I don’t know if this is the right community to ask about this. I’ll delete the post if it’s not.

I got this tea set at a thrift store today and I tried to look up the makers mark out of curiosity, but I’m awful with kanji and I havent been able to get any online tools to help figure it out. I know it’s probably not anything special, but I’m still curious.

  • The one on the sticker is normally written as 宮 (miya - big shrine, palace). There is a way of writing Kanji that makes them even boxier than the standard ones, often for use in stamps that painters use to sign their work. This looks like a stylised version of that with a thicker brush stroke where they just extended the little vertical lines downward. For fun.

    The hand painted ones are upside down. No clear idea how to read them honestly because the combination doesn’t appear to be used much or is a place that is famous enough. 美 (maybe mi - beautiful, august) 峰 (probably mine - mountain ridge). Could be a place or a quote from a haiku where shit gets condensed like a tweet or something.

  • farmgineer ( farmgineer@nord.pub ) 
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    12 days ago

    The bottom character kinda looks like it might be a fancy 美 (beauty), but I’m not sure. I have no idea what’s going on with that top one. I can’t figure out what the radical on the right is trying to be.

  • shani66 ( shani66@ani.social ) 
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    12 days ago

    Man, it’s weird that in both languages I’m familiar with the ‘fancy’ script is nearly illegible chicken scratch. Why does that keep happening? Maybe a way to appear appease certain nobility that couldn’t write for shit?

    • k0e3 ( k0e3@lemmy.ca ) 
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      11 days ago

      I’m sorry, but this comment is quite ignorant.

      Nobody who understands kanji would call this particular signature illegible or a “chicken scratch.”

      The lines flow very beautifully between strokes and the size ratio among the individual radicals are very pleasing to the eye and the characters, overall, look very proper.