Featured Silver folks,a teaching moment ?

Hi all. I picked up this bowl at the same place I found the silver shot glasses. Its 5x8 and engraved,some base in Japan. Now I know if "it aint marked,it aint silver" usually,but the weight and the tarnish (as well as the bell like ring and smell) convinced me it might be sterling.First glance I thought Jensen,but after research I found out Miyata was known to copy others designs.Heres where Ive hit a brick wall...any Miyata marks Ive found always seem to indicate what the item is...sterling,silver plate,stainless steel,etc.This bowl has no such indicator,but all Ive found to match the design was a sterling tea set ??? So,what gives ? Could it BE unmarked sterling? It sure FEELS right,but thats not always true. Any input is always welcome.

 

Naval Air Facility Atsugi

 

Try polishing it.
You might find marks. If it is silver plate, polishing may expose pits or scratches that will help you determine what it is.

 

I wish I could say that your lovely bowl is solid silver of either .925 or .950 fineness, Johnny, but I have concluded it's silver plated. First and most importantly, there was an ordinance in Japan beginning 1954 that required that solid silver fineness be expressed and marked with the decimal version. If this bowl were solid, it would have been so marked.

I've found a large number of online records that show items from Miyata and a fair number, marked as yours is without the 950, are called silver plated.

Sorry,

(FYI - it's Naval Air Station Atsugi, not Facility.)

 

Oh thats okay Bakers. I only have a few bucks in it. I looked and looked and didnt even find the info you did about having to mark after 1954. I also looked at a plethora of their marks,wich is where I got confused as they seemed to always mark it for what it was ie: sterling,plated etc. Plus the only one I found where it copied jensen was sterling. Neither nor,its always fun to research and discuss. Thank you all for the input.

 

@Bakersgma

I guess it depends on which website you look for information will give different information.

https://www.military.com/base-guide/naval-air-facility-atsugi

 

I'm just more familiar with the NAS abbreviation for Naval Air Station. They may have changed to facility more recently.

 

Our "local" base is still called a Naval Air Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Air_Station_Whidbey_Island

And since the bowl has an S and not an F, that's why I went with it.

 

The Atsugi Naval Air Station apparently changed to a Naval Air Facility in the late 1960s. This page, with .mil extension in the URL, is an official U.S. military web page. https://www.cnic.navy.mil/regions/cnrj/installations/naf_atsugi/about/history.html -- as a side note, U. S. military web pages are the only ones that can use .mil as their URL extension. Other U.S. government agencies generally use .gov.

About 2/3 of the way down the page there is this sentence: " By the late 1960's NAS was phasing down preparing to become a Naval Air Facility."

The history of Atsugi is very interesting, as it started out as a Japanese Naval Air Station that was given up to the U.S. at the end of World War II. Now it apparently has mostly U.S. but also some Japanese employees.

Then I wondered what the difference is between a Naval Air Station and a Naval Air Facility. This Wikipedia article says:
"In the United States, a "Naval Air Station" (NAS) is an air base of the United States Navy. When located in foreign countries, they are more specifically named US Naval Air Stations (USNAS), to avoid confusion with naval air stations used by the navies of the host countries.

"A slightly lower level of air base in the U.S. Navy is the Naval Air Facility. These facilities normally support smaller numbers of naval aircraft. Permanently based naval aircraft are usually minimal, with the principal focus being on supporting naval aircraft deployed from other installations. "

 

Thanks for the explanation, Fig!

 

I have fond memories of North Island NAS.

 

A very good looking bowl, on my own experience, looking at this picture especially it seems this "something" plated seems to be brass on the engraving pictures, but certainly made in three parts soldered together, and bowls machine made, not a silversmiths handwork.
I cannot really explain how it does be to be solid silver but when looking the inside, here all says me "Plated" !

 

Thats tarnish,but I can see how one would think that.Ill clean it and post pics later. Thank you for the input,always appreciated .

 

Thanks to translate my idea, tarnish has a particular aspect when it's silver and is different with silver plate, I have no pieces in the moment to show the difference but I look in my workshop today.