Popular science of Japanese silverware: how to distinguish the signs of Japanese silverware?

Similar to other cases where there is no compulsory appraisal requirement, there are usually only two kinds of marks on Japanese silverware, the person in charge and the color. Even if there are detachable parts (such as pot cover and box cover), usually only one set of marks is marked on the main body. However, in some products, we can still find the origin information, the mint grade certification mark and the special mark of the American occupation period.

However, in the early Meiji period, a considerable number of products and royal gifts were not marked at all, and only the manufacturer and material description could be found on the original packaging at most. Some metalworking, such as Nakagawa Seiki, Yihe Zhai, mostly have only the author's name, but no material. However, various stores and department stores are just the opposite. Many goods are only marked with material or purity, and other information is written on boxes or printed on labels and posted on promotional materials.

1. Responsible sign

In Japanese gold and silver products, the signature of the person in charge ("lettering") can be divided into two categories: the symbol of the producer and the name of the craftsman. If the producer is a foreign businessman, he will use English names directly, while Japanese businessmen sometimes use Japanese names and sometimes use corresponding Japanese Latin expressions. For example, サムラィィィィィィィィィィィィィィィ.

Generally speaking, most objects with signs composed of pseudonyms and Chinese characters are sold or given away in China, while signs composed of western languages and numbers are mainly used in foreign devices. However, there are some exceptions. For example, some products of Yokohama exporters are only printed with "Wu Mi Wu Sterling Silver" without any English logo.

And western-style silverware produced by many art shops, watch shops and department stores. There are customers in China, Europe and America. The sign is that foreign cultures will be mixed, and the west will be China-oriented, and sometimes both will exist.

In fact, except for サムラィィィィィィィィィィィィィィィィィィィィ before World War II. After the 1950s, the horizontal lines from left to right gradually increased.

The producer's logo can also be in the form of seal, mainly seal cutting, or regular script. Sometimes, the words "made", "made" or "sincerely made" are added at the end of a trade name, even if it is only a dealer rather than an actual producer, such as "made in Hongchi", "made in Jing Daole" and "sincerely made in Wuyu". The use of the word "strictly made" sometimes means that the object was made by royalty or nobility.

Many of them are marked with trademarks or designs, and most of them are products after Taisho, such as the flying birds in Hattori Timekeeper Store, the cross in the circle of Mitsukoshi Department Store, the capital letter "S" in the five-pointed star of Yamazaki Store, etc. Some signboards even only have trademarks without store names.

A metalworker's signature can often be seen on Japanese metal crafts, and it is usually engraved directly on the work in the form of vertical row, which is placed in the lower left corner of the main decorative pattern-this is because most patterns start from the right side, and vice versa. This kind of signature is generally only the name part, and the full name is rarely used.

Even fewer people engrave their surnames, which may actually be a special form of the producer's logo. If the author is a gold seal engraver, the most common seal engraving format is to add a word "engraving", "knife" or "engraving" to the name, such as "Guang Shan engraving" and "Guang Chun Dao" (Gui Guangchun).

Generally, the words "made" or "made" are added to the utensils with enamel, paste welding and hammering as the main surface decoration techniques, such as "made for a long time" and "made in good faith". There is also a signature without any embellishment, such as a single "Zheng Xiu".

The name of the gold caster is often designed when making the mold, and it will be cast together with the work, but it is also carved separately. For metalworkers who make money with steel seals, such as some cauldrons, if a work is not sold by themselves, but distributed through shops, it may bear the imprint of both.

Some craftsmen also added flowers and seals to their names, which were mainly popular from the end of the curtain to the Taisho period. This method of sending flowers originated in ancient China and is still used in modern Japan. In works of art, it generally appears next to famous products, which has a certain anti-counterfeiting effect. Some workshops with steel seals have similar practices. For example, Hirata Shigemitsu often uses the logo composed of "Shigemitsu" and flowers.

The symbols of Kyoko Kitamura, a cauldron master who is famous for his "smacking" technique, and his disciples Sukehiro Kimura and Kenji Matsumoto are simply a flower. Artisans' seals are rare on silverware, but they are widely used on other metal products, some of which are directly engraved with steel seals, and some are added by local gold plating or staggered inlay technology.

The words on the seal can be a name, a font size, or even a casual seal. For example, Sheng Min's name "Zhou Fang" in Hai Ye (often engraved with "Zhou Fang is pedantic and wins Min" in his works, and sometimes engraved with "Zhou Fang wins Min in his later years") is printed with "Born in Zhou Fang". Xia Xiong of Ghana, after he was 70 years old, added the seal of "Guxicuo" to several works, which is an example of a casual chapter.

After World War II, most military products, especially small silverware, did not bear the manufacturer's logo. This situation is most common in batch products (such as seasoning boxes and commemorative spoons), and the relevant information is generally on the packaging. Without a box, you can't tell. However, in products with carving technology, especially cigarette cases, cigar boxes, wine lamps, vases and other appliances with large display space, even if the dealer does not pay, it will generally be engraved with the signature of the gold engraver.

2. Material and color marking

At the beginning and before Meiji, most of the gold and silver wares in Japan were made of nonstandard materials, which were often mentioned when writing names on boxes. The same is true of the metalworking works handed down from generation to generation (that is, the family system), the vessels inlaid with other alloy materials on the silver base, and the fine products inlaid with Shan Zhi snails on the silver tire.

From the beginning, the export offices in Yokohama generally used British materials, and the Showa era further extended to the products of watch jewelry stores and department stores, including "silver", "pure silver" and "pure silver".

China's material marks also existed in Meiji period, and gradually became popular after Taisho. There are mainly "pure silver" and "silver". Occasionally you can see the words "pure silver" and the relatively rare words "silver" and "pure". Roughly from the Showa period, pure silver and silverware were gradually collectively referred to as silver products, so some people used "silver" to replace silverware, especially in the early postwar period, as a substitute for silverware.

But if it is sold by a well-known firm, it can usually be considered as real silver. Since 1980s, most new products with "Silver" models have been made of pure silver. After all, the Japanese are richer at this time, and there is no need to play word games to earn a little money. The quality of Chinese is sometimes combined with the manufacturer's name as the standard, such as "pure silver clothing system"

In Japanese silverware, there are also commonly used words to express pure silver, such as "southern shackles" and "refined silver", which usually appear on the packaging boxes of traditional products and are rarely printed on utensils in the form of currency recognition. The word "Nantie" may have originated from a silver producing area (Nanting) in ancient China. In Japan, it initially refers to high-quality silver imported from overseas, and gradually evolved into an elegant name for all silver with sufficient color and good quality in the late Muromachi period and Antu Taoshan era.

Since the Tokugawa shogunate came into being in the 9th year (1772), silver coins of the same name have been issued many times, and the words "exchange eight southern shackles for one or two clauses" are written on the back of each coin. One or two equals sixteen Zhu, so this is actually a kind of two-Zhu silver coin. The similar currency newly created in the late Edo period has been directly renamed as "Erzhuyin". However, because the word "Nantie" is quaint, so far many metal workers prefer to use it when naming traditional works such as tea props, Japanese wine vessels and gift vessels, rather than too straightforward words such as "pure silver".

The etymology of "pure silver" is also in China. The book Gui Xin Miscellaneous Knowledge written by people at the end of Song Dynasty and the beginning of Yuan Dynasty said: "Silver products, those with Luo Jia's pattern, those with loose pattern and those with hollow and high Guo, are all pure silver, and their special products are green." This word also appears from time to time in Yuanqu, which also means high pure silver.

After 1920, the numerical purity mark became more and more popular, and nine times out of ten export products after World War II had fineness value of one thousandth. The most common one is 950, and there are also 925,970,980,990,995,997,998,999, and even 1000-Japan may be one of the few theoretical purity values that cannot be reached by1000 and 24K for a long time.

Before modern technologies such as vacuum casting and centrifugal casting appeared, high pure silver was not suitable for casting because of its material characteristics, so silver casting products mostly used raw materials with slightly lower fineness. For example, the marks on incense burners and ornaments made by Pingdao (Qingfeng) are generally "Silver 900" or "Silver 925". In addition to parts per thousand, purity in percentage and decimal forms is occasionally visible.

Some mixing spoons and pendants made in Nagasaki are marked with 84, which is quite strange. Nagasaki, as a trading port that has remained limited and open since the closed door era at the end of the curtain, it is normal to have silverware exports. This kind of products are cast as a whole, and then carved and decorated locally, so the low color is understandable.

As for why I chose the value of "84", I think it should be related to the influence of Russia, and the specific situation is still unclear. The 84 silver castings are rare, and they are probably the products of individual local manufacturers.

English materials are often associated with purity values, forming marks such as "Silver 950" and "Pound950". Most of these products were made after World War II, cigarette cases are the most common, and most of them do not carry the information of the person in charge. Judging from the remaining packaging and billboards, the producers are mainly those big department stores and watches, artworks and precious metals stores.

Western languages and numerals are usually marked in negative, while Chinese materials are more complicated. Before World War II, it was common in Yang Wen. The fonts were mainly seal script and coarse regular script, many of which were handwritten, and the characters were basically vertical or horizontal from right to left.

After World War II, the use of thin lines in Yin body gradually increased, even more lines from left to right. In the new works after 1970s and 1980s, many of the styles of "pure silver" and "made of silver" used are regular printing fonts, which are very similar to those used by computers (plain fonts), reflecting the changes in printing styles and the manufacturing process of steel seals. However, famous metalworkers often follow the style and form of carving and stamping in this family history, and some new cauldrons and silversmiths imitate the traditional "pure silver" mark.

5. Mint grade certification mark

Japan is one of the few countries in Asia that has established an evaluation system. Its official precious metal inspection agency is the Mint, so the relevant symbol is called "Mint Grade Certification Mark", which currently consists of two symbols, namely the Japanese flag representing the producing country and the purity value in a diamond frame.

Since 1928 was issued in the form of "DecreeNo. 12 of the Ministry of Finance", the details of the system have been revised many times. The last revision was in April of 20 12. In order to meet international standards, the purity values of 1000 were all changed to 999.

Since the establishment of the appraisal system in Japan, most of the time it has been voluntarily submitted for inspection and labeling, which is not a prerequisite for the listing and trading of products. Therefore, this symbol is most commonly used in containers and commemorative medals made by the mint, such as silver wine glasses processed for government agencies, and souvenirs given to civil servants, police and firefighters who have worked for a certain number of years, as well as mint systems and related organizations (such as Spring Festival Friends Association).

Other merchants also have some products with this logo, and many of them may also be customized products with backgrounds.

6. Foreign identification marks

The marks of foreign appraisal institutions on Japanese silverware are rare, far less than those on China silverware. Most of them are marked with British import marks, and Swedish import marks have also been seen. There are also a few silver animal ornaments with movable joints ("storage-free") and containers with Spanish signs, which are basically products from the sixties and seventies.