Tsuba: Plastic vs Leather

[anogaijin]

I was curious to know if anyone sees an advantage in using a leather tsuba as opposed to a plastic one.

I have only used plastic until this point and have not really any had any reason to be dissatisfied.

I have seen a plastic tsuba on a bokuto broken during the kata portion of a shinsa (the guy was SUPER nervous). But on a shinai never.

Thanks

[JSchmidt]

I have seen the plastic ones break...but as you usually get them thrown after you anyway (I got tons of the bloody things) it's not really an issue. I got a couple of leather ones, because I think they look nicer :)

Jakob

[Neil Gendzwill]

A good quality leather tsuba will last forever and looks much nicer than the plastic ones. I've seen lots of the plastic ones break. As to whether it will make any difference to your kendo - no, not really.