Craftsmanship in Wood

I bought this 49mm chisel on ebay about a year ago for $14. Finally got around to cleaning the handle up, and now I'm curious what the characters mean.

What you have there is '土弘'

That would be read as: tsuchi-hiro

Literal translation of that would be 'wide earth'.

I am unfamiliar with that maker and an internet search for that chisel brand netted zero results. Not sure if it was a smith's name or a generic brand. The character 'み' (read 'mi') at the top, is likely a blacksmith guild abbreviation, perhaps short for 'Miki', but I'm guessing.

Awesome, thanks Chris. Knowing what it reads somehow makes me want to take even better care of it

Doesn't the Kanji actually read yoshihiro, 吉弘?

Hey, Jon I think you're right! I didn't catch that at all, as the '口' part of the '吉' character simply looked like a square block and I ignored it.

And looking into that a little more, I found a picture of another chisel by the same maker, though the stamp is very slightly different:
It seems that the smith was named Suzuki and the company, Tokyo based, has been out of business for many years. They were at one time supported by Kokubunji (a famous temple).

There was also a Hidari Yoshihiro smith as well: 左吉弘

Thanks guys! It definitely looks like a big timber framing chisel, so not surprised they provided tools for temple builders. So I'm guessing it's a descent quality chisel, although the blade needs a lot of work, oye.