Featured Chinese silver + enamel tiny cup + saucer

I've been meaning to ask about this here for a while now. Back when I lived in CT, I sponsored a Chinese professor & her young daughter when they came to the U.S. for a semester. This is one of the things they gave me during their stay.

It's small: the saucer is 4" across, and the cup is only 1 1/2" tall to the top of the handle. The enamel is intact. (Where some might appear to be missing, it is actually a different color - sort of a plum tone...)

The word CHINA is stamped (twice - in English) inside the saucer. Neophyte that I am, I confess that I have absolutely no idea which way the Chinese marks go.









Thanks, any and all, for any info/ideas you may provide!

 

That's lovely.

 

Thanks, Judy! I like it most of all because of the absolutely delightful people who gave it to me. Both Mom and daughter (who was 8,) were positively charming. The little girl learned English so quickly that I was astounded.

The family lived in Beijing, and the daughter had never had a pet. She LOVED my cats, and my daughter's HORSE was the coolest thing she'd ever seen! (Her Mom was terrified of it!)



(That is, of course, STOLI, she's holding.)

 

What a nice way to learn of another culture.....being a host family.

The little girl is adorable, and seems to have been fond of animals.

I hosted quite a few exchange students, but they were all from Scandinavia....a culture I grew up in.

When I was asked to be a hostess, I readily said yes, because I knew what to expect from the kids and I didn't think I could make too many mistakes during their stay.....

But being hostess to another culture and to an ADULT to boot, took some courage.......IMMHO anyway.


















A memory you shall have forever, and the cup and saucer is very very special.

I'm sure someone here will be able to give you some info.

 

What a nice Chinese enamel set and story.
Can't make out the mark. Do you think it is solid silver, or is there some wear on the rim or edges, with another metal under the silver wash. Both were popular in China, as well as the enamel colors.

 

TooMany, I don't know for sure if it's solid silver or plate, but I can say that there is no wear to any part of it.

I have a LOT of silver, and generally, I am fairly sure when something is plated. With this cup & saucer, all I can say is that when it tarnishes, it does NOT look like plate, if that makes any sense. (There's so often a brownish tinge on plate that rarely appears on real silver.)

Nonetheless, I honestly don't know. What I do know is that my guests were not well-to-do by any means, and if it IS silver, I'd be sad that they spent that kind of money on ME!

If I could get a better photo of the marks, would that help? Can you tell me, too, which way the mark should go? (I am embarrassed to admit that I have no idea.)

Thanks very much!

 

Judy, what a great thing to do!

Hosting an adult wasn't a whole lot different from hosting a teen! The woman was a very sweet and extremely intelligent person, and we had lots of fun together. She was decidedly open to new experiences.

The U.S. rather overwhelmed her sometimes, but it was all just part of the experience. At the time, I lived in "small town USA", where the population was more cows than humans. I did, however, take Mom & daughter to both NYC & Boston, and they definitely enjoyed both cities.

I had previously (when I lived in DC) sponsored a young man from Haiti, and I eventually (after several years) managed to sponsor his wife & daughter, too. (It was rough getting out of Haiti at that time. His daughter was a newborn when the Dad arrived, and was FIVE before she & the Mom joined us.)

For so many years in those days, I ALWAYS had "extra kids" living at the house - friends of my kids, and other local kids who had problems at home. I even brought home a troubled young man from Queens who attended the boarding school where I worked, and he ended up spending 9 months living with us. (Today, he's a very successful attorney in NJ - and yes, we do keep in touch regularly.)

I rather miss all of it right now, living how & where I do. Maybe one of these days, I'll start "sponsoring" again!

 

What a nice gift! And a great peek into your life!

The mark on the bottom of the cup looks mangled, but the one under the saucer looks like it might be straighter. Can you post a close up of that one?

 

JUST today I was looking at a lovely Chinese silver and enamel mustard(?) pot that I almost pulled the trigger on ! Now I really wish I had! Lovely little treasure.I can never make heads nor tails of any silver marks,especially oriental.

 

Thanks, Bakers. I'll see what I can do either tomorrow or Wednesday. (I'll be out most of tomorrow, and I don't think a "flash" photo will do it, so I may not be able to try for better shots until the next day.)

 

Somehow I replaced Sponsor with Host.

Big difference.

Much more responsibility and obviously a possibility of a long term stay.

It's not something that one hears of anymore....at least I don't.

You deserve a lot of credit for doing that, and especially for taking the troubled youth into your home.

He was a very lucky young man.

 

@SBSVC

This little silver set reminded me of one I saw with images only, when someone wrote me to ask about it when I had the cloisonne website.
Turned out the miniature set was similar to yours, but was older, darker and it had a mark that read SILVER, which usually means a high grade Chinese silver of about 900/1000, not quite sterling. It also had an enamel decoration, you would recognise the colors. I will try and find the images, I am dealing with 4 to 5 thousands, separated on USB thumb drives, a laptop and a standing hard drive.

 

We used to take in Fresh Air kids in the summer. These are youngsters from the inner city in New York who are sent out to the country for a few weeks. Then, as my kids got older, we graduated to Rotary Exchange students here for the school year. Now we take in J1 foreign student summer workers. Between traveling to other countries and hosting kids from various backgrounds, we've had quite an education. Some day I should gather together all the gifts we've amassed from our visitors.

 

You have a very interesting life!

 

I got home a bit earlier than expected, so I was able to try again with photos of the marking on the saucer. Here's the best I could do. I apologize if the mark is not oriented correctly.

 

It looks like it is oriented in the proper way, although I have no idea what it means.

I had heard that some Chinese silver is marked with the same characters that mean "pure silver" on Japanese items. This does not look like that, but that doesn't mean it's not silver.

I think we need a Chinese translator.

 

Here is my example, quite different I see now, than what I remembered, except it is generally the same thing from China, a miniature enamel and silver cup and saucer. The central marks on cup base and saucer don't match. Sorry for poor pictures and small sizes.

 

TooMany, that IS pretty!

 

There is a type of cup and saucer, where the cup sits down into the saucer much like yours does. It was designed for people with tremors so the cup wouldn't spill or topple. I believe the French designed it. I was trying to remember the name for that type of cup last night and looked again this evening, but can't find it.

Don't know if this is one of those cups and saucers, or not.
Lovely cup and saucer.