JAPANASE 32 PLATES KABUTO HELMET FOR IDENTIFICATION

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by Cerjak

Who can tell me more about this Kabuto ?
Type and period ?
Any comment on it will be welcome.
best
CERJAK

You have a 32 ken (plate), tetsusabji (russet iron), suji bachi (raised ridges / ribs) kabuto (helmet) with what appears to me to be a kuro usushi (black lacquer), tetsu (iron), ichimanjû shikoro (ichimanjû type neck guard)....."ichimanjû" means “one curvature” and with this type only the "hachitsuke-no-ita" (first lame) has any real curve to it. Ichimanjû shikoro have five or six lames, and they extend out and down rather than just out. There are several types of shikoro with some being similar to the ichimanjû shikoro.

The problem I see with this kabuto is the shikoro does not fit tightly against the "koshimaki" which is the plate that wraps around the lower part of the hachi (helmet bowl). This could be due to the fact that the shikoro is not original to the kabuto or it could just be loose as I can see that the rivets which hold the shikoro in place are missing, this is allowing the shikoro to raise up instead of being tight against the "koshimaki" making it look a bit un-natural.

One reason that a shikoro is removed can be that the hachi was originally lacquered and either the lacquer was in bad shape and needed to be redone or someone simply wanted the lacquered helmet bowl to look like russet iron. Re-lacquering properly can be expensive and russet iron often commands a higher price from collectors. It can be hard to tell if the helmet bowl was originally lacquered but you can look for tiny fragments of lacquer that were not removed, this would tell you for sure.

Below are images with arrows, the red arrows point to missing rivets that hold the shikoro to the hachi and the yellow arrows point to were the shikoro is riding above the edge of the koshimaki.