I want to find out what these symbols mean so I can find an approximate age. I have no experience with Chinese symbols any help would be really appreciated. Thank you.
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Can you post a clearer picture? And also can you show what you've tried to figure out the inscription?– Mou某 ♦May 30, 2019 at 5:40
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This is Japanese and it says 鐵鑄 (“鉄鋳”).– dROOOzeMay 30, 2019 at 6:04
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cast iron kettle (tetsubin) are, most likely, japanese product. these two characters should be treated as kanji. i would suggest you ask in japanese language stack exchange: japanese.stackexchange.com– 水巷孑蠻May 30, 2019 at 7:16
2 Answers
The image is quite blurry but I think it says 铁铸, which are simplified Chinese characters meaning cast iron.
I can only see that they are traditional Chinese characters. the first one is "鉄", it means "iron", a kind of metal.
Your photo is not clear enough to see, can you post a clearer one?
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@droooze Isn't 鉄 listed in the Kangxi dictionary? kangxizidian.com/kangxi/1300.gif– FluxMay 30, 2019 at 14:37
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@Flux I'm not sure that being listed in the Kangxi dictionary means that something is a Traditional Chinese Character. Simplified Chinese, as a concept, did not exist until the turn of the 19th century; the Kangxi dictionary lists out the difference between Orthodox (正) and Vulgar (俗) forms, and 鉄 is a vulgar form, if you read that picture closely: 《正字通》俗用爲鐡字誤– dROOOzeJun 2, 2019 at 7:12