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To my eye, the mark quite definitely appears to be 純錫 not 純銀. Such a tiny difference---the difference between pure tin and pure silver . if so, then you would be quite correct in stating that you don't read kanji, archaic or otherwise. How extraordinarily lucky that niceguy1's dish tested as sterlin...

I've been having a good laugh over this post for quite a while. The spoon couldn't be farther away from home. Even without a clear photo of the marks, it is quite obviously a Norwegian early to mid-eighteenth century spoon. Thank you for this post that proves a point I have tried to make, over and o...

Not at all, my pleasure.

My apologies and my very best compliments to the OP, whose photos are of such truly professional quality that they would be easily mistaken for those of a power seller on one of the online auction sites mentioned in the original post. As my earlier response noted, the marks photographed have already...

I think that wholesale queries about items "similar to this one" appearing on online auction sites comes perilously close to breaking the Forum's posting rules, to wit: "3. No linking to auctions or posting photos from another's auction ." As the Forum is devoted primarily to the...

Thank you for posting the additional images. Now that the chopmark has been cleaned, I believe it is Lin / Lam as I suspected before. Regarding your other queries about the purpose and rationale behind making a small dish with a coin in the center, I have no definite answer, and I suppose that no ma...

Welcome to the Forum. As you mention, the maker is Wang Hing. I am uncertain what is meant by "designer" in the context of CES. The three marks shown are, from left to right, an upside-down 90 purity mark, the mark of the retailer Wang Hing, and the chop mark of the master. While the photo...

The Forum is a place to share information, so by all means, please let us know what you have found out about D. Kobayashi.

I have already posted what I know in the CES Far East Trade topic under Contributors' Notes.

Regards,
DR

Upon further research, this is the mark of D. Kobayashi, active ca 1930s.

Disambiguation of Kobayashi Silversmiths A recent post in the Far East section has brought to light yet another Kobayashi making or marketing silver in Japan in the first half of the 20th century: http://www.925-1000.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=41706 http://www.925-1000.com/td/f/Far_East/Koba...

The mark is read Kobayashi. Probably a retailer rather than a maker.

Hope this helps.

DR

This is probably more likely to be Chinese than a certain "novelty embossed face tea caddy" with a Mayan face that hails from Peru or somewhere else in South America. The milk glass (?) base would seem very unusual for Chinese work, but without knowing the dimensions . . . . . And the mark...

That is a good piece of sleuthing. The reason this crest would not be included in a book of crests is that there were only three generations to the Yamashina line before SCAP abolished it (along with all collateral imperial lines) in 1947, so this crest was only in use for 89 years. I see another ci...

Welcome to the Forum. I can only speak for the limitations of my own mental powers, which the OP has confounded with an overwhelming sense of deja vu. I find it very confusing when someone crops a photo previously posted here by another member and reposts it as a different object and writes "it...

I have no dog, or lion, or sphinx in this fight, but there's an old thread that attributes the mark to either John Batt or Josephy Sankey and Son:

viewtopic.php?t=10555

I leave it to others to make a final determination.

I have seen hundreds of pieces of Birks, but I am unfamiliar with the seated lion mark. Birks was meticulous about marking its sterling pieces as "sterling." If the creamer and sugar have no other marks than "BIRKS" with the seated lion mark, it would be highly unlikely that they...

Hi Peter, My apologies, I didn't know that misery had set in. It is the swinging lid that belonged to an ashtray. The ashtray had three parts to it. First, the swinging "trap door" lid. Second, a metal surround with disk-shaped cigarette rests into which the swinging lid fit. And third, an...

Not to worry, Cheryl, you nailed both pieces with solid IDs first time around. Remind me to remind you if we see this mark again. I'm starting to wonder if it was a mark used by several retailers, perhaps in lieu of a national mark or to signify export silver during the years of the Occupation. Or p...

You are welcome.

I just reread our Posting Requirements "don'ts" section, and am unsure if we have any clear rule about cross-posting information between sites. I personally see no problem, but I would defer to our Admins, who will surely weigh in post-haste.

Regards,

David R

Transliterated in Pinyin, the mark reads "Hong Xing." This mark bears no resemblance to that of Heng Li. Another piece with this mark was posted some years back: http://www.925-1000.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=33781 The speculation at that time was that this maker was active in the late 18th...