Topic: Maetate - 16 replies

Looking to get more information with regards to this, as yet, untouched subject. Curious about construction, types, styles, construction and any other useful information greatly welcome.

This is quite a broad topic, maybe if you post some examples you find interesting we can analyse them together?

Process (Uruishi) is nearly the same to Spear Saya. There are some books on the subject too.

I appreciate that it is a broad subject, and one that has not been touched on as yet. I brought this up in order to increase my limited knowledge and due to the large numbers of items offered for sale from various sources. I thought it may be interesting to look further into this topic with information on the more common types, materials used and the methods used for attaching to the helmet etc etc.

I would be quite surprised if you have not stumbled across this site in your travels

Generally speaking, maedate were light and made out of various materials including wood, leather and lacquer and generally not metal. If you see kabuto with deer horns protruding from the sides, these were originally carved out of a light wood. The reason was twofold: Firstly to stop the mounted samurai from breaking his neck should the wakidate catch on a protruding branch as he was galloping through a wooded area. Secondly, a wood carver's workmanship cost relatively little compared to an armour maker and so if a Samurai survived a battle and lost a maedate, a replacement would be relatively cheap.

This is a great topic which needs a resurrection.

Question - With so many maedates hitting the market, how does one decide if it is newer Showa or Meiji, or older as in Edo or Muromachi?

Hello? Any one home?

OK - Comments on these two and how the owner came to their conclusion - Anyone?

$550 or best offer - guaranteed
http://cgi.ebay.com/Rare-Samurai-Kabuto-Maedate-Edo-circa-18c_W0QQitemZ390053902757QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAsian_Antiques?hash=item5ad10639a5

About $10.50
http://page11.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/n71166923

Well, difficult to say something about the second one on yahoo Auction Japan as the explanations are in Japanese,

But, very similar shape and look. Same size, very very good condition for something to be said from the 18th. Too good to be true for my point of view,

Maedate is a very difficult field as a lot of fake or modern pieces are on the market, very easy to make them look like old pieces because they necessitate less work than for an armour, a kabuto or a sword.

Genuine pieces are supposed to be quite rare as the maedate is the more fragile part of the armour, easy to break or to loose. then a lot disappeared while kabutos remained.

In front of a genuine piece it is sometime difficult to say whether it is 17th 18th or 19th, again because the piece being fragile it generally deteriorates more rapidly than the rest of the armour.

My two cents

Both are modern in my eyes. There's virtually no wear or patina on either of them as one might expect from something over 200 yrs. old. With all of my period maedate (ie. Edo or earlier), there is a definite patina/faded lustre/richness to the gold lacquer or treatment that is somewhat common to each and which would be difficult to fake. Also, the second one is sloppy with ill-defined borders and proportions to the design which would further indicate a reproduction.

Fake - Modern in my opinion.  The quality of the gold lacquer paint job is not good - wobbly edges, bad symmetry.

Hi Hirase,

Can you (or anyone else for that matter) share with me how one might be able to conduct a search on Yahoo Japan - especially when the site is all in Japanese?

Thanks in advance.

Hi Kawari,

Here are a few ways to search.

You can use http://www.japanauctioncenter.com/
 you do not need to sign up for their services and they have a translate button on the top of the page you are looking at.

http://japamart.com/
this is another one but without a translator. I find this one a little better than Japan auction center.
With Japamart find the item then copy the second half of the information located in your browser (see the maedate post above for the web address you want) and paste it at http://babelfish.altavista.com/ where you will find "Translate a web page" click Japanese to whatever your language is.

If you go on your own to yahoo japan and know the romanji you can translate that to kanji at:
http://www.cs.technion.ac.il/~danken/kanjidic.html
It is not always correct or accurate, but close.

Let me know if any of this is unclear.

Just a quick mention that Yahoo Japan, although much more to look at still just as dodgy as Ebay. Good to see some action on this subject. Maedate are one of the more easily reproduced items so the more we can learn about these the better armed we will all be.

There are good sellers and bad.
And sometimes even good sellers or those with great feedback can turn bad.
But it is discussions like these that help all of us have a little more knowledge before we get into the ring.

Hi Hirase,

I just realized that I was neglectful in thanking you for the information regarding Japanese web auctions and translating of web pages - I apologize for my bad form.

The info is very helpful - thank you again.

You heard the man !!!!

Eye candy always welcome..!!!!!