any idea what these are

Neat! They are serving spoons. Are you sure the tongue are made from shell not some other bones? I would like to guess the handles are probably made of silver.

 

started cleaning these up today excuse that bad pictures will try and get some better ones tomorrow , i think they are silver just how black the oxidation was and how they are starting to clean up, but i cannot find any markings

 

Is this a mark?

 

aaah good eye it might be

 

looking through a magnifying glass i can't make out if its a marking or just a a blemish or indentation , going to see if i can find somewhere to have someone look at them for me tomorrow

 

i'm really not sure they look like shells but on the underside they look like they could have been carved but like i said above i'm going to find someone to have a look at them tomorrow

 

They look like mussel shells,you can see the growth ring in post #14.

 

Eh, they're just junk, would be glad to take on the responsibility of disposing of them for you...

Seriously, I've been looking for one of these figural Chinese silver dragons, within my budget, for my spoon collection for years, though I was looking more for one with a silver bowl (believe this one, with the large shell bowl is most likely, as already suggested, a rice spoon). Here is a shot of page 285 of Rainwater's 'Spoons Around the World' (1976) showing an extremely similarly all silver spoon, noted as being marked 'WH 90' (Wang Hing .900 fineness):

Ignore the text at upper right, it's referring to Japanese souvenir spoons...


~Cheryl

 

On the3rd pic down (close up of dragon) is that something written in his nostril ? Do I see "00"?

 

nice find....from a book , no less !!!
Wink Wink !!!!!!

 

I hope you will report back to us! I know nothing about these items, but it's a very interesting discussion.

 

I only thought "rice spoon" because I have a couple of them in that shape .. NOT because I'm knowledgeable in any way with Asian antiques, ... Joy

 

Could be silver or silverplate. Hopefully you can find some kind of marks; otherwise you'd have to scratch it pretty hard somewhere to confirm solid silver and not just plating - and you might not want to do that. They are very cool pieces!

 

Actually, as such a piece, it is either just silvered metal or solid silver in China. Because there's really extremely few silver plated items before 1950s for domestic use.

 

Believe they're very optimistic in their pricing, but these really are nice spoons...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Chinese-Ex...3:g:33sAAOSwdydbKVcq:sc:UPSGround!32789!US!-1

~Cheryl

 

still not got around to taking these anywhere to be checked

yeah very optimistic without much info on them almost the same as mine , same shell just the dragon is different but looks to be the same person or people who made it

 

they are not silver plate as on one of them the a foot is broken off and you can see its silver on the break

 

Tongue of dog... sounds like something everybody at school thinks my family eats haha (we are Filipinos)

 

You could be right. They do have the shape of the rice serving spoons my grandma uses.

 

finally got around to taking them to a local silver dealer here in brighton and they are silver plate , he didn't know what they were but suggested taking them to an auction house in lewes to get them looked at as he said stuff like these are fetching silly money at the moment regardless of it being silver plate ... no way will i be sticking them on ebay