Help With Mei Please

[JFwilly]

Hi all,  I recently purchased a stainless steel Kai Gunto.  It is signed and has a Toyokawa inspection mark.  It was suggested to me by the seller that the signature says "Matsunaga".  I've tried to confirm this looking up Japanese Kanji marks online.  I'm sure the second mark is "naga" 永, but I can't confirm the first mark is Matsu 松 .  It just doesn't look right.  Thought it could be Mitsu 光 but that doesn't look right either.  Is it Matsunaga, or Mitsunaga or something else?   Any ideas?  Thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

[SteveM]

Your intuition is correct. It says Mitsunaga 光永作

 

Probably the one noted on this site below.

http://www.jp-sword.com/files/seki/gendaito.html

[Mark]

i see Mitsunaga saku

[JFwilly]

That helps, I'll stick with your interpretation. Thanks for the link.  I also found Mitsunaga on this list of 200 Seki province swordsmiths.

 

http://www.japaneseswordindex.com/seki.htm

 

Thanks,  -Jeff