Featured Asian Faux? Tortoiseshell Plate

Bought this cool looking hand decorated plate. Measures 10 1/2" across. Hand decorated , decorations are slightly raised. Hoping someone can guess age.

 

Real shell, Japanese, I’d date it first third 20th century (feeling).

 

Thank you Kyratango!

 

Don't try to sell it though!!!

 

Well that’s pretty damn neat and nice. I’ve never seen one before. Cool score, what type of place did you find that at? Just curious. Without being too specific.

 

J Dagger. Thrift shop.

 

@kraftblue - If you want to "call" someone on the forum you have to put the @ symbol in front of their user ID.

@J Dagger

 

Bercrystal, I figured they would be back later to read a reply.

 

It is absolutely gorgeous, kraft.
Probably the 1910s, and it looks like it is tortoiseshell, like kyra said.

But... by that time the Japanese were using a lot of celluloid, so to be sure I would test it (no hot pins of course ).
One way is to look at it through a loupe, if it is tortoiseshell you will see layering of the depth of colour, and the spots won't be the same on top and bottom. Sometimes you can see 'growth rings'.
The excellent second post in this link tells you how to do other tests, and the 'tongue test' for celluloid really works (Kyra, you will like that ):

https://www.allaboutpocketknives.com/knife_forum/viewtopic.php?t=50712

For comparison, here is my Japanese celluloid glasses case, decorated in the traditional way with a combination of maki-e lacquer techniques:

 

Of course! I always taste for test

 

And as you can see, you're not the only one!

 

Just a word of warning: Don't expose the plate to direct sunlight or to a heat source.

 

Lots of great tips, thank you. It does have a smell all on it's own even without hot water. I did take a few closeups. On the lighter pics the darks lines are hand painted.

 

It does look like tortoiseshell.

Maybe they would have been gilded as well?

 

Another way to distinguish genuine tortoiseshell from celluloid or stained imitations is to look at it under magnification. In tortoiseshell, the dark areas consist of many individual spots of pigment, not as smears of color.

 

Any, that's what I thought.

2many, I have looked at this with a loop. Still hard to decipher with my ignorant eyes.

 

Wow. Nice find! I wonder if the shape of the dish vs. plate would lend towards it being real? Obviously you can get straight flat pieces for smaller things but when it’s a large piece of tortoise shell I wonder if the natural shape of the shell is harder to “overcome”. Maybe the crafts person has to work that shape into the object a bit? Just a thought I really don’t know. Maybe there are huge flat plates.