Page 69 - Chinese SIlver By Adrien Von Ferscht

British trade dollars were minted in India -
coins minted in Calcutta bore the letter “C”,
while those minted in Bombay carried the
letter “B” [left]. As coins became more and
more “chopped”, the less desirable they
became and they eventually were either
melted down and made into new coinage or
actually used to make Chinese Export Silver

Towards 1842, the Treaty of Nanking and beyond, a change in the appearance of Chinese
silver occurred as well as the marks makers used on them. Chinese decorative motifs
became far more prevalent—sometimes subtle additions to classical Western forms or a
more blatant disregard for them. It is also during this period that we see more “named”
silversmiths appearing. Silver marks also changed in format as some makers began to use
marks that combined Latin initials of the maker along with a mark in Chinese characters or
ideograms of the actual artisan silversmith that carried out the work under the roof of the
master silversmith. The Treaty of Nanking being signed [1842] and the effective changed
landscape of trading with China signalled the end of the Canton System of trade. The
treaty also acted as a catalyst for a growing fashion in the West for all things “Chinese”
and “Oriental” and as the century progressed, there was a steep rise in a new emerging
affluent middle class in China.

The treaty was the culmination of the ‘First Opium War’ [1839-1842]; the war between
Britain and China that began what is now known in China as ‘The Century of Humiliation
[1839-1949]. This was perceived by the British, then the largest colonialist
nation, as a victory, which in turn spawned the fashion for the oriental in Europe and
America.

The combination ideogrammatic mark [above] with either Latin initials or a full name in
English indicates the latter was almost certainly a retail silversmith. Occasionally the retail
silversmith and the artisan workshop were one and the same, but the silver mark will give
no indication of this. The illustrated mark is that of the Shanghai retail silversmith Luen Wo
[LW] and the artisan silversmith who went under the name “Zhou”. The “90” mark is the
silver purity mark.

A workshop could be a single artisan or one where where several experienced artisan
silver makers operated. Some workshops operated the equivalent of what might be called
“hot benching” where artisans could work or use the facility on a temporary or part time
basis - many of the artisan silversmiths were itinerant, especially those that had special