RULES FOR JAPANESE ARMOR COLLECTORS

1. If it is too good to be true, then you can bet absolutely 100%, that it is and that you are about to get ripped-off big time! Why people want to continually try to challenge this unshakable old-school bit of wisdom I simply cannot understand.

2. Read, read, and read some more books on armour. Teach yourself! Don't rely simply on the knowledge of others. The fact is very few people have a serious understanding of Japanese armour.

3. Always ask for additional images from the seller if the deal seems to good, but you just can't help yourself and are going to bid anyway, regardless of rule #1.

• Ask for a specific picture of a certain part of the armour or item being offered if in doubt. Ask that the pciture be taken from a certain angle, or beside a local newspaper, with a date or headline on it, et cetera. In short get confirmation that the seller has the item, so you can be sure in your own mind of this fact. 
• Remember a scam artist can have multiple pictures of an item that they are trying to sell, even if they don't own it. Make sure the seller can prove possession of the item in questions, by using the methods mentioned above.
• Note: I too see these "great" deals on eBay every other week. Sometimes I will email the seller and ask for additional images, mostly to see the reaction, because I already know the sale is a scam, for in many cases I know where the armour they are trying to market actually is. Generally I get their banking details or the PayPal account information in reply almost instantly. But the sellers have never once been able to back up a scam deal with the extra pictures. Think about it people. Someone wants to sell an item. You agree to pay the full "Buy-it-now" price, and yet they seller isn't willing to manage just one more picture to conclude the deal. Read rule #1 again.

4. Basically avoid buying out of China. Period. At this point in time anyway.

• I have not yet seen a decent, honest, authentic Japanese samurai article on eBay that has been offered from a dealer in China that did not seem incredibly suspect. Sorry to say that, but those are the facts.
• Watch for fake armour society documents. If these are offered, ask for the registration number and then contact the NKBKHK ( Nihon Katchu Bugu Kenkyu Hozan Kai / Society for the Study and preservation of Japanese Armour ) in Japan and ask for verification. Don't wince about how hard and time consuming this is to do. Its not. Pick up the phone and try. Better than being shafted for a few thousand dollars isn't it?
• Most armours I have seen being offered out of China are actually images stolen from the homepages of various dealer around the world. These stolen image listings usually don't have accurate item descriptions, additional support images and or other documentation to back up the claim that the "seller" actually owns the piece being offered.
• If you are being offered a 17th century gusoku out of China for $450.00 or whatever, ask yourself  why? Is there really anyone in the world today who cannot recognize that authentic samurai armour has a value? Or is it just that the Chinese have a vast stock of these rare items laying around that they want to generously supply the rest of us with, and at moderate prices, in a neighbourly sort of way. The answer? NO! If you thought the answer was yes, I suggest you seek medical advice as soon as possible. $500 or $1000.00 to a Chinese person is still a hell of a lot of money. One "Buy-it-now" PayPal scam and they have done very well for the year. Again, read rule #1. Note. There is no historic reason which adequately supports why there should even be any authentic Japanese armour in China, besides a few gift sets between emperors, and maybe some collectors. But definitely nothing on the scale you hear claims of.  

5. Always be sure to check and compare shipping rates against those offered. I constantly see over inflated shipping fees being charged, especially by dealers selling out of Japan. Shipping rates for Japan Post, which includes EMS, can be found by doing an on-line search. It's not hard to do. They have their rates posted in English folks. Everything you need is there, including weights and rates in relationship to the shipping destination.

6. Check feedback. This is especially true for most Chinese dealers offering samurai armour. Note that many Chinese dealers who are trying to conduct scams have 100% feedback scores. Check their feedback though, and you will often find that it is almost all from internal Chinese buyers. This is rather suspect as few Chinese can yet afford the items being offered on Ebay at US. dollar prices. So it is fairly safe to consider that much of this feedback has been fabricated to build an image of an honest reliable seller, which in turn it is hoped will help build buyer confidence, which might just lead to someone hitting that  "Buy-it-now" button and becoming a another victim of an eBay armour scam.

7. Don't think that Japanese dealers are automatically honest and or experts on the subject of Japanese armour. In Japan the general rule with antiques is let the customer hang themselves. If a person thinks an item is 16th century, the dealer generally won't try to convince them to the contrary. They let the customer convince themselves that what the see is what they think it is. That or they spin great stories and generally really pull out all the tricks in the book to wrangle that sale. Basically the principle works that if a dealer sells something to a customer which was in fact not what the customer had believe it to be when the deal was made, then it was the customer who was wrong for allowing themselves to be tricked, rather than the dealer being wrong for tricking them. And returns are basically just not possible. People may think this is incorrect. Well folks. Feel free to believe what you want. I have lived here, Japan, for almost half my life, and antiques are my business. I know how it works over here. There are of course decent dealers, who will tell you the truth, but you've got more chance of not shooting yourself with a revolver loaded with five shoots in a quick round of Russian roulette than of finding one of them in a crowd of dealers. 

• Note: There are only a handful of professional dealers who specialize Japanese samurai armour in Japan. Of these a few are very devious, renowned for fabricating histories, altering the armours and doing whatever it takes to make a quick easy buck. Foreigner customers are their favourite sting. Kyoto and Hiroshima are renowned for deceptive dealers who deal in a lot of Japanese armour.
• Most Japanese antique dealers simple have no experience in Japanese armour. It is such a select and limited field that most could not tell between a very decent replica and an original.
• Most dealers cannot age pieces correctly, tell if they have been altered and or are actually matched original sets. How can you tell? Read on.
• Why do so many Japanese sellers now offer their merchandise on eBay. Because collectors in Japan who can see the stuff first hand won't buy it. Much of what you see on eBay is for lack of a better word, crap, and much of it poorly doctored up crap to hide the real problems. Here I have to give Japanese dealers credit. They have found that the crap they can't sell in Japan can still be sold abroad, because aboard it is still rare, even if it is again just crap. Smart move on their part.    

8. Don't think any dealer is honest until you've got some proof to verify that fact. That includes me. I'm ready to meet the challenge. Ask me for more pictures. Ask me for more information, to answer questions and even verification from other source et cetera, and I'll step-up to the plate to support my claims, my reputation and merchandise. I sell a lot of my stock to other dealers. Some of them stock some nice stuff. But that doesn't make them honest. Skilfully taken images to hide damage or flaws, decorative maedate or other items which tend to make a helmet look more elaborate than it is, and or item descriptions that gloss over the facts are standard stuff. I've sold armours to other dealers where I told them about discrepancies, which later when the item was sold on by them, those issues had completely vanished from the key points of their item descriptions.

9. Real armour is expensive. Repeat. Real armour is expensive. If it is super cheap then read rule #1 again.

10. Most armour seen for sale on and off eBay is composite. Composite armours are armours that look to be complete, or in other words have all the main essential component parts, but have actually been made up from an amalgamation of various unrelated armour parts. This is a fact that is almost always, repeat almost always not mentioned by sellers offering such merchandise. In many cases this is because they honestly don't know, but more often than not, the seller does know, but does not want to mention this point as it will affect the items selling price. So learn how to spot a composite set:

• Firstly, again educate yourself. Read and buy books that can be use as but information and visual example guides. This is a must.
• Ask the seller. Is this a composite set? Why ask? Because a composite is generally worth much less than a true original all matched set of armour for obvious reasons..
• A true gusoku or all original armour set will almost always be made up from materials that are used to some extent on each and or all of the various component pieces. In the case of most armours the sangu, or kote armoured sleeves, haidate thing guards and suneate shin guards will have fabric materials that are mismatched between the two or all three of the items. This is the most common and easily identifiable form of composite armour. The fabrics on the sleeve, thigh guard panel and shin guards should be identical. This includes the liner fabrics on the reserves side faces. Any leather materials will generally be found used again on these other parts. Silk edge piping and other details will again be identical. Chain mail size and link construction should be the same. Lacing materials should be the same. Again often these same materials will be found used on the dou cuirass, sode shoulder guards and kabuto helmet. Lacing material, especially the more colourful outside edge trim laces, or mimi-ito strands should again be consistent on all of the parts. If the kabuto has a blue-purple checker pattern lacing and the menpo face mask has an orange tone mimi-ito lacing, and the gessan pendants of the dou are strung with a blue-green checker pattern lacing, you know all of these parts were almost certainly from seperate armours that have been collected together to fabricate what appears to be a full original set to the un-trained eye. 

11. On helmets check to see if the neck guard is original. In the case of a great many antique samurai helmets seen on eBay, the neck guards are replacements. How can you tell:

• Note how the top edge of the upper most lame, that is fastened to the kabuto helmet, contours to the lower line edge of the hachi. If these two edges do not aligned, with a gap being present between then, the curves not fitting and or the plates of the shikoro actually over-lapping or not sitting flush with the koshimaki band of the hachi, or helmet bowl, then you can be almost certain that the neck guard has been changed.
• Check to see if all the rivets match. Does the lacing match other parts that may be present? Does the lacquer tone match? Does the mabizashi visor have a gilt and or etched fukurin moulding on it? If so do the fukugaeshi flanges also have the same style matched fukurin? If the flanges are without the fukurin this is a another good sign that the shikoro is not correct.
• Do the flanges of the upper most lame of the shikoro exceed to far past the side of the helmet forward along the outside edges of the visor? If so, it is probably not the correct neck guard.

12. Question description that are vague. For example I constantly see one seller who can positively identify a true Edo era piece, when the item truly is old, because this helps his sales. But this same seller can never clearly identify a modern piece, but instead says they don't know, but that the item "looks very old". This is very convenient isn't it. They know what is old and can tell you, thus they can get more money, But when the item is new, and that doesn't help them market the item, then they suddenly can't tell anymore. I ask this. Is it likely someone will know what is authentic without knowing what is not? And will a person who knows what is authentic thus not be able to differentiate between original and reproduction/replica in most cases? I would think so. But they can't when it doesn't serve their interests. So in other words,  your being screwed again. Read rule #1.

13. Don't be suckered by nice decoration and gimmicks. By this I mean for example, a kabuto helmet that is in rough order that has a spectacular new maedate on it that looks great, and conveniently hides the real article you are paying for, i.e. the helmet in this case, which should be considered the real investment. It may turn out you bought a very expensive and highly over-priced decoration on a near worthless antique helmet.

14. Reproductions as originals. This is something I see over and over and over again. A dirty replica, rolled through a field or something which is then listed as a true antique armour. I don't know how people keep falling for this but they do. Basically folks, if you keep seeing a similar style of armour over, and over, and over again, it is not very likely it is that old. In fact, it would make more sense that the items is in probably of a mass produced modern run of something. How can you tell:

• If the item is very dirty, solid and faded but otherwise in excellent condition that should seem a bit suspect. 
• If the finishes have chipped, and the metal underneath is metalic in colour rather than a old rusty tone, then it is probably a treat metal product and thus modern.
• Most modern sets tend to have large waki-date stylized horns and o-sode. Such fixtures on a cheaply priced "old"armours et cetera should raise concern. Wakidate are actually rather uncommon on most authentic period armours after the late 1550's, and were generally limited to use on high-end ,very expensive armours of the later Edo era. Both the sort of thing, you don't find on eBay.
• Paint. Fairly obvious. But you see items that are clearly painted being sold as originals.
• Face masks that have securing hooks bent at sharp angles adn clipped ends. This is a sign of machine work, not hand forging. 
• Pressed parts, or plates with extra holes. Also look for mould lines where seams or hole indents have not been filed down. All clear signs of machine fabrication.