My parents have bought some type of ceramic vessel (plate, pot, something like that), which has the following stamp on the bottom:
Armed with 米好 '-'’s answer on how to decipher seal script, I’ve done my best to identify these four characters (well, three, with one repetition), but I haven’t got very far. Sadly, my copy of Wenlin is version 3.4, which doesn’t have seal script support, so the Wenlin-based methods don’t work and I’m forced to work with my 简本 paper copy of 说文解字.
The top right character obviously looks like 區, but the lack of a bottom stroke seems suspicious to me. I can’t find any characters consisting of just 厂 or 广 and 品, though, so for now I’m inclined to believe it’s just an odd variant on 區.
The bottom right character has what looks like a turned-eye or net radical (罒), but with four ‘chambers’ instead of three. The lower part of the character looks a bit like a warped 貝, but with a weird extra pair of legs and a vertical line going through the main part; or like the top of 周 (in the modern form) with two 人 stacked on top of each other instead of 口. But neither of those options seem to be anything that exists, as far as I can tell. It reminds me of 買 or 賈, but there’s too much going on for that to fit.
The top/bottom left character mostly just looks like a five-year-old tried to draw Shelob (so a bit like 禺, I guess?), or perhaps more relevantly a bit like a disfigured 番 or 商; but it’s clearly none of those. I’m struggling to figure out what the radical is supposed to be, though.
Can anyone help me get further with this?
Edited to add:
I just spoke to my dad who guesses that the pot is probably from between 1900 and 1920 – though, if the characters end up being very corrupted (as the comments would indicate that they might be), it’s possible that it’s simply a fake made by someone with very limited understanding of Chinese characters and seal script.
