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Originally Posted by estcrh
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.
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Dear estcrh,
Thank you very much for your very interesting comment.
As you have mentioned most of the rivets which hold the shikoro in place are missing and in my previous photos the shikoro does not fit tightly against the "koshimaki but in the next photos you could see that now the shikoro fit perfectly againt the bowl.
I have spent a lot of time looking everywhere with magnifying lens but there is no one fragments of lacquer and so I believe that this kabuto is tetsusabji (russet iron),
Best
Cerjak