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Hi All,
We picked up these two metal bowls the other day. They were deeply tarnished, and found in with a bunch silver plate at the thrift store. Removing the thrift store price tag reveled a mark on the base of each bowl. I polished one of them to get an idea of what they might be. The characters are different on each bowl, and none of them google translate. They appear to be hand hammered and the foot rim is applied. We are not sure if they are silver and we often find mystery metal so we finally ordered a testing kit.
I am curious if anyone has an idea about them.
Thanks, Andrew
I think these are genuine silver and from the early 20th Century.
BTW in the reference section on books you will find a great book on Chinese silver hallmarks.
Mark
@imperialfinegems Thanks Mark! I had taken a quick look at the "yellow book" on Chinese export silver. My thought was these bowls look newer than most of the examples in that book. Also I did not find a match for the mark. I will let you know how they test out when I get my testing kit.
Andrew
Silver Bowls, Silver Bowls, It’s Christmas time in the city.
@imperialfinegems I got my metals testing kit, and as you suspected, these bowls are silver. I will be bringing them to the Long Beach Antique show this weekend. I am curious what interest they might bring.
Andrew
@marrs_andersen I enjoy my metal testing kit too, great fun. Please let us know what they bring.
What kind of testing kits do you use? I found some on Aliexpress for around 7 Euro. They consist of a piece of slate and a bottle of some chemical. Can you recommend them or did you use something else?
Birgit
Hi Birgit,
I think it should be OK. There are numerous companies producing these acids for gold and silver test.
Better to buy from a known jewellery supply outlet that exclusively deals with jewellers supply like boxes and loupes etc etc rather than Aliexpress but it's up to you.
You should be able to find a local supply on your city.
Mark
@shinigami Hi Brigit, Yes - what Mark said. I watched five or six YouTube videos on using the scratch stone and acid metal testing method. This seems to be the industry standard unless you jump up to very expensive x-ray devices. The kits here in the US all seem to have the same little bottles marked JSP. Mine seems to work as it should, using a known marked silver coin as my bench mark. Enjoy!
Andrew
@marrs_andersen YouTube videos are a good idea. I have only one item I'm in doubt about and it's not important so it may not be worth the purchase of a test. But I will surely look at the videos to see how it works.
Birgit
After you rub the metal on to the stone you then put a small amount of said acid over the entire mark/line on the stone.
If it's sterling or above the line will be visual without any changes.
If however the metal/line is substantially lower than sterling (925/1000) then the residue will completely disappear. But may still be visually seen to some degree.
Most Chinese silver is actually around 900/1000. Japanese is 925 or higher. With Chinese silver the mark or line won't completely disappear only slightly.
If the mark/line is not silver generally it will fizz and turn green.
One needs to be mindful of heavy silver plate that may give the impression of real silver if the rub is too light.
What they don't tell you is that the acid once opened has a fairly limited life span before deterioration.... Normally around two to three years.
It's best to try and test yourself with something you know is at least sterling and something that you know isn't silver. You will quickly see the difference.
Mark
If you have a gold test kit with different acids for different gold grades, you can use that to test silver, as well. Scratch the silver against the stone, and then put a drop of 18K acid on it. If it is silver, the mark will dissolve, but then a bluish white precipitate will form. If it isn't, no precipitate forms. This works on anything from sterling or higher down to at least 800 (80%).
Another test can be done with the 14K acid, but I don't recommend it. You can put a drop of the 14K acid directly on the silver, and you will get a pale tan precipitate forming on the metal if it is real silver. You can wipe off the acid and then buff off the precipitate, and there is no mark left on the silver--as long as you don't leave the acid on too long!
If it isn't silver or is silver plate, it will generally fizz and turn green--of it is nickel or copper underneath. If it is lead-based or pewter, then it fizz and turn black. But if it isn't silver, you will damage the piece--the acid will etch the metal, or remove the silver plate and etch the underlying metal. Note that if you put the 18K solution on lower grade silver, it may fizz a little and turn greenish--better to stick with the 14K solution.
Be careful with the acids. They are strong and can burn you. Also, they are mostly nitric acid, and if you wipe them off with paper and allow the paper to dry, there is a faint chance it will ignite. I always neutralize with baking soda.
Here is an antique French bowl I found last weekend. The silver grade was only 800, and it fizzed a little greenish. But it was marked 800, and the X-ray gun pronounced it good. It had a dent and a broken leg, but it was 27 inches wide and weighed 3.3 kg. I paid $10 U.S. and scrapped it for almost $1800. I don't usually scrap good antiques, but because of the damage, I felt it was ok in this case.
Charles
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