The term “drawer-handle” (kan) is a modern term for a portion of a period charge in Japanese Mon: it seems to be taken from the mokko, or “slice of melon” (Dower’s Elements of Japanese Design). While we have no examples of the drawer-handle (in the illustration, the charge in chief) in period Mon, the mokko (the charge in base) is found in the Mon of Oda Hidenobu, d.1601 [Hawley 18].
In Mon, both the drawer-handle and the melon slice are used in multiples, not singly, and conjoined in annulo.
Kimura Tetsuo bears: Sable, a plate issuant from a Japanese stream, within five drawer-handles conjoined in annulo argent.