Anyone ever seen a signature like this?

[Jaron]

Hello all,

 

I have a fuchi with a signature I have not seen and I have looked around quite a bit. I even tried taking the figures and putting up on Google images to see if it might get me close. I believe this is a kao of someone and not kanji thus the difficulty figuring it out. I would appreciate anyone’s thoughts.

 

It is a piece from a collection that was pulled out of a military chest not opened since the end of WWII. The officer who brought them back in a bag just kept them in an attic until recently as he has passed. 

 

Thank you in advance.

[ROKUJURO]

It is difficult to read upside down (Cutting edge is always shown upwards like on KATANA TSUBA). First KANJI looks like MITSU.

[Matsunoki]

Right way up…..

[Jaron]

Thank you kindly Colin and Jean! I didn’t catch that in the upload, lol. Any ideas?

[Jaron]

The first character looks like it could be kanji, 光, but the next one is the mystery. I wanted to leave it totally open to interpretation.

[Bugyotsuji]

I’m going to guess 光永 Mitsunaga. 

[Jaron]

Thank you Piers. I will look into that.