Originally Posted by
Steve56
Can you tell what color the stamp ink is?
"Shou Hon Yama Awase -Do" is pretty generic but adds some weight to Stefan's idea that the stamp is a 'shohonzan' stamp. Sho Hon Yama just means it's from the Kyoto area, Awase and Awase-Do just means whetstone. Sho Hon Yama in kanji are in almost every description of a finishing stone and appear in many stamps.
If you have some photo editing skills, you can look at the stamp image in the RGB channels, throw out the two most indistinct channels, convert to black and white then tweak the contrast, saturation, etc and the stamp might be readable. Doesn't always work but sometimes it does. I'd do it for you but my main imaging computer has unfortunately decided to die.
Cheers, Steve