Japanese Armor Society Forum

Another item frequently showing up on online auctions is a faceguard with attached nose (menpō).
This menpō exists in a several variations.

You will find russet, brown, and black colored masks and the throat guard (tare) might differ as well.
Sometimes you will even find masks equipped with an original period tare.

What really stays the same is the identical base shape and facial expression.
Using the following pictures for reference you should be able to easily identify these masks.

There's two more, but not always obvious, giveaways:

On some makes you can easily identify weld spots, where the ears are fixed to the face part.
Of course there was no period spot-welding, which makes these masks modern made.

The hooks on the cheeks (odayorinokugi) are for fastening faceguard and helmet (kabuto) to the wearer's head.
What you see on the modern masks is basically a thick wire bent at a 90° angle. On period items these are made by forging, resulting in a more complex shape.

Another easily identifiable telltale sign of a modern menpo is the nosepiece. In all of the above examples, the top edge of the nosepiece does not follow the curvature of the top edge of the cheeks.

Very good point John!

Thanks for that Peter. Very interesting indeed.

A very useful and appreciated article. Thank you.

Great, Peter, very useful knowledge. Many thanks indeed! I guess they will continue to turn up and fill a blank. People will probably buy them at the low end of the market.

Indeed Piers, and that is so sad because it is still a lot of money for most people.

Thank you very much Peter and John for these ideas! Very useful!!!

I encourage everyone to continue writing on how to detect "modern" copies of samurai artifacts. Not only can this help prevent many of us spending a lot of money on fraudulent items, but it also helps us understand how these items were originally made.

Sylvain

Thank you very much Peter. Very interesting.