Samurai Helmet

Russet iron 32-plate samurai helmet with vertical ridges and chrysanthemum washers beneath raised rivets (tetsu sabiji san-ju-ni ken za-boshi suji tate-bachi kabuto), likely fabricated by a smith of the Saotome school. Ten rivets arranged vertically on each plate aside from the frontmost and backmost plates which feature two columns of ten rivets and no rivets, respectively. 320 total rivets on the entire helmet bowl. Each rivet has a scallop-edged base washer, the diameter of which gets progressively more narrow for rivets closer to the top of the helmet bowl. A well-made, four-tiered, russet iron fixture (tehen-no-kanamono) sits atop the helmet bowl and curves to conform to the shape of the helmet. The protective metal visor (mabizashi) is attached to the helmet bowl with three large, flattened rivets. The visor is undecorated and missing the molding around the front rim. The intact helmet lining (ukebari) is made of blue cloth with a portion of the orange helmet cord present. A five lame, ko-manju style neck guard (shikoro) is attached to the helmet bowl with four rivets, each with chrysanthemum base washer. Each lame is made of a single iron plate (ita-mono) coated with red lacquer and connects to the next lame with light blue silk lacing in the kebiki-odoshi style. The bottom lame possesses a decorative, red-painted, molded edge, likely made of leather. Two forward-facing wings (fukigaeshi) emerge from the top lame of the neck guard. Like the rest of the neck guard, the fukigaeshi are coated in red lacquer and bear no crest.