Silver Spoons with Asian marks Japanese, Chinese ???

[tamrock]

I picked these 12 spoons up some time ago. They test as pure silver, but I've no clue of the alloy percentage?. The measure between 18.3 to 18.5 cm long and the weight of each spoon is not consistent with each other spoon. They range in weight, between a low of 32 grams to a high of 44 grams. The look as if they were made by a lost wax casting method and not stamped out in a machine press because motif details are also inconsistent with each other and the scoop of each is hand engraved with a floral motif. Even the stamped marks on the back side are inconsistent with each other spoon. I'd like to now where these come from and how old they may be?

 

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[THing4CSA]

Just as a guess I would say they were made in China and as far as the age somewhere around 1900. The Chinese traded a lot of goods for US Trade and Silver Dollars and melted many for silver items.
I wish you luck and finding out for sure.

 

[tamrock]

Just as a guess I would say they were made in China and as far as the age somewhere around 1900. The Chinese traded a lot of goods for US Trade and Silver Dollars and melted many for silver items.
I wish you luck and finding out for sure.

That's my thoughts also. Hopefully Yang Hao will be able to tell more about these. I can only imagine the amount of silver coinage that was horded in Hong Kong at the first part of the 20th century.

 

[Yang Hao]

still working on it. bit of a challenge for me.

 

[tamrock]

still working on it. bit of a challenge for me.

Well if anything I do thank you for your effort. Those two spoons seem to have the most legible stampings over the others. I think they're from China.

 

[Yang Hao]

Well if anything I do thank you for your effort. Those two spoons seem to have the most legible stampings over the others. I think they're from China.

I'm working with 方九和 photo 3. I will ask some friends of mine to see what they say. By the way silverware in chinese is 银器 yinqi yin is silver and ji is the character for device tool utensil. 器 is also used in words such as 机器人 robot. the chinese english 机器jiqi machinery 人ren person (machinery person)

 

[tamrock]

Yang,
I went through these spoons to see if any would have a better defined stamping. All in my opinion have poorly struck or over polished marks and I'm sure that makes it harder for you recognize what these stamped marks are saying. One I noticed for the first time seems to have the Arabic number 35 on it. That could be something to do with the purity of the silver, I'm thinking??

 

[on.off]

these may be chinese export pieces. the design is very european looking (definitely not chinese, more like german or french). could the 35 be 935? if so that was a popular silver standard in germany at the time (early 20C) and may point to these having been made for the german market.