Help Identifying Piece of Armor

[rouellette916]

Hello all,

 

First post here, looking for some help identifying this piece of armor (?) I recently purchased at a thrift/junk shop in the Japanese countryside. My initial thought was that it was a hitai-ate/hachigane, and the shopkeeper seemed to think it was the same (admittedly I am still learning Japanese so communication was limited, but he got the idea across that it was for the forehead and was attached to a headband). However, looking at images of other forehead protectors, I've only been able to find one similar looking one through a reverse image search. I'm by no means an expert though, so that's why I came here!

So, my question is, what is it? Is it actually a piece of armor, or is it something else? It only cost me 2000 yen so if it's not the real deal it's not a huge loss haha. Any help is appreciated!

[Gilles]

Hello,

 

According to my little knowledge on that topic I can tell you that it is not a real  hitai-ate/hachigane but a copy. I already saw some like that and I think that it was made in the Taisho/Showa period.  Of course, it is my personal opinion.

[rouellette916]

12 hours ago, Gilles said:

Hello,

 

According to my little knowledge on that topic I can tell you that it is not a real  hitai-ate/hachigane but a copy. I already saw some like that and I think that it was made in the Taisho/Showa period.  Of course, it is my personal opinion.

Interesting! I figured that might be the case. Do you have any idea what it might have been produced for? Plays or festivals or something as a costume? Or just a plain-old knock-off?

 

If you have any images of similar examples I'd love to see. Could be fun to give it a proper headband again.