News — History

A customer recently asked me about an item seen on eBay - a supposedly 1st Sino-Japanese War (1895) commemorative bronze tray. It sounded a bit dodgy, and then I saw the pictures...

Well, there are a number of things wrong with this. I've cut out the seller's name - it's one of those sellers based in Mainland China who sells everything from antique vases to random trinkets. Usually, when it's a seller who sells everything and they're all a few hundred dollars fixed and are supposedly 200 years old.... it's not right. The Chinese antique market is...

There are a lot of events to keep track of when it comes to these cups - they often reference various events and years. This is meant to be a handy guide to the major events that happened. We take 1895 as the starting point - almost all the items come from 1895 or later. There are exceptions, but they are rare. Here I only list the major conflicts - there are smaller incidents, events, and what not, but those are too numerous to list one by one.

1894-95: First Sino Japanese War 日清戦争. The fighting mostly...

One of the things that annoy me is when I find cups that are otherwise really nice, but through years of neglect and poor preservation, have ended up in a horrible state. This cup above is one such example, and it pains me because you can still see traces of the cup underneath - a soldier rowing his own boat up a river, symbolizing, I think, a hardworking soldier. That, and also because I've sold a cup like this before almost ten years ago

They're obviously not identical, but it's the same theme, and...

A question I hear from time to time is: do fakes exist, and how do I know if it's fake?

This is a question that others have answered before - Dan King in his book and also Rich Catalano before he shut down his site on sake cups. Basically - no, this really isn't a corner of the militaria market that has many fakes. The reason is quite simple - it's not worth it.

Consider the average cup - let's say it's about $10 for a good condition cup. To make a fake cup, one has to get a ceramic...