Trying to track down an armour...

[Please Delete]

I saw an armour on a thread on sword forum and was wondering if anyone was familiar with this armour:



It is part of Tozando's Warlord Series, and they call it their 'Uesugi Kenshin' armour. Many of the other armours actually look pretty good, as opposed to the Paul Chen "Reproduction" of "Oda Nobunaga's" armour that I so often see.

Things that seem off to me:
1) It seems overly 'shiny'. The silver glow almost looks chrome. Did the Japanese, even with nanban gusoku, ever get it this shiny?

2) Is this a reproduction of an actual armour? Are people familiar with this particular suit? The other armours, looking briefly, don't seem so bad.

3) Are those an actual style of haidate? The Takeda Shingen Yoroi has something similar, like a cross between iyo and etchu haidate, but the plates are raised pyramids (I suspect they use the same plates, just different colors, for both armours).

Finally, does anyone actually have this armour? I'm doubting it, but I'm curious if anyone know's Tozando's quality in this regard. The person on Sword Forum actually wants to know if it can 'stand up to combat' and I've so far said that nobody should expect it to 'stand up to combat' unless it is made for that purpose.

Figured I'd see about getting a better idea here.

-Ii

[Nobuhide]

Ii said:

I saw an armour on a thread on sword forum and was wondering if anyone was familiar with this armour:


i myself am not familiar to the armor of the cuff, but familiar with the armorer.

Many of the other armours actually look pretty good, as opposed to the Paul Chen "Reproduction" of "Oda Nobunaga's" armour that I so often see.

agreed, i hate those damned things, theyre what killed my taste for kebiki odoshi. i think oda nobunaga had poor taste. .

Things that seem off to me:
1) It seems overly 'shiny'. The silver glow almost looks chrome. Did the Japanese, even with nanban gusoku, ever get it this shiny?

portugese merchants inspired armorers to invent the hatomune do, a do of solid plate or lamellar construction, with a frontal vertical ridge, like spanish and italian breastplates of the time.
images courtesy of www.sengoukdaimyo.com
website of our very own effingham-dono

this person on the sword forum actually wants to know if it can 'stand up to combat' and I've so far said that nobody should expect it to 'stand up to combat' unless it is made for that purpose.

while the original armor would have been quite sufficient, this is indeed a reproduction, most likely not using proper techniques and materials for combat. its basically for looks id say, or a rich bastards halloween costume.
id say youre right in 'nobody should expect it to stand up to combat unless it is made for that purpose' well said.

as for the haidate, ive got no idea, but im no armor expert, particullarly of etchu styling. i predict a wonderfully infomative lesson from effingham-sensei in the near future tho, and the other respected armor smiths of the board

[Please Delete]

Hmmm, perhaps I should have rephrased some of the questions.

First of all, I'm aware that this is a nanban gusoku, or at least inspired by one. The hatomune-do I have seen, and in fact I'm quite enamored of them, personally. My question is more on the 'shiny' factor and the haidate. Although Hiraizumi-dono's site has the one 'shiny' armour, it looks like it is also rather elaborately decorated. Furthermore, I'm unsure how much of the 'shine' is due to the camera and how much is due to the armour.

Another thing that sets this one apart is that it doesn't seem to come down to a proper point--the more I look at it the more confident I become that it is a Japanese armourer's attempt to recreate a Portuguese breastplate style--I just don't know how accurate that is to the 'original' they are supposed to be recreating.

As to the "Oda Nobunaga" armour, why did you allow that to kill your taste for kebiki-odoshi? It is a poor production that is mislabelled a 'reproduction'--that is not an armour that Oda Nobunaga would have ever worn.

Also, I'm not even sure how well the original would have put up with combat. I'm sure it would have kept its wearer alive, but I wouldn't want to put any original armour through what the SCA does, if that's what this person wants it for. There is too much constant beating--you would need an armourer on hand to constantly fix it.

-Ii

[Nobuhide]

Ii said:

Also, I'm not even sure how well the original would have put up with combat. I'm sure it would have kept its wearer alive, but I wouldn't want to put any original armour through what the SCA does, if that's what this person wants it for. There is too much constant beating--you would need an armourer on hand to constantly fix it.

-Ii

well the japanese seemed to make due for quite some time. and im sure that their combat was far more brutal than that of the sca, considering their weapons, some of which could cut clean through a man wearing his armor, depending on the armor.


for the shineyness, the japanese used metal leaf alot, they could have used silver leaf for it or perhaps polished the steel and lacquered it with clear lacquer, retaining the shine. they were definatly capable of shining things to a mirror polish, look at their blades.

[Takeda Sanjuichiro]

Ii said:

...My question is more on the 'shiny' factor and the haidate...

From what I can tell form looking at pictures, nanban armors were frequently lacquered. This makes a bit of sense. The armors brought over were maily munitions grade armors that were later ebellished in Japan. Munitions armors were either forge blackened or were left bright, either required some care not to rust. The armor makers who used nanban parts lacqured them to cut down on maintenance. Though there are a couple of examples that are bright. (One supossedly owned by Uesugi Kenshin, who might have been wearing it at Kawanakajima 4) I have not seen any that are in person, so I cannot tell if they were then silvered/tinned or lacquered with a very clear urushi, or just left plain. I've seen the square plates for Haidate before, the diamond ones like that seem to be fairly low budget.

...is that it doesn't seem to come down to a proper point...

This is probably due to having the tip cut off, that drop front can poke you if you are not used to it, it may have been abbreviated so the fit was more like a standard Japanese armor.

...It is a poor production that is mislabelled a 'reproduction'--that is not an armour that Oda Nobunaga would have ever worn....

I wrote a review on the Hanwei Oda suit a long time ago on swordforum. The fit and finish was not too bad, however the method of construction was abysmal. Heck it even had the hinge on the wrong side!

FYI the Hanwei reproductions and the ones you show by Tozando are two extreemely different categories of armor... the difference between the $1,000 price point and that of the $15,000 price point. The Tozando ones are nice, but they are reproductions meant for display, I doubt they would hold up well at all, and the helmets certainly would not be legal.

-Takeda

[Please Delete]

Nobuhide said:

well the japanese seemed to make due for quite some time. and im sure that their combat was far more brutal than that of the sca, considering their weapons, some of which could cut clean through a man wearing his armor, depending on the armor.

Well, there are several problems here.

First, if you were hit hard enough to kill you, then your armour was hardly of any concern later, was it?

Ideally, you are turning enough of the blows, or taking glancing blows, so that you survive. SCA armour is made stronger and heavier, to put up with constant abuse. In a war, your armour may take a beating--you may need to either have an armourer look at it, or fix it on campaign, or just pick up bits and pieces to replace what gets broken. In the SCA you are constantly (weekly or more for many people) punishing the armour, getting hit time and again, unless you are good enough to avoid being hit. Furthermore, the armour has another purpose: to keep you from getting seriously injured. This is different from the primary purpose with real armour--to keep you from dying.

Yes, we don't want people to die in the SCA, and people in period didn't want to get maimed or have their legs broken, but that was a secondary consideration.

That's why I generally feel that in the SCA our armour takes a lot more punishment than in period, and is built to stricter standards.

-Ii

[Mykaru]

Tozando's armours are not as good quality as Kozando's. Kozando's are certainly NOT suitable for SCA combat. The guage of steel used will not hold up to the abuse of SCA training.

As for Takeda Shingen using this style, I,ve never seen a reference to his wearing Nan-ban Dou. Of course I don't know everything (yet).

[Please Delete]

The 'Takeda Shingen' armour just has the same haidate, not the hatomune-do. This one is supposed to be Uesugi Kenshin's.

-Ii

[Otagiri Tatsuzou]

Ii said:

I3) Are those an actual style of haidate? The Takeda Shingen Yoroi has something similar, like a cross between iyo and etchu haidate, but the plates are raised pyramids (I suspect they use the same plates, just different colors, for both armours).

It took me a while before I found anything similar to these haidate.

The Osprey Elite Series #23: The Samurai by Anthony J Bryant shows an armour with pyramids of this size (1989 p.31). But wait! The credits attribute the photo to Kozando!

So into my Japanese books I go.
図解日本甲胄事典 by 笹間 良彦 (著 ) (I'm not sure of the pub date) has a picture of haidate with the pyramidal scales of just this size on page 142 (illustration 140-5 #17)

None of the namban for which I have color photos show a shiny metal. They are russeted or lacquered.

As to Uesugi Kenshin ... The Gakken book 118 Sengoku Warlords shows only a 'modern' do maru although there is no reason to believe he didn't have others.

The Gakken book Illustrated Sengoku Gusoku shows small pyramidal shapes on the Sanada haidate.

For what its worth ....

[AJBryant]

I believe Kenshin did have a hatomune do, but whether it was a nanban do, I can't recall. I doubt it was silver, though. I also don't recall him with a momonari kabuto -- I've seen a couple of kabuto attributed to him, and they were rather conventional (okay, one was just weird) all things considered.

Yeah, there were pyramidal haidate plates, but they were usually diamond-shaped rather than horizontal squares.


Tony

[Mykaru]

I've got pics of 4 different armours (or reproductions) attributed to Uesugi Kenshin. He liked older but wierd designs it seems (3 armours are haramaki). I'll try to hit a scanner tomorrow and get them uploaded.