Can you help interpret the writing and marks on these Liberty spoons?

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Peartree
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Can you help interpret the writing and marks on these Liberty spoons?

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Can you help interpret the writing and marks on these Liberty spoons? Please see images. The single spoon shown is from a boxed set of six spoons all within original Liberty box. The spoons carry the early London Ly&Co Liberty mark and are dated 1894 (T), with "F" import mark. They also carry the S.M mark like a lot of early Liberty silver and which Adrien von Ferscht has identified as Sadajiro Musashiya from Yokohama, Japan. So far so good.

The purpose of this posting is to see if anyone can:
1. Identify the other marks on the bowl. There is a circular and centrally placed "omega style" mark and two Japanese/Chinese character marks (just above the English hallmarks) that look line two "n's".
2. Can you identify the writing/characters on the front of the spoon's bowl
3. Can you identify the writing/characters at the end of the spoon handle to the front
4. Can you identify the writing/characters at the end of the spoon handle to the back

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Thank you very much Anthony
Peartree
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Re: Can you help interpret the writing and marks on these Liberty spoons?

Post by Peartree »

Better images I hope

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Peartree
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Re: Can you help interpret the writing and marks on these Liberty spoons?

Post by Peartree »

I can, courtesy of a Japanese expert contact answer some of my own questions. See below. The makers marks remain a mystery.

The marks on the bowls of the spoons are a scaled down rendition of a Gold Koban Coin of some sort with the die numbers and mint marks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koban_(coin)

The finials are versions of this 100 mon bronze coin:

Holed Japanese coins with description, photo and values
Peartree
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Posts: 99
Joined: Thu Apr 25, 2013 7:20 pm
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Re: Can you help interpret the writing and marks on these Liberty spoons?

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