Tsuba in the collection of Wolverhampton Art Gallery

The tsuba (鍔, or 鐔) is usually a round (or occasionally squarish) guard at the end of the grip of bladed Japanese weapons, like the katana and its various variations.

The tsuba were part of a wider collection of weapons and sword guards donated by Councilor Davis Green in October 1924.

Illustrated here is an example of a copper, nadekaku gata, kaku mimi tsuba in the Hamano Nara style.

[2] The historian Henri L. Joly confirms that Masayuki is the same person as Shōzui (政随), an important founder member of the Hamano (浜野) branch of the Nara school.

[3][4] During the Edo period (1603–1868) the Tokugawa shogunate had a very strict dress code for attending the court.

The omote mei reads Kikugawa Nanpo (菊川南甫), who is known to have been practicing during the later half of the nineteenth century.