Could anybody please help?

[andrew murray]

Dear Forum

I would be grateful if anybody could tell me what either of these texts says. They are found on an old silver tray and an old silver bucket.

Thank you in advance.

Michael

[TheBigZaboon]

The top two images are ancient Chinese (probably Shang dynasty) cell phones. The second image is reversed, but it is one of a number of stylized characters representing 'long life' and read 'shou4' in isolation.  

 

Japanese culture did not have cell phones during this period (probably due to exploding battery issues, as this problem also troubled contemporary Korean culture).

 

Furthermore, Japanese culture did not use characters at that time. However,  modern day Japanese culture uses the character in the second picture (reversed, of course), and it still means 'long life', and it is often read 'kotobuki' in isolation. 

 

 

[西风残照汉家陵]

The first four characters are 南典and 足银 from right to left,from top to bottom ，of course in traditional chinese character form

the meaning of 足银 is that the weight of silver is qualified，you said it is an old sliver tray,so this tray maybe came from a pawnshop，南典means the name of a pawnshop

 

The second is 寿 in Traditional Chinese characters,which means long life

Chinese characters has many variant in history.

 

PS. this kind of chatacter didn't exist in shang dynasty

[TheBigZaboon]

I know, I know, nobody likes a wise guy.

 

Especially one who sees perfectly good characters as if they're reversed. It's not like I have a reading problem, like dispepsia or anything...

 

Anyway, even if they had had characters like the one in the second photo, there's no guarantee their cell phones would have been able to display characters in the first place.

[leemai]

That is beautiful! 

[andrew murray]

Thank you so much for your kind and helpful replies. 

All the best to you.