Not wanting to wake the zombie Japanese Tantō Blade - Translate Writing thread, I decided to start a new one.
I have a Japanese kitchen knife my youngest brother gave me years ago. The only identifying images on the blade are shown here.
I was originally going to post the image here and ask for help, but decided to use my Goole-fu to figure it out first.
Ran across a forum where it was suggested a person trying to translate the markings use Google Translate. I am impressed that using it in the Camera mode, looking at the picture on my screen, it gave me two translations, and it only took a couple of minutes to track down a purveyor of these knives on the web, and I was able to find out who the craftsman was. The text translated to either “Jihei Iseya” or “Osamu Iseya”
I love this knife, was glad to be able to find the info. If anyone is interested, you can see this particular knife on this website.