How to Date a “Made in ________” Antique

CW has sent me, via email, a few antiques for me to price in the past. By the way, if you need valuation advice, don’t be shy, email me a photo. I usually answer the day it comes. CW found quite a large Asian brass tray at 38″ in diameter. The back says “Made in Hong Kong.” The phrase “made in” is important. We can use that stamped mark as a dating tool.

Before 1890, imports into the US were not required to have any marks at all. That’s hard to imagine for us today, where every label says the manufacturer and place of origin. So much so that today, country of origin is a marketing tool, and a logo may be recognized world-wide.

In the last quarter of the 19th century, this all changed forever. Along came congressional representative William McKinley with his McKinley Tariff Act of 1890 which mandated a tax duty on imports, and required that imports be labeled with country of origin. Note that the McKinley Tariff Act didn’t require the name of the manufacturer, nor the specific language “made in.” Therefore, if you flip something over and just see the name of a country, you can date your object from 1890-1914.

In 1914 Congress passed a law requiring the phrase “Made in…” And “made in” had to be in English and the country of origin had to be legibly understood by Americans. The excluded the Japanese, who insisted their wares be stamped the name of their country (Ni-Pon) they used the stamp “Nippon” until 1921 when US Customs officials required Japanese wares to be marked “Japan.” After 1945 we required “Made in Japan” then “Made in Occupied Japan” until 1952 when the Allied Forces no longer occupied or “rehabilitated” Japan.

Politics influence everything. Wars definitely influence the borders of countries. Thus at the end of World War I and World War II the world saw a host of new borders. For example, the use of the mark Czecho-Slovakia dates an import from the 1920’s. The German glass industry was moved by a border change into Poland in the 1950’s. From 1945-50 German imports are often marked “US Zone.” By the late 1940’s, East and West Germany are separated with items marked accordingly.

Back to CW’s brass tray marked “Made in Hong Kong;” and into the world of Asian imports, which tells quite a story of material culture. As a kid, back in the dark ages, we had a “dime store” in our little farm town. We perceived “Made in Japan” as a pejorative term for cheap little plastic gee-gaws, such as wind up plastic bugs. This was of course due to low production and labor costs in Japan after the war. Then Japan changed, and “Made in Japan” now means “quality.”

Taiwan, then Hong Kong, took over the cheap gee-gaw market, but then things changed again for the better. From 1949 to the mid 1970’s the US had no trade with mainland China. When you see “Made in the Republic of China” or “Made in R. O. C.” these are wares from Taiwan. The rare Chinese wares we received were marked “Made in the Peoples’ Republic of China” until the late 1970’s. Indonesia came into existence in 1949, and Malaysia in 1963, so items marked with those names are recent. Most Asian porcelain marked “Made in China” is usually from the 1970’s or later. Here’s the kicker with Chinese porcelain, at the same time the Chinese invented porcelain, they invented the art of fake, not always intended to deceive, sometimes made to honor a previous potter. Along with the fake went fake markings. Two markings are indicative of later copies. A rubber stamp “China” and a rubber stamp “chop” (character) mark, and these marks are in RED; if they are in blue, they are older pieces. Because of the McKinley Tariff Act, marks incorporating Western characters do not occur before the 1890’s.

Thus we can date CW’s tray to the 1970’s “Made in Hong Kong.” Therefore, CW, you don’t have an “antique,” which is defined as an object 100 or more years old. Still, the tray is unusually large, and those big brass trays become 1970’s coffee tables on foldable legs, and is worth about $350 with legs.