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: 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: Armures japonaises dans la collection Jean Saporta - Japanese armor from the Jean Saporta collectionBeautiful book from Jean-Christophe Charbonnier about the magnificent collection of Jean Saporta. The collection has since then been sold, but Mr. Saporta has been very active in gathering a new collection, so there is hope for another book!
Title: Casques, masques et armures des seigneurs de l'ancien JaponBeautiful book from Jean-Christophe Charbonnier with a wide selection of top quality kabuto, menpō, sōmen, katchū from private collections. Excellent explanation about the various schools, beautiful photography.
Title: Katchū bugu no kenkyū : kinsei no kabuto o chūshin toshite (Studies on Arms and Armour - With a Focus on Modern Helmets)During his many years as a member of the Nihon Katchū Bugu Kenkyū Hozon Kai, Mr. Orikasa wrote several highly interesting articles about Japanese armour for the magazine of the society. What makes the articles of Mr. Orikasa so interesting is the fact that he starts from thorough research, and not from pure guess work.
In this book (limited to 200), Mr. Orikasa assembled his best articles with, where applicable, some extra comments. As it is probably the first time that these articles will be available for people who are not a member of the armour society, it is a very valuable document.
Title: Sōma no kabutoFantastic book by the Fukushima group of the Japanese Armour Society. Only 4 armours, but a huge amount of kabuto that were at that time in collections in Fukushima. Rare.
Title: Saotome ha kabuto shashin shūThis is a very rare book on Saotome kabuto by the main researcher on this superb school of Japanese samurai helmets, Teruo Orikasa. 26 years later, we made together a follow up book with “Helmets of the Soatome school” (B0182). One of the very few books that has multiple angle pictures of a kabuto as it should be. A must. I believe that the printing was limited to 200.
