Request help with the proper reading of an iron & cloissone tsuba

[Curran]

Please see the pictures. I broke the camera on my phone, so these old-school Canon macro ones are the best I can do for now.

 

Signature is hard for me to discern.   It looks like    (?) (?)  ju Masa (kuni?)

From the basketweave iron pattern and cloissone workmanship, I think it is an Edo area maker.

 

I question the kuni reading, because inside the box of the kanji all the strikes are little atari strikes pointing at each other like a bursting firecracker  (bang!) . See the last picture for best image of that kanji.

Is this just an easy way of doing the Kuni character, or can anyone else suggest an alternate reading?   If I can figure out the place name, I can at least narrow down the # of possible [Masa______] readings.

 

Thank you for any help.

 

 

 

[ROKUJURO]

Curran,

it looks like KUNI to me. Just one of several ways to write/chisel it, I think.

[uwe]

I would guess “唐津住正國” (Karatsu jū Masakuni).

[Curran]

@uwe  Wow, I think you nailed it in one shot.

 

The place name also matches too with MASAKUNI  Haynes Index 04149.0 and there are 4 reference signatures on page 308 of Wakayama Vol. 1.

There are several generations, and it matches fairly well with the kuni character style of the 4th example.

 

They supposedly moved from Karatsu to Odawara (Edo) in the 1650-1700 time period. To some degree, that explains the mismatch of fine cloisonne and what I consider Edo area iron.

 

Thank you @uwe and @ROKUJURO