Japanese or Chinese marks on silver bowl,

[p_helm]

Any help identifying the marks on a this silver bowl would be appreciated, the outer surface is quite textured making the mark hard to read

[dognose]

Hi,

Welcome to the Forum.

I'm sure we've had that mark on the forum before, but despite searching, I'm unable to find it. The marks are typical of Japanese work.

Trev.

[p_helm]

Thanks a lot Trev

[p_helm]

Looking at the group of writing characters, they look like the ones used for Japan or Korea for pure silver going by the entries on the site
http://www.925-1000.com/foreign_marks3.html

It would be interesting to know what the other symbol is

[Aguest]

This might be an example (if Japanese) of "Mokume-gane"

Mokume-gane (木目金 Mokumegane) is a Japanese metalworking procedure which produces a mixed-metal laminate with distinctive layered patterns, as well as that laminate itself. Mokume-gane translates closely to "wood grain metal" or "wood eye metal" and describes the way metal takes on the appearance of natural wood grain. Mokume-gane fuses several layers of differently coloured precious metals together to form a sandwich of alloys called a "billet." The billet is then manipulated in such a way that a pattern resembling wood grain emerges over its surface. Numerous ways of working the mokume metal create diverse pattens. Once the metal has been rolled into a sheet or bar, several techniques are used to produce a range of effects.

Mokume-gane has been used to create many artistic objects. Though the technique was first developed for production of decorative sword fittings, the craft is today mostly used in the production of jewelry and hollowware.

[zhaosu]

The retail mark (a crane in a cycle) is for Matsuya department store.

If the mark is only in the internal, then it's a bronze bowl with silver liner (銀内張). This kind of technique mainly used with the products for home market (Japanese tea and sake wares), rather than for exporting.