Old Chinese Royal Seal

I just bought a old Chinese stone seal from 89 years old Chinese woman & the stuff was belong her pass away husband. It is look dirty and I want to know what kind of the stone they made of so I put them in warm bleached water within 3 days then come out very clean but I still don't know what kind of material & what meaning of the old style chine words. I asked some of my Chinese friend but they have no idea. Have any one know the old style Chinese words ? please help me out.

 

Dimensions are always appreciated. I hope you don't get in the habit of cleaning things. Do you have a picture before it was cleaned?

Sorry I don't have a clue on the characters-wouldn't it be likely to be a person's name? Take it into a Chinese restaurant and see if the staff can help, I've done that many times and usually come away with some info.

 

Hi springfld.arsenal

I do have the picture before cleaning & dimension 127mmx127mm. I got Chinese friend who got the degree from Beijing University but can't read them.

 

Spring is absolutely correct!
Unless you are absolutely sure something is dirty, and even then...don't clean anything if at all possible until an appraiser, or someone with much knowledge in that particular item's area of expertise, gets to see it.
Coatings that seem to not belong, may be intentional.

 

Hi, can you show a detail picture of the decoration? I have a small suspicion that it could be cast in some way, but have to see better photos. I agree totally with the others, be careful when cleaning things, especially those that look old! This one looks as if it had been coated intentionally with some dye...
Mat

 

Thanks for dimensions, which translate to 5" x 5". Wow that's a huge heavy seal, must weigh 2 kg or so. Way too big for a letter seal.

Keep in mind the possibility that if even an educated Chinese can't read a single character on it, the "writing" may be a fantasy design, and in fact the whole thing may be a fantasy object. A couple of the characters look really wild to me, what I mean is they have elements that don't look like any other Chinese writing I've seen, but its all "Greek" to me anyway. Cast resin?

There are many such seals here, similar size, all with curious characters on the bottom, although I didn't see one just like yours. Many have same finish as yours did originally, and that is called "pure brass" by the seal merchants on their websites. The sites seem to have plenty available if you want any more, one I tried has "999+" copies available in the stock counter.

https://www.google.com/search?q=buy+chinese+royal+seal&rlz=1T4VASN_enUS530US530&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=89CHVcKCBs3nsAScnoDYCw&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAg&biw=1341&bih=698#imgrc=U_X7Yq8EhLOCIM:;2MYYVsbYAx8EVM;http://i01.i.aliimg.com/wsphoto/v0/1738117175_4/bir-00698-Chinese-Palace-Pure-Brass-exquisite-craftwork-Nine-Dragon-royal-seal-signet-seal.jpg;http://www.aliexpress.com/item/bir-00698-Chinese-Palace-Pure-Brass-exquisite-craftwork-Nine-Dragon-royal-seal-signet-seal/1738117175.html;352;298


This seems like a slightly different selection of the seals:

https://www.google.com/search?q=buy+chinese+royal+seal&rlz=1T4VASN_enUS530US530&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=89CHVcKCBs3nsAScnoDYCw&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAg&biw=1341&bih=698#tbm=isch&tbs=rimg:Cb2FAfylQKd9IjhpjoHeQMeN775XAsMzCynQEihJXgKgd9YxgukvReWfblYRoRxZX7aV23V3lq49eWZr3VknLIxT4yoSCWmOgd5Ax43vEZzq9kf1i7L1KhIJvlcCwzMLKdAR8ZPdX8L_1_1oQqEgkSKEleAqB31hElCtbjmHw7dyoSCTGC6S9F5Z9uERucaO-Ktv9zKhIJVhGhHFlftpURHoUfqKny9IYqEgnbdXeWrj15ZhGq1yxwX6aSAioSCWvdWScsjFPjEZfreQ02mZ5Q&q=buy chinese royal seal

 

Hi, at first I thought it was coated by oily dye coating so I decided clean them with warm bleach water to find what kind of material they made of but got no clue so I bring them to antique dealer to check & confirm they was carving stone but do not not what kind of stone & what all those words mean. I wish upload a high resolution photo but limit only 1Mb.
Thanks

 

I was confirm by antique dealer they was made of by stone or jade because he said when he put his hand into it then he feel so cold & only stone or jade can rapid suck the heat from his hand .

 

Feeling the temperature of the thing with the hand is an unreliable subjective test. There are more objective tests you can do at home to detect resin, such as the "hot pin" test. Remember stone doesn't melt under a red-hot pin but resin does.

I would suggest not spending more money with that particular dealer.

 

'suck' is the key word there.

 

NEVER use bleach on older items. You run the risk of damaging them.
In this case you took all the color and patina.

This should have been washed in a mild sudsy water and rinsed immediately. Not left to soak.

 

Well fortunately in this case the value of the item has not changed a bit due to cleaning- still worth about as much as a brick.

 

I agree that a nice close-up of the decoration might help. The pictures are too yellow on my monitor to even make a guess at the stone. From the pictures I see here, it looks nicely carved, but they aren't good enough to say anything definite.

@khl889

 

Khl-look again-I'm pretty sure the object is a resin casting. The primary evidence is the thousands of similar items available from numerous online vendors. I hope the owner will try the hot pin test so we'll know for sure.

 

I tried red hot pin test so 100% it's not resin casting. I upload some close up photo for your assessment.
many thanks

 

Thanks for testing. When I look at photo 9267 in particular, it looks to me like a casting, whatever it is made of. There seem to be some bubbles in it. One made of real stone would have to be carved and I can't see carving tool work in it. I'd really like to be wrong and have it be a real antique but I still don't see that. I'll keep looking to see if I can find anything more definitive. I've heard that mixtures of powdered stone and epoxy are used to make decorative objects by casting-wonder if yours is like that?

 

I'm getting a sort of Mayan impression.....or a fantasy version of a Mayan impression.

 

That's a Yongzheng imperial inscription, 雍正御笔之宝 "Yongzheng Imperial Brush Treasure," used on seals that marked the emperor's calligraphy. And on copies of same.

http://www.hues.com.cn/zhuanke/zkyz/show/?N_ID=1126

(This is my first post in this thread, SA.)

 

These does look like bubbles in the mix:


But inclusions like these would be hard to control:


And the evident scratches may indicate handwork.

Either way, I don't think it's marble or jade or any other hard stone. Based on these photos, I'm leaning towards modern production. It may be one of the fine grained sedimentary stones named in another thread (that I cannot find).

 

Same marks on the side of this one: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/song...ast-Statue-Seal-Stamp-Signet/32354553099.html

Same store has many different flavors of them, and they id them as "antique imitation" in the few I looked at.

http://www.aliexpress.com/promotion/promotion_dragon-seal-stamp-promotion/2.html