Chinese Clutch bag

[nigel le sueur]

Not the best of pictures, there is a two character mark, and 925 Sterling Silver on this silver and gilt Chinese clutch bag, would like to know the maker and a possible date please
Thanks

[davidross]

My best guess would be that the two characters are the Japanese silver mark 純銀, albeit they are upside-down in orientation with the "Sterling 925" mark. Could also be the Chinese silver mark 足銀, but the characters are almost impossible to make out in the photos. Have a look at the Japanese marks in the World Hallmarks section and then trawl through identified Chinese marks in this forum and see if one or the other matches.

Without a photo of the item, little can be surmised about its origin except to say that a "925 sterling" mark would suggest rather recent manufacture and marketing for an English-speaking clientele.

Regards
DR

[nigel le sueur]

David
Thank you for the reply, when l return l will attempt to take better photographs of the marks and also the item.
Regards
Nigel

[davidross]

Hello Nigel,

Yes, please do post more images, at the very least I am confident that country of origin and an approximate date can be determined.

If there is no maker's mark near the sterling mark, there probably isn't one elsewhere, but please look for one inside as well as on the exterior.

Regards,

David

[nigel le sueur]

[

David
Please find attached l hope a better image of the mark, l call it a clutch bag but it could well be called something else, it is 6.5" long and just under 4" wide (please excuse old money) but in modern terms it weighs 416 grams
Thanks for any further help you can give
Regards
Nigel

[nigel le sueur]

oops forgot pics of item



Nigel

[davidross]

Nigel,

Thanks for posting more photos.

The Chinese characters are still a mystery to me. The second character is quite clearly that for silver 銀, but the first character (on the bottom in your photo, in which the characters are upside-down) is still too indistinct for me to make out. Please understand that there are over 50,000 Chinese characters, and therefore very clear images are essential to a positive identification.

The most common silver mark in Japanese is 純銀, in Chinese 足銀 or 紋銀, and I do not think this mark is any of those three. It may be a maker's name that used "silver" as its second character, or it may be a compound word roughly equivalent to "woven silver," if indeed the clutch is made of something like woven silver thread.

From the style of the clutch bag, I would guess it to date from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s. My guess is that the clutch was made in either Japan, Hong Kong, or Taiwan, countries that use Chinese characters and that have had a fairly robust export market of jewelry and luxury goods to English-speaking countries in recent decades.

Sorry that I cannot be of much help, but perhaps this mark will show up again in a more readily discernible form, or perhaps someone else will be able to tell more.

Regards
David

[nigel le sueur]

David
Thank you for your help much appreciated
Regards
Nigel