Antique Japanese Samurai Iron Tsuba Sword Hilt Ducks and Pine

This is an antique Japanese Meiji period (c. 1868-1912) tsuba (handguard) for a tsuba is made with two thin stamped copper plate sandwiching a thick copper plate. This Tsuba has 4  tagane ato which it would only have if it was a fixed to a blade at some point in the past. It measures about 3 1/4" (8 cm) by 3 1/4" (7.5 cm) wide and 1/4" (.5cm) thick. Despite having been lovingly and carefully displayed by 3 generations of collectors, it has some separation between the thin plates and the main plate. see pics for details.