Leather tsuba

[The Blacksmith]

Whilst reading Vic Harris and Nobuo Ogasawara's Swords of the Samurai, saw on P. 70, plate 37 a tachi, which the caption states that the tsuba is made of leather. I have had tsuba covered in thin leather before, but have never come across one actually made of leather before. So. I wondered if anybody has such a tsuba in their collection, and how common was  this?

 

Thanks in advance.

[Ray Singer]

There are some examples of nerikawa tsuba discussed here.

https://www.google.com/search?q="nerikawa+tsuba"+site%3A.militaria.co.za&rlz=1C1ONGR_enUS1136US1136&oq="nerikawa+tsuba"+site%3A.militaria.co.za&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRiPAjIHCAIQIRiPAjIHCAMQIRiPAtIBCDE4NjZqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&source=chrome.ob&ie=UTF-8

[The Blacksmith]

@Ray Singer Thank you so much for the links!  I have never come across these before, though I must admit that I know next to nothing about tsuba anyway, so will be very  interested to read them all. Thank you again.

Though I have owned quite a few over the years, I must admit that apart from Sasano's book years ago, it is an area of Nihonto that I have greatly and woefully overlooked. I was mainly a collector of swords used during WWII, and as most of them had standard Shin-Gunto fittings, it was a subject that I never delved into.

[palousian]

I have an Enju katana in a koshirae that features textured nerikawa throughout.  I have tried to find out more about it, and found some of what Ray Singer posted above (which includes the thread I started on this koshirae). The tsuba is three layers of lacquered leather, and whoever made this even replaced the standard same on the tsuka with this material. I think it's beautiful, but clearly it was a theme for whoever made this, and I believe that this was because many early koshirae for katana were leather and so perhaps this later koshirae (Edo period?) was meant to recreate that style (?).