Can anyone read Japanese?

[drdavid]

Hi Gene
finally had a little more time to puzzle at this. Best reference to help out us westerners is Japanese Art Signatures by Self and Hirose. Inaba is one of the 68 provinces used in art signatures. Shigeyoshi is listed as the name of 5 metalworkers and the kanji on this piece do match one of those 5. Sorry no dates for this particular metalworker.
I was not sure about the Kami/Jyou character. Kami can mean lord of, which can precede a makers name but the kanji used for kami in that context is not the kanji we have here. I think Peter's original suggestion of Kase(gu) meaning to work is the correct one rather than the later suggestions.
I also had some second thoughts about the Matsumura bit. Matsumura is a clan name but from a totally different area of Japan and the clan name would normally go immediately before the makers name. Mura probably means village in this context. The Matsu kanji can also be read as Matsue. Matsue is the name of a town in then Inaba (now Tottori) district. So probably it reads something like
'Unique in this world, made by Shigeyoshi, in Matsue village, Inaba '
cheers
David