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Last updated: August 13, 2026 · By White Metal Resources Editorial
Quick answer: Asian export silver was made in China, Japan, and Southeast Asia between about 1785 and 1940 for Western buyers. It carries shop marks rather than state assay hallmarks, because none of the producing countries operated a full national assay office in that period.
Chinese export silver often copies British hallmarks with crude symbols or altered lettering. Common shop chops read in Roman letters or Chinese characters. Japanese export silver of the Meiji period usually carries a numeric 950 mark, the Japanese kanji for pure silver (JUNGIN), or the word STERLING. Southeast Asian export silver from the Straits Settlements and French Indochina is more variable, often unmarked or marked 800.
Read the shop mark and the numeric fineness first. Melt value follows from the fineness and the weight, not from the country of origin. Collector premiums for signed shops and unusual forms sit on top of melt and vary widely.
Short on time? The essentials
- Asian export silver was made for Western buyers between roughly 1785 and 1940, first through the Canton trade system and later through Shanghai, Tientsin, Hong Kong, Yokohama, and the Straits Settlements ports.
- China had no national assay office in this period. Chinese export silver carries shop marks (Chinese "chops") rather than state hallmarks. Some pieces copy British marks with crude or altered symbols, a practice widely described as pseudo-hallmarks.
- Chinese export silver commonly assays at .900 fine (the American coin silver level), and some shops stamped their pieces 925 to match the sterling standard of the buyer's home market. Fineness is variable and should be tested when it matters.
- Japanese export silverware from the Meiji era (1868 to 1912) and later usually carries a numeric 950 mark, the word STERLING, or the Japanese kanji 純銀 (JUNGIN, meaning "pure silver"). Yokohama was the main export port.
- The Japan Mint began assaying and hallmarking silver in 1929. Later Japanese pieces may carry a Japan Mint mark shaped like the national flag next to the fineness numeral.
- Southeast Asian export silver from the Straits Settlements (Malacca, Penang, Singapore, colony established 1826) and from French Indochina is more variable. Pieces are often unmarked or marked at the continental 800 level.
- Unmarked Asian export silver can still test at a high fine level. A hand assay at a jeweler settles the metal content when the mark is absent, worn, or ambiguous.
- Melt value is a computation, not a quote. At an illustrative spot price of 30 dollars per troy ounce, a 250 gram Chinese export silver bowl assayed at .900 fine holds about 217 dollars in silver content before any dealer spread.
- Silver held for retirement follows a separate fineness rule at .999 or higher. That topic is covered in our silver IRA fineness explainer and is unrelated to Asian export silver.
An inherited teapot, a small bowl, or a set of coffee spoons from an Asian estate raises the same question every time. There is a small stamp on the base, Roman letters, Chinese characters, or a numeral. That stamp is a shop mark from the Asian export silver trade, not a Western hallmark, and it points to a specific city, era, and workshop.
This page decodes the marks a general reader is likely to encounter on Chinese, Japanese, and Southeast Asian silverware made for Western buyers between about 1785 and 1940. It covers what the marks mean, why they differ from British or French hallmarks, and how to compute the melt value from the fineness and the weight.
What Asian export silver actually is
Asian export silver is the umbrella term for silverware produced in China, Japan, and Southeast Asia specifically for sale to Western buyers. The trade ran from the late eighteenth century through the early twentieth century. Pieces were made in Western forms (teapots, coffee sets, flatware, tankards, salvers) with local craftsmanship and often local decoration.
The category is distinct from Western silver in one important way. None of the producing countries operated a fully staffed national assay office during the export period. Where a European or British piece carries a state-guaranteed hallmark, an Asian export piece usually carries only a maker's or shop mark punched by the workshop itself.
The result is a body of silver that reads differently from Western silver at the field level. Fineness numbers appear on some pieces and not on others. Country of origin has to be read from the shape of the mark, the style of the object, and the port of trade rather than from a state assay stamp.
Chinese export silver: 1785 to 1940
Chinese export silver moved out of China through the Canton trade system in the late eighteenth century. Shanghai, Tientsin, and Hong Kong opened to Western trade after the Treaty of Nanking (1842) and the Treaty of Tientsin (1858). The Portuguese had established the first Western trading station in China as early as 1514.
Early Chinese export silver (roughly late 1700s to first quarter of the 1800s) faithfully copied European forms like mugs, ewers, tazzas, and candlesticks. Models were sent from England and America to Chinese silversmiths, who reproduced them closely. Common items were tea and coffee sets, spoons, forks, trays, and other flatware.
From the second quarter of the nineteenth century onward, Chinese decorative motifs (dragons, phoenixes, bamboo, and scenes of court life) began to appear on export silver. Late-nineteenth-century Chinese export silver blends Western forms with Asian ornament, and this hybrid style is the one most collectors reach for today.
The category continued through the Republican period and effectively ended around the Sino-Japanese War in the late 1930s. Any Chinese silverware made for Western sale between about 1785 and 1940 falls inside the Chinese export silver trade.
Chinese shop marks and pseudo-hallmarks
China had no national assay system in the export period. As Wikipedia notes on the topic, "there is actually no assay system in Chinese China" for silver hallmarking. The small stamps on Chinese export silver are shop marks, not state hallmarks, and they identify the firm rather than the fineness.
Early Chinese silversmiths did not understand the significance of British silver hallmarks. They often copied them anyway, with crude symbols or altered lettering, because the marks looked like part of the object's finish to their eye. These copies are widely described in the trade as pseudo-hallmarks or pseudo-marks.
A typical Chinese pseudo-hallmark set on an early export piece can include a rough lion figure, a crown, a leopard's head, or a numeric fineness (usually 900 or 925) that mimics the British four-part structure. The set often lacks a real date letter and mixes elements from different British assay offices.
Later Chinese export silver carries clearer shop marks. Roman letters spell out a shop name or an owner's initials. Chinese characters name the shop in traditional script. A numeric 900 or 925 stamp appears on some pieces, either alongside the shop mark or on its own.
Named Chinese export silver shops
Chinese export silver shops are usually named by the Roman letter form of the shop's chop, which is how Western buyers wrote them in trade records. Names cluster in Canton (Guangzhou), Hong Kong, and Shanghai for the main workshops, and a handful of smaller centers for regional makers.
Early Canton makers whose chops appear in the specialist literature include Cutshing and the punch reading "WE WE WC", both documented in the earliest generation of Chinese export silver marks. Later nineteenth-century Canton and Hong Kong shops widely referenced in the trade include Wang Hing, Wo Shing, Cumshing, Sunshing, Hoaching, Khecheong, Leeching, and Yatshing.
Shanghai became a major export silver center after the mid-nineteenth-century treaty ports opened. Shanghai shops widely cited in museum collections and trade references include Tuck Chang and Baoxing. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London holds a Baoxing cigarette box dated to circa 1880 in its Chinese silver collection.
Any Chinese export silver piece attributed to a named shop should be cross-checked against a specialist reference before it is priced. Adrien von Ferscht's academic work on Chinese export silver is the standard modern reference for shop attribution, workshop periods, and mark variants across all producing centers.
Japanese export silver: 950, JUNGIN, STERLING
Japanese export silverware was produced for Western buyers from the Meiji Restoration (1868) onward. The main export port was Yokohama, where a Western trading enclave and a specialist Japanese silversmith community developed side by side after the country opened to foreign trade.
Meiji-era Japanese export silver typically carries one of three fineness marks. A numeric "950" mark denotes silver at the French 1st standard level, or 95 percent pure. The word STERLING or the numeric "925" denotes silver at the British sterling standard. The Japanese kanji 純銀 (JUNGIN, meaning "pure silver") appears on many higher-grade pieces, usually accompanied by a shop mark.
Chinese and Japanese share the pair of kanji 純銀. Wiktionary defines the Chinese compound 純銀 as "pure silver". The same characters carry the same meaning in Japanese, where they are read jungin. On Japanese silver the mark asserts a high fine standard without giving a precise numeric.
Named Japanese Meiji-era export silver workshops widely referenced in museum and dealer records include Miyata, Nomura Shoten, and the Yokohama trading firm Arthur and Bond. Any Japanese export silver piece attributed to a specific workshop should be checked against a specialist Meiji silver reference for the correct mark and period.
The 1929 Japan Mint hallmark system
Japan adopted a national silver hallmark system in 1929. From that year forward, the Japan Mint has assayed and hallmarked silver objects submitted for the mark. As Wikipedia notes on silver hallmarks, "the hallmarks of Japan Mint have the figure of the national flag of Japan".
The Japan Mint mark appears as a stylized rising-sun disc next to a numeric fineness. Common Japanese Mint fineness marks are 950 and 925 for high-grade silver, and 800 for lower-standard pieces. The mark is optional rather than compulsory, so many twentieth-century Japanese silver items still carry only a shop mark and a numeric fineness.
A Japanese silver piece that carries a Japan Mint sun-disc hallmark can be dated to 1929 or later on that mark alone. A piece with only a numeric 950 or JUNGIN mark and a shop name, without the Japan Mint disc, is either pre-1929 or post-1929 without formal assay submission.
Straits Settlements and Peranakan silver
The Straits Settlements were a British colony established in 1826, comprising Malacca, Penang, and Singapore. Chinese and Peranakan (Straits-born Chinese) silversmiths in these ports produced silverware for local ceremonial use, wedding gifts, and export to European colonial buyers throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Straits Chinese silver blends Chinese decorative motifs (peonies, phoenixes, auspicious characters) with Western forms and occasional Malay design elements. Common items include belts, buckles, hair ornaments, betel-nut boxes, and covered bowls for wedding use. Fineness is variable and often unmarked.
Where a fineness is stamped on a Straits Chinese piece, it is usually 800 or 900 rather than sterling 925. Some Peranakan pieces carry a shop mark in Chinese characters or Roman letters. Many are simply unmarked and are dated by style and by provenance rather than by mark.
French Indochina and other Southeast Asian silver
French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia under French colonial administration from the 1860s to 1954) produced silverware for local elite use, French colonial buyers, and export. Marks on Indochine silver are inconsistent. Some pieces are unmarked, some carry French export marks, and some carry a shop name in Vietnamese, Chinese, or Roman letters.
Vietnamese silver from Saigon, Hue, and Hanoi is often marked with a small numeric fineness (usually 800 or 900) and a workshop name. Cambodian and Lao silver is more often unmarked, decorated with Buddhist and folk motifs, and produced in traditional forms rather than Western export shapes.
The Victoria and Albert Museum holds a silver box and cover from Palembang (a port on Sumatra, Indonesia) dated to 1850-1862. Palembang and other Sumatran ports produced silverware in the wider Malay-Indonesian tradition. Fineness on these pieces is variable and often not stamped.
Southeast Asian export silver from Thailand (Siam) is a distinct category. Thai niello silver, a technique that fills engraved silver with a black metallic compound, was a major export art form from the nineteenth century onward. Thai silver is usually marked with the maker's name and a fineness of 800 or 925.
Why unmarked Asian pieces still test at high fine
An Asian export silver piece with no stamp at all can still test at a high fine level on a hand assay. The absence of a mark reflects the absence of a state assay system, not the absence of silver. A jeweler's acid test or an X-ray fluorescence (XRF) test settles the actual fineness of any unmarked piece.
Chinese export silver in particular was often worked from melted Mexican silver dollars, which contain roughly 90 percent silver. That input alloy sets a natural floor at around .900 for pieces made from that stock. Pieces marked with a shop chop and no fineness numeral commonly assay at or near this level.
Japanese export silver from the Meiji era, when marked "950" or "JUNGIN", generally assays at or above 90 percent silver. Higher-grade pieces test at the marked 950 level. Unmarked Japanese Meiji silverware is usually still in the same range, because the input silver was typically drawn from imported bullion of known standard.
Southeast Asian silver has the widest variation. Straits Chinese and Peranakan pieces range from below 800 fine to above 900 fine, depending on the shop and the era. A hand assay is the most reliable way to price an unmarked Southeast Asian piece, because the region has no dominant standard the way China and Japan do.
Asian export silver marks at a glance
The table rolls up the essential marks for the three main Asian export silver traditions covered on this page. Regional practice varied inside every country, and dates are approximate. The mark shapes and fineness numbers are the load-bearing information for a reader in hand.
| Origin | Main marks | Typical fineness | Main ports | Period |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| China | Shop chop in Roman letters or Chinese characters; pseudo-hallmarks that copy British marks with crude symbols | Variable; commonly assays at .900 (coin silver level), some shops stamped 925 to match sterling | Canton (Guangzhou), Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tientsin | Late 1700s to about 1940 |
| Japan (Meiji and later) | Numeric 950, word STERLING, or Japanese kanji 純銀 (JUNGIN) meaning "pure silver"; shop name; Japan Mint sun-disc from 1929 | Usually 950 or 925 on Meiji export ware; 800 on lower-grade pieces | Yokohama (main export port), Tokyo, Osaka | Meiji era from 1868; Japan Mint hallmarking from 1929 |
| Straits Settlements and Peranakan | Shop mark in Chinese characters or Roman letters; numeric fineness (rare) at 800 or 900; many pieces unmarked | Variable; often below sterling; 800 and 900 both common | Malacca, Penang, Singapore (British colony from 1826) | Nineteenth and early twentieth centuries |
| French Indochina | Shop mark in Vietnamese, Chinese, or Roman letters; occasional French export mark; numeric 800 or 900 on some pieces | Variable; 800 and 900 both common where marked | Saigon, Hue, Hanoi | French colonial period, 1860s to 1954 |
| Thailand (Siam) | Maker's name; niello decoration signature; occasional numeric fineness | Usually 800 or 925 where marked | Bangkok and regional workshops | Nineteenth century onward |
Sources: Wikipedia Chinese export silver (Canton and treaty port trade, no state assay, pseudo-hallmarks copying British marks); Wikipedia Silver hallmarks (Japan Mint hallmarking from 1929, national flag mark); Wikipedia Peranakan Chinese (Straits Settlements as British colony of Malacca, Penang, Singapore established 1826); Victoria and Albert Museum collection records (Baoxing Shanghai cigarette box circa 1880; Palembang silver box 1850-1862; Guangzhou silver box 1800-1872); Wiktionary 純銀 (Chinese and Japanese for "pure silver"). Checked August 2026.
Fineness scale for Asian export silver
The chart below plots the silver fineness marks commonly stamped on Asian export silver, on the same millesimal scale used for Western hallmarks. It makes visible where the continental 800 floor sits, where the Chinese export assay range sits, and where the Japanese export 950 level sits, all next to fine silver bullion as a reference.
Two practical takeaways sit in the chart. First, Chinese export silver at .900 fine holds 25 grams less pure silver per kilogram than sterling silver, a real 2.7 percent gap. Second, Japanese Meiji export silver at .950 fine holds 25 grams more per kilogram than sterling, a real 2.7 percent premium in metal content.
A five step method for reading an Asian mark
The steps below turn the country rules into a single repeatable method for Asian export silver. Follow the five steps on any piece and the mark structure will resolve into origin, era, and fineness.
- Turn the piece over and locate every stamp. Marks sit on the base of a bowl, the underside of a tea pot foot, the inside of a lid rim, or the back of a spoon bowl. Take a phone photograph in raking light so every stamp is visible.
- Read any numeric fineness first. Look for a three digit number: 800, 900, 925, or 950. The number sets the silver content and the melt math. If no numeric fineness is present, note the absence and proceed to step 3.
- Read the script of the shop mark next. Chinese characters point to a Chinese, Straits Chinese, or Peranakan origin. Japanese kanji plus 950 or 純銀 points to a Japanese Meiji or later piece. Roman letters could be Chinese export, Japanese export, or Southeast Asian.
- Read the shape and grouping of the marks. A four-part pseudo-hallmark set (lion, crown, letter, initial) that mimics British silver points to Chinese export. A Japan Mint sun-disc plus a fineness numeral points to Japanese silver from 1929 or later. A single small Roman-letter shop mark alone points to a general Asian export piece.
- Cross-check the shop name against a specialist reference. Adrien von Ferscht's Chinese export silver research covers most named Chinese shops. Meiji silver references cover Yokohama and Tokyo workshops. Straits Chinese silver references cover the Peranakan traditions. Museum records at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston provide comparable examples.
Any Asian mark that fails at step 2 and at step 3 (no fineness, no recognizable shop mark) should be treated as unmarked. Unmarked pieces can still test at a high fine level, but they require a hand assay to price. Cross-check the piece against a specialist reference before it is priced as silver at all.
A worked melt value example on a shop-marked bowl
The example below runs the five step method on one hypothetical Chinese export silver bowl and converts the shop mark and the weight into an illustrative melt value at a stated silver spot price.
The same five steps read a Japanese export silver piece with a "950" or JUNGIN mark, or a Straits Chinese piece with a Chinese character shop mark. The melt math changes only in step 2 (the fineness multiplier), which is 0.950 for a Japanese 950 piece, 0.800 for a Southeast Asian 800 piece, or 0.925 for a Chinese piece stamped to sterling standard.
Limits and caveats to keep in mind
Every fineness number on this page reflects the mark stamped on the piece or a typical assay range for the category, not a direct assay of the piece in hand. A shop-stamped 900 mark asserts the standard the workshop worked to, but pieces from the same shop can test slightly above or below on a hand assay depending on the input silver stock and the working practice.
Any melt figure quoted here is a computation from a stated silver spot price, not a live market quote. Silver spot moves continuously during market hours. Dollar figures on the page use example spot prices of 20, 30, or 40 dollars per troy ounce, picked as clean round numbers rather than as predictions.
Collector premiums for named Chinese export silver shops, Meiji Yokohama makers, and Straits Chinese workshops are qualitative and vary with the market. This page does not quote dollar values on maker premiums, because those depend on completed public auction sales for the specific shop, form, and period. Anyone with a signed or identified piece should check specialist auction records before pricing.
Shop-name attribution on Asian export silver is a specialist task. A "WH" or "WS" chop can point to several possible workshops. Only a cross-check against a published research reference (Adrien von Ferscht's Chinese export silver work is the standard modern resource) settles the attribution with confidence.
Silver held for retirement follows a separate fineness rule. The Internal Revenue Code sets the fineness minimum for silver held in a self-directed IRA at .999. Every Asian export silver standard covered on this page (800, 900, 925, 950) sits below that line. Antique Asian export silverware is fine to own personally, but it cannot sit inside a self-directed IRA account.
Asian export silver questions, answered
What is Chinese export silver?
Chinese export silver is silverware made in China for Western buyers between roughly 1785 and 1940. It carries shop marks rather than state hallmarks, because China had no national assay system in that period. Early pieces copy British hallmarks with crude symbols (pseudo-hallmarks). Later pieces carry a shop chop in Roman letters or Chinese characters.
What does a “90” or “900” mark on Chinese silver mean?
A "90" or "900" stamp on Chinese silver denotes .900 fineness, or 90 percent pure silver by weight. That is the same as American coin silver. Many Chinese export silver shops worked to this standard because the input silver was often melted Mexican silver dollars, which contain roughly 90 percent silver.
What does the Japanese JUNGIN mark mean?
JUNGIN is the romanized reading of the Japanese kanji 純銀, meaning "pure silver". The mark asserts a high fine standard without a precise numeric. Japanese Meiji-era export silver marked JUNGIN generally tests at 90 percent silver or above. A JUNGIN mark alongside a numeric 950 or STERLING mark reinforces the fineness claim.
What is the Japan Mint hallmark?
The Japan Mint began assaying and hallmarking silver objects in 1929. The Japan Mint mark is a stylized rising-sun disc based on the national flag, punched next to a numeric fineness such as 950, 925, or 800. A Japanese silver piece with the Japan Mint sun-disc dates to 1929 or later, on that mark alone.
Are Chinese export silver pseudo-hallmarks fakes?
No. A Chinese pseudo-hallmark is not a fake in the modern counterfeit sense. Chinese silversmiths copied British hallmarks because the marks looked like part of the object's finish. The piece is a genuine solid silver export from China, made in the export period, but the "hallmark" set is decorative rather than a state assay stamp.
What is Straits Chinese silver?
Straits Chinese silver, also called Peranakan silver, was produced by Chinese and Peranakan silversmiths in the Straits Settlements (Malacca, Penang, and Singapore), a British colony established in 1826. Pieces blend Chinese decorative motifs with Western forms and occasional Malay elements. Common items are belts, buckles, hair ornaments, and covered bowls for wedding use.
How do I identify a Yokohama silversmith?
A Yokohama silversmith mark usually combines a Japanese kanji shop name (or a Roman-letter transliteration) with a fineness mark such as 950, STERLING, or 純銀 (JUNGIN). Named Meiji-era Yokohama export workshops widely referenced in specialist literature include Miyata, Nomura Shoten, and the trading firm Arthur and Bond.
Can Asian export silver go in a self-directed IRA?
No. The Internal Revenue Code sets the fineness minimum for silver held in a self-directed IRA at .999, referenced to the delivery standard of a regulated futures contract. Every Asian export silver standard (800, 900, 925, 950) sits below that line. Antique Asian export silverware can be held personally without restriction but cannot go inside a self-directed IRA.
Sources
- Wikipedia, Chinese export silver (Canton trade system, treaty port history including Nanking 1842 and Tientsin 1858, early makers' chopped marks including "We We WC" and Cutshing, silversmiths copying British silver hallmarks with crude symbols or altered lettering, no assay system in China so marks identify the shop rather than fineness, common products including tea and coffee sets, spoons, forks, trays, and other flatware). Checked August 2026.
- Wikipedia, Silver hallmarks (Japan Mint assaying and hallmarking silver from 1929, Japan Mint marks in the figure of the national flag of Japan). Checked August 2026.
- Wikipedia, Fineness (millesimal fineness definitions: 800 as German minimum after 1884 and French 2nd standard; 900 as coin silver and standard used in coins of China, Japan, and other countries; 925 as sterling silver; 950 as French 1st standard; 999 as fine silver bullion). Checked August 2026.
- Wikipedia, Silver standards (sterling silver at 92.5 percent pure silver, coin silver at 900 fineness derived from melted silver coinage, German 800 and 835 standards). Checked August 2026.
- Wikipedia, Sterling silver (definition of sterling at .925 fineness with 7.5 percent copper by weight, sterling standard historically used in the United Kingdom, United States, and other countries). Checked August 2026.
- Wikipedia, Peranakan Chinese (Straits Settlements as a British colony consisting of Malacca, Penang, and Singapore established in 1826, Straits-born Chinese defined as those born or living in the Straits Settlements, Peranakan cultural centers across the Malay Peninsula and Southern Thailand). Checked August 2026.
- Wiktionary, 純銀 (Chinese and Japanese kanji compound defined as "pure silver"; used as a mark on high-grade Japanese silverware where read as JUNGIN). Checked August 2026.
- Victoria and Albert Museum collection records (Baoxing Shanghai silver cigarette box circa 1880; Guangzhou silver box 1800-1872; Palembang silver box and cover 1850-1862; Meiji-era Japanese decorative silver from Yokohama and other centers). Checked August 2026.
- Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, Federal Trade Commission Guides for the Jewelry, Precious Metals, and Pewter Industries (16 CFR Part 23, legal requirements for representing an object as silver, sterling silver, or coin silver in the United States). Checked August 2026.
- Cornell Legal Information Institute, 26 U.S.C. section 408 (silver fineness rule for IRA metals at .999 minimum, referenced to the delivery standard of a regulated futures contract). Checked August 2026.
