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Anyone either familiar with these marks or can read them i of course would welcome the knowledge
Brought from China in early 20th century
Measures 38mm h x 50mm w
Thank you

If your second photo is rotated 90-degrees clockwise, four characters are readable down with varying degrees of clarity, beginning with what appears to be "Quan" (泉), with a root meaning of "wellspring" but probably best translated in this context as "wealth".

The Next three characters appear to be the name Qiu Tianbao (裘天寶). Google searches turned up some mentions of Qiu Tianbao as a Shanghai silver shop that operated on Nanking Road during the late 19th-early 20th century. Apparently there is a store currently open under that name on what is called "Shanghai Old Street", which occupies an 825-meter long stretch of Fangzhou Rd.

Best regards,

Bill H.

Bill H
Most articulate culmination of parts some but not all of which have been suggested in the last 5 days.
Next is testing purity of material.
Tip of the Hat to You!
pete

Hi, Bill H:

Did you see the last character that appears to be
德, right below 寶? making it 寶德

Also, the first character on top (inside the square box), almost appears to be 原 (original), can it be the silver purity mark? Like 99.99% silver?

It is a difficult puzzle to crack.

Super

Very interesting, Super. I'd despaired of making sense of that one, speculating instead that it might be two or three small characters indicating silver purity that were too worn to read. Now that you've lifted the veil, I can see the virtuous truth that was hiding in plain sight. :)

By adding "De" (德 - virtue) to my Google search, I was able to turn up information from the link below, indicating that the original name of the Qiu Tianbao Jewelry Store when it was founded during the Qing Jiaqing Reign ("1796-1821"[sic - should be 1820]) was "Qiu Tianbao De Ji" (裘天寶德記), "Qiu Tianbao Mark of Virtue".

There's lots of other information about the partnership involved in this store, including involvement of a famous Beijing opera star, but nothing apparently about what happened to the "Ji" on the end of the store name. Lest we sink up to our elbows into what begins to sound like a bubbly soap opera, I'll leave the rest untranslated as incentive for everyone else to join us in learning Chinese.

Cheers,

Bill H.

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