Many character label

[rogster001]

Hi and thanks for help recevied earlier, could anybody shed any light on this one ? no pun intended.. I know the picture is a little dark! This is from a * possibly * imari style vase, it may well be japanese imari, but i am really not sure on the characters, thank you for any help, my mum really wants to know this one!

[Iriya]

榮和謹製

榮和 is probably a place name. Could be Japanese (it's written 栄和 in modern Japanese, if you want to Google it). 謹製 means 'carefully made'.

[rogster001]

Hi thanks once again for your great help, i managed to come up with this which possibly makes sense:

(As Japanese)

榮和

謹製

' Japanese Sakae, humbly (/repectfully) made '

That would be the type of thing i would expect to see on a pot of this type anyway, the only thing is i thnk the characters are in a different order on the stamp, It may sound stupid but will that change it? i mean can characters by arranged for 'style' and still have same meaning?

[Iriya]

Chinese (and Japanese for that matter) is traditionally read from right to left, from up to down. Even in horizontal writing it was read from right to left, this is still used nowadays, in temple names for example.

榮和 can have many possible readings in Japanese, including (this is according to Jim Breen's JMnedic):

Eikazu(u); Eiwa(pl); Sakawa(pl); Shigekazu(u); Hidekazu(u)

From what I understand, this stamp is pretty common, the item in question probably isn't very valuable.

[skylee]

the item in question probably isn't very valuable.

I have just googled 榮和謹製, and these two websites came up. If I understand them correctly, one says that an item with the 榮和謹製 sign is a so-called "Chinese Imari" porcelain item for export purpose. The other says that it was mass produced after the war for export to America etc. Anyways those two items are not old.

http://www.ic.daito.ac.jp/~oukodou/gallery/gallery-1044.html

http://www.hokuen.jp/dragon/yomo/waga/waga.htm#44