www.925-1000.com

Hi,
I am new to all of this, so I hope someone can help with the markings on this ring.
The ring is a dull gold colour with much brighter gold Dragons on it and a cats eye stone of some sort.
I can make out the one word is fine...but the rest I have no idea and no idea of it's age.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/i8r4byhiuhjciuv/IMG_20141106_220459.jpg?dl=0

Other pictures of ring
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cs8qgpzwjr6rxh9/IMG_20141106_225108.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vjyx9ybasxt02 ... 9.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/g6z2xar29hubz ... 1.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6hdlf6aeh8ipb ... 9.jpg?dl=0

Any help at all with the mark and it's approximate age would be sooo helpful.
Thank you
Suzy

Hi Suzy,

Welcome to the Forum.

You are right, the first character is "fine." The second is "silver."

It is not possible to determine, from your photos and description, if the ring is solid silver, gold over silver, or some base metal that has been deceptively stamped "fine silver." I have seen this "fine silver" mark on jewelry and souvenir spoons made of base metal. The lack of a maker's or some other marks would also point in that direction, but let me stress that this is only one possibility.

Regards,

DR

Hi DR,
The ring is not magnetic at all, I have tested it with a strong jewelers magnet, even scratched away some of the edge and re checked it.
So I assume it isn't a base metal.

Yes, yes, it may very well be silver, as I wrote above, it is impossible to say from photos.

At least now you know what the impressed characters say, for which you are most welcome.

Well I have eventually found the Hallmark and an article related to it...although I will keep researching it.

Chinese Character Marks:
Many marks appear solely using Chinese characters. Generally they tell us who the retail silversmith is and the artisan maker. Occasionally there is additional information to be gleaned such as the manufacturing base and sometimes a silver purity guarantee.
Sheng Yuan maker's markHere we have a maker’s mark that tells us the retail silversmith is Sheng Yuan, the main artisan silversmith is He Ji [in Mandarin] or Wo Kee [in Cantonese] who probably was responsible for the item carrying the mark and probably worked a bench under the Sheng Yuan umbrella. What theScreen Shot 2013-09-08 at 18.59.35 mark doesn’t tell us is that Sheng Yuan was located in ShangHai and Peking and he operated between 1890-1930.

Picture shown of hallmark ( I have cut and pasted above...not my spelling mistakes!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0u2664rpy1t1y3w/Screen-Shot-2013-09-08-at-18.59.35.png?dl=0

Allow me to suggest that the scope of your research extend to the wealth of information on this site.

For starters, there is the definition of "hallmark," which can be found on this page:

http://www.925-1000.com/silverglossary3.html

The images you have posted, both from the ring and from the Internet source, are a wenyin mark.

Wenyin is not a maker's mark, not a retailer's mark, and not a manufacturer's mark. And most emphatically, it is not an assay mark or a hallmark. It is not even a silver purity mark declaring a minimum percentage of silver. It is merely a mark that a manufacturer or retailer applied to items with silver content.

A great deal can be learned about CES by reading through past posts on this Forum. For instance, this same wenyin mark has appeared before, as in this post:

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=31908&p=79915&hilit=fine#p79915

Good luck with your research,

DR

Just to be clear, a magnet, regardless of strength, only indicates the presence of ferromagnetic metals - it is not useful for ruling out other base metals or in determining if an item is actually a precious metal.

~Cheryl