Another Reddit sword - ???住藤原義正 (??? ju Fujiwara Yoshimasa)

Hi everyone,

Reddit user posted a surrendered katana with a few blurry closeups of the mei (gallery here).

I admit I'm having a bit of trouble reading the province, and I'm not 100% confident on the smith either. So far I have:

駿 (first char. Suruga)?

河 (second char. Suruga)?

圀 Kuni (alt. 國)?

住 Ju

藤 Fuji

原 Wara

義 Yoshi

正 Masa

The thing is... I don't really think it's Suruga kuni. In fact I'm not sure the third character necessarily has to be kuni at all in this case. And when I look up Yoshimasa smiths in Hawley's / Sesko's indices, and do various candidate excerpt searches online, I'm not getting much in the way of positive matches either.

What are your opinions? I realize the photos are blurry; the owner is going to take some more photos later. But I'm interested in your take.

I figured either I'm misreading something, it's an unknown mei, or maybe it's even gimei. The mei quality is pretty bad after all. But why gimei to an unknown Yoshimasa? The first two possibilities seem more sensible.

Noshu Seki ju Fujiwara Yoshimasa, I think. John

Noshu Seki ju Fujiwara Yoshimasa, I think. John

Noshu Seki is a pretty good reading I think (especially given the togari gunome hamon). What a sloppy mei...

Thanks!

PS – This smith does not appear in Hawley's / Sesko's, and there is only one google result for the full mei (which is a long-gone auction reference), so if anyone has information on this smith please let me know. Thanks, —G.