Title: Ashinoha-gō to meitōtenNice catalog, mostly focussing on swords and tōsōgu, but it includes also one armour.
Title: Meihin zuroku Tokugawa BijutsukanNice catalog about the famous pieces from the Tokugawa Art Museum.
Title: Tokugawa Bijutsukan no meikoku (Treasures from the Tokugawa Art Museum 1)Great catalog from the Tokugawa Art Museum that covers famous treasures from it’s collection.
Title: Tōken tōsōgu - Swords and Sword Fittings (Treasures from the Tokugawa Art Museum 3)Beautiful catalog from the Tokugawa Art Museum with sword and sword fittings.
Title: Pierres et Sabres (Restauration des lames de sabres d'art du Japon) - Stones and Swords (Restauration of Japanese Art Sword Blades)Interesting book from sword restorer and polisher Laurent Milhau (who passed away in 1999). It was the first western book on this topic.
Title: Japanese Swords and Sword Fittings from the Collection of Dr. Walter A. Compton (Part I, II, III)These are the auction catalogs for the fabulous Walter A. Compton collection, probably the best collection on Japanese swords ever outside of Japan (or even maybe including Japan). Mostly nihontō and tōsōgu.
Title: Nihon jōdai no katchū - Nihon jōdai no bukiThis fabulous book set is actually a 1981 reprint of two books, one from 1941 and one from 1944 (B0262), completely dedicated to the old, pre-Heian, armours of Japan. It includes also study reproductions. Masao Suenaga is one of the handful armour researchers that people still talk about with a lot of respect. The book set was originally sold for 145,000 yen…
Title: Nihon katchū daizukanThis is the famous (and originally very expensive – 80,000 yen) encyclopedia of Yoshihiko Sasama, also called: An Illustrated Book on Japanese Armor. Almost no pictures but many illustrations from Sasama. Of course, many illustrations come back in other publications, but the big advantage here is, that the book is big, so much more detail can be seen in the illustrations. One of his latest works, so content wise probably the most up to date.
Title: Gai Sō Shi - Study collection of Japanese Sword FittingsRobert E. Hayes is one of the top tsuba scholars, and in this book he uses 179 pieces of his collection to guide us through the world of tsuba. Very interesting to get the chance to get into his mind…
Title: katchū men mononofu no kasōThis is as far as I know the only serious book on menpō . Several of the examples in the book have become famous and have ended up in big collections. This is a reprint in softcover from the hardcover version from 1991 (B0014). The pictures in the big hard cover edition are slightly better in my eyes.
