Japanese hanging amulet

[petethe canadian]

I got this while living in Japan, there are very few online but the ones I saw call this a hanging amulet but I have also read that these were used to carry scrolls or important documents while traveling, not sure what it is actually called. Since I have found very few like it dating it is guesswork, but to me it looks like Edo period with a possibility of it being early Meiji. The metal end caps are original but the metal strapping looks to me to have been added at a later date possibly because the wood split from end to end and rather than throwing it away or replacing it previous owner[s] had it repaired. Whoever added the metal strapping left all the small nails they used protruding through the wood into the interior making it impossible to store anything inside that needs to be retrieved, just too risky putting a hand in there with out it being punctured a hundred times. Still a very interesting piece and I will add photos of the end caps, the metal work is outstanding and it was done by a highly skilled artisan, with several auspicious Japanese symbols. The himo looks original to me and if it was replaced at some point it was done a very long time ago. 

 

 

 

 

[petethe canadian]

I'd like to add more photos but I can't, too bigI

Edited June 25 by petethe canadian

[Scogg]

Hi Pete,

 

It can be frustrating these days because our phones and cameras take images with such large file sizes. 
 

Our admin, Brian has added an image resizing tool to the top menu. Beyond that, I have found that taking a screenshot on my phone of the original image works good to copy the picture at a much smaller size. Cropping helps too. 
 

It can be a pain sometimes, but it’s one of those things we all battle with from time to time.

 

Cool piece, thanks for sharing. Looks like you’ve got some interesting items from your time over there.

 

All the best,

-Sam