Featured Silver bowl, likely made when, where?

Found this lovely bowl today at the Charity Shop. It’s fairly thin with a slight give when you push it, (thanks MRNATE) the verdigris came off with a bit of effort, I think it was probably from something stored next to it. I’ve acid tested it (my first time) and it is silver but whether it’s 900, 925 or 800 I don’t know because there are no other marks except for the word silver on the base. It weighs 675grams, 5inches tall, 13 inches long and 11 inches wide.
Any ideas about possible age from style etc and where it might have been made please anyone? Last 3 pictures and the first one are before cleaning.
I don’t usually find anything like this in the Charity shops as most U.K. silver is fully hallmarked and people living here will likely have seen all the antique shows at some time but are much less knowledgeable about other items made elsewhere.
~

 

Usually something that just says "silver" without other marks or indicators of fineness turns out to be Asian - one of the smaller countries - or Indian (from the subcontinent.) I am concerned that this may only be plated. Is that blue color in the last picture a reflection or a discoloration of the item?

 

Test your piece along side a known piece of silver.

Check sterling with it and see if you get the same results. If it looks weak, test it along an 800 piece of silver.

 

But I share your suspicion that it could be plate. Handsome piece though.

 

Oooo, Houseful - that is pretty!

 

Ok, thanks, I do have a marked 800 vase, actually bought last year from the same Charity shop!

 

The last pic was taken before it was cleaned. It has a few scratches but no bubbling raised corrosion or black marks that wouldn’t clean off.
Presumably testing 900 or 800 silver gives the same red mark after testing? It feels thin enough not to be plate but I’m not 100% sure, I will do more tests as Marie suggests. I hadn’t thought about Asian, thank you, I’ll look into that.
I took a little chance on it for £4 so I think I got a good bargain whatever it turns out to be.

 

It certainly is, I was surprised to see it in the shop at 3pm as the bargains normally go early! My lucky day.

 

I was going to recommend China as a possible source. I believe I've seen pieces out of China simply marked "silver" before. Whether they are genuinely silver or not I don't know. Silver plate can give a false positive since it is actually a thin layer of real silver. You would need to scratch the piece deeply to get an accurate result. That also is detrimental to the piece so it's a tough choice. You could bring it to a coin shop or high end pawn store and ask them to test it with a Sigma or other electronic unit that won't damage the piece.

Come to think of it I bought a piece similarly marked in a lot at auction. I actually haven't opened the box since I bought it months ago. I'll get on that when I have a chance and see if mine has other marks or indications of origin. It was sold along with literally hundreds (not all in my lot) of other pieces of antique silver, mostly .925 so I wasn't too worried about it. Maybe I should have been and maybe there's a reason I won the lot and not the other hawks that had a chance to preview the lots better. Hopefully we both have silver. Agreed that the green is a concern but you could be right about the source I don't know. If you're curious enough you can literally just scratch it hard and see if it's copper underneath plating. That really damages the piece though and isn't advised. I assume you did a magnet test? The circles on the bottom in your photos don't look quite right to me for some reason. Seems like it would be polished better there by the maker but who knows. Also that is quite heavy for a piece that size. Not unheard of or a crazy weight but just pretty heavy relatively speaking.

 

do they turn such stuff on a lathe when silver ?

 

Looks like the base was spun.

 

Beautiful Bowl .. LOVE IT !!! ... Joy.

 

I’ve done the magnet and tested in two places, rubbed the stone on the edge of the base and the top rim, can’t see anything sandwiched in between so I’m still hopeful.
Some of the heavy green verdigris had to be carefully scraped off with the edge of a scalpel blade and still nothing peeled off underneath and has polished up well with no ill effects, you can’t see where it was now.
The lathe spun bottom is something I’ve seen on antique brass candlesticks, and I got the impression once from an auctioneer that was fine with these items but I know very little about this.
If you do find your piece I’d like to see it please and hope you have good luck with yours.
I was a bit bothered about some of the repousse silver work, looks as if
they made an error in the crosshatching. You can see how thin the top edge is too.

 

I don’t know, I’ve seen this with antique candlesticks but I’ve not had a silver bowl before.

 

Lathe spinning/forming has been around for centuries and used various metals ..... https://books.google.com/books?id=Z...QAQ#v=onepage&q=lathe spinning silver&f=false

 

If you look at 80% or more of the repousse,chased,engraved pieces which have been posted on the forums,you will see "errors" on the pieces. People get sloppy when they get hurried,lack of experience,etc. The whole bowl appears to have made with fairly thin metal,the cracked areas on the rim were caused by over working the metal and not annealing the metal properly.

 

It is one of the older ways of marking Chinese Export Silver. The font is usually different from this mark though. I don't think this was Chinese made.
In my experience Chinese pieces marked 'silver' are solid silver. Sometimes a higher fineness than sterling, often slightly lower.

 

I’m not saying my item is Malaysian as I’m floundering as to where to look next but this (I would think much older) piece I found online has some similar tool indentations and crosshatching.
~

 

It could be Malaysian, although more geared towards European taste, with that slight Rococo shape.
Malaysia has seen its fair share of Europeans (of sorts), mostly Indo-Dutch and British.
Maybe @Phaik Hooi or @Shangas recognize the style.

Most antique Malaysian footed silver bowls and trays seem to have the tumpal motif around the footrim, the triangular motif based on Hindu thrones. The tumpal motif is a favourite of Indo-Malay Islamic art as well, just like other motifs from the Hindu era.

 

Oof, ok I checked my piece and I can’t believe I bought this lol. That’s what I get for buying without previewing. I was just going on announced weight. The top side has the oddest looking finish I’ve ever seen if it does turn out to be silver. Looks like matte aluminum. Oddly the bottom and outside of the bowl look fine. Mine also has the lathe spun circles on the bottom and the work is of a slightly similar style. Mine is marked V Silver. I don’t have time to look that up right now but I’ll see what I can find later.