Hoping someone can help me determine if my Nippon mark is authentic, or not. Says ‘Hand Painted’ top row. Below this is a diamond shape with the letters T. S. inside it, and lastly ‘Nippon’ bottom row. Sorry about the clarity of mark in photo above. original photo has much better clarity, however I had to compress it to be able to upload it here so some of the clarity was lost during compression.
I bought a lovely tea cup & saucer set about 1 year ago which is marked with it. My mom had given me 8-10 antique tea cup sets she found at an estate sale 2 yrs ago, and I’ve bought about 5 more since then. Haven’t paid more than $5.00 for any of them. All the others I’ve been able to easily validate their authenticity, but not this one. Out of all of them, this one is so delicate, you can see thru it quite easily; None of my others are as delicate, even though they are still all worth from $20 to $60 each.
Anyway, as I said, I’m stuck on this mark, and have been unable to find it anywhere. It’s making me crazy. I must find out if my Nippon cup & saucer is really Nippon or not. If anyone has any idea/thoughts on this, or can tell me if mark is valid or not, I would be so grateful to be able to finally, after a year of searching, be done with this. Thanks so much for reading this.
Goods imported into the United States had to be marked with the country of origin after the McKinley Tariff Act was passed in 1890. Some manufacturers didn’t want to use the word “Japan” because Japanese goods were often thought to be inferior, so they used “Nippon,” the Japanese word for “Japan.” Beginning in 1921, the United States required the word “Japan” instead of “Nippon” on goods imported from Japan. Many different Japanese companies used the word “Nippon” in their marks. You can find pieces online with the “T.P., Nippon” mark like yours. The maker is unknown but that does not mean it’s not made in Japan.