely in the photo you can see a necklace string with two caps, (one primer flask, one coarse powder flask) but missing flask bodies. There is an apostle 'hayago' tube with no cap, and the remains of a kurigata from a powder flask. Fairly useless on their own. What looks like a coin purse has a slit in the side for insertion/ removal of musketball. This at least should clean up a smidgen.

 

These things, made with design and purpose, need to be saved. If I can find a new life for any of them, I will.

 

[Matsunoki]

5 hours ago, Bugyotsuji said:

These things, made with design and purpose, need to be saved. If I can find a new life for any of them, I will.

Sometimes it is not the importance or rarity of an object that warrants restoration or saving but it most definitely is the pleasure and peace that so doing brings. Reward of a different kind.