Japanese Pin With Script

Can anyone translate this script? Any idea on age? Pin measures 1"

 

Sweet brooch. That hinge is usually seen on brooches from 1900 onward.

 

Thanks Any, someone on another group says Chinese,

 

Sure looks like silver...

 

Wlwhittier, it sure does. Still can't get the tarnish out of tight spots.

 

Could be, difficult to say because the subject matter is popular in both countries. China exported a lot of jewellery at the time, but then again, a Japanese lady could have brought this with her to the US.

 

Any, true.

 

text is possibly ...
and the bird a Phoenix

 

Thank you Roaring

 

I wondered if that was the case...

 

Google seems to be making things up again...
ち is Japanese. Just 九天 also gives the (Google) translation Nine Heavens in Chinese, so Google simply ignored the first character... And, if you click on the English translation, it show that it's actually based on 九重天

 

Marote, so my pin is actually Chinese?

 

If that first character is indeed ち, then it would be Japanese, but with ち九天 you get "Chikuten" as JP>EN translation. And with that term I only find food related sites, so that doesn't make much sense in this context, unless the pin was for a restaurant where they served fried phoenix (or is it a bird of paradise?)
So, possibly we're misreading one or more of the characters...

 

Marote, I did post on a Facebook group today, so hopefully someone can help. So far someone has said Chinese and another said Japanese.

 

Could it be
古
大
天
?
This translates to Ancient Great Heaven ...according to Google.
Not finding anything useful with that, and still not knowing if it's Japanese or Chinese, as Google translates this (almost) the same from both languages.
When translating it as 古大天, Google translates it phonetically from Chinese to Gu Datian, and from Japanese it translates to Ancient Heaven. So you would assume that it's Japanese, but when you click on detect language, Google selects Chinese