Is there a difference between the age of "China" mark vs.Which is older the "China" impressed in the clay or the ink stamp?.Is there a way to tell pieces from 1890s from 1910, from 1940 etc.?.I realize most of my pieces are after 1891 because they are marked "China". My favorite pieces are in the turquoise glazes or the multi-colored pieces (famille rose?) where each individual feather is painted a different color. I collect animal figures ie., parrots, ducks, chickens, roosters, dogs, etc. I do not collect "older" pieces, but would still love some information about 20th century pieces. Even if I had done the work, the clock would keep coming back for repairs time and time again.Q&A: Dating of 20th century Chinese Porcelain Regrettably, I had to send the one needing new mainsprings back to the owner with an explanation that it was not worth spending money on it. I hope you haven't got one thinking it's French. It was so successful that he placed further orders and there must now be thousands of them in shades of blue, red and green. There's a story that the Chinese one was modelled on the early French ones by an Englishman, who placed an order for hundreds of them to be made at a Chinese factory. The brass washers should be blued steel, however, and my only surprise is the dedication to using slotted screws in place of modern crossheads! This one's made of steel, presumably in an attempt to resemble a silvered brass one that might have surmounted the real thing. I suppose a French maker somewhere might have made a bell like this at some time but if he did, I've never seen it.įinally, there's the platform (fifth image) - the part that sits on top of the movement carrying the balance wheel escapement. The oddest thing here is the bell, which is brass rather than much harder bell metal, and in particular the two holes drilled in it to allow access to the winding squares. Next is the backplate (fourth photograph) and this may look impressive at first sight but that's more to do with the camera lighting than the quality of the brass, which is rather dull. Given all the features of this clock (strike, repeat, alarm), the plates need to be thicker, but of course that would make it more expensive to manufacture. The smaller subsidiary dial is for the alarm function, exactly as it is on many French originals.įrom the side (third image) everything looks fairly normal except that an experienced clock repairer will immediately be surprised by how thin the brass plates are compared to a French clock. The first odd thing is the sweep seconds hand, rarely found on anything but extremely important French clocks. It might be hand-painted but it isn't unique as at the end of the production line, they all look the same. The second image shows an alternative to the complex white dial it's hand-painted porcelain done in dirty, dangerous factories by child artists paid about a bowl of rice a day. In an online image, however, it's easy to deceive and the blue one at the top sold for £170 in July 2011 on fleabay after 13 bids. Many are designed to look old, chemicals being used to age the brass, but anything deeper that a cursory look reveals how poorly made they are. But whereas the French ones are 150 years old now and fetch thousands of pounds, the Chinese versions are new and cost less than £50 in the street markets of China. It looks very like early French champlevé work where cells are formed in the base and filled with enamel.
#HOW TO TELL THE AGE OF CHINESE CLOISONNE FULL#
The Chinese are experts at this "cloisonné" technique and their tourist factories are crammed full of it. Blue is the commonest but they turn up in green or red as well. The top image shows how the case of these clocks is generally adorned with colourful enamel poured into tiny 'honeycomb cells' created out of flat brass strips soldered to the surface of the case. Well, it was too good to be true it was a recent Chinese copy that had been categorised as pre-1900 so I was able to cancel my bid for misdescription. Just before I paid, I had a couple of friendly emails from better clock enthusiasts than I warning me that I had either struck an incredible bargain (not likely) or had fallen for the old trap of thinking that no one else had spotted it. I got as far as 'winning' the bidding at nearly £100 (I always think 'winning' is a rather perverse term on fleabay- it just means you were prepared to part with more cash that anyone else on the planet). I nearly made the mistake of buying one of these beasts myself ten or twelve years ago. Far from a fine French repeater with alarm and French hand-painted Sevres-type panels, it was a modern reproduction from China. As soon as I opened the parcel, my heart sank. The owner lived 200 miles away so agreed to post it. I recently received a request to replace the two mainsprings and click springs on a