Sakura Uma Tsuba - T022

This made in Japan Tsuba features one of the most famous Japanese symbol, the Sakura or cherry blossom in English, and horses. It is made of copper plated iron, with gold & silver gilding.
Cherry blossoms, or Sakura in Japanese, are the small, delicate pink flowers of the cherry blossom trees. The springtime bloom is a wonderful spectacle but relatively brief. After only two weeks, they drop to the ground and wither, falling like light pink snowflakes. Cherry blossoms symbolizes the brilliance, fragility and transience of life. The symbolic of the Sakura was of the utmost importance in the Samurai culture, Samurai considering their life as fragile and ephemere as the Sakura.
As many of the animals featured on Menuki, the horse is one of the twelve animals of the Chinese (and Japanese) zodiac. As fierced companions of the Samurai, horses were of the utmost important in battles and therefore were very well treated. Horses were sometimes protected with a dedicated horse armor, and as such were as close as a samurai as an animal could be. It is a symbol of strength, speed and beauty.

• Material: Copper plated iron, with gold & silver gilding
• Weight: 115 g
• Vertical height: 78 mm
• Horizontal width: 72 mm
• Thickness: 3 mm