Makers mark?

[Stan]

HI Peter, I have two vases that have this mark, Im pretty sure it is Japanese looks like it could be Fukagawa but not sure, can you tell me if you can read this mark, thanks.

[peterp]

Hi Stan, this is neither a recognizable Kanji nor a syllable of the Hiragana or Katakana syllabaries used in Japan. It could as well be a modified alphabetic letter.

To me, the right one looks more like a hand-written J with a dot beside it. Looks as if this could have been made for the European market. The left one has some resemblance to a Japanese hand-written あ (sound 'a'), but this is not normally used for a written name.

[Stan]

Thanks Peter, I bought this in an auction that listed several Fukagawa porcelain items, I know that in mid Meiji the fukagawa co. used a hat mark for one year before the trademark sign was adopted, that is what I was thinking it could be but I have never had one before to compare, if it is it would be very rare, I have a picture of a hat mark in one of my books it shows one example of the mark, that is encouraging that it is not a Kanji mark, it very well could be a hat mark, thank you for insight on the mark.