Five ways to tell if a singing bowl is a genuine antique or not from singing bowl expert, Joseph Feinstein:
1. Decorative Designs - antique singing bowls never have complex designs covering the entire bowl. Bowls with images covering a large portion of the bowl are always new. For example, pictures of Buddhas, Buddhist symbols or the Om Mani Padme Hung mantra are only found on new bowls produced since the late 20th century. Decorations on real antiques are always deeply cut engravings, usually rings around the rim of the bowl. Certain geometric and floral patterns are also found on antiques. Most antique decoration is done in a repeating pattern around the rim. Look at the examples in The Singing Bowl Museum to see what real antique decorations look like. Many antique singing bowls are plain or the engravings have been worn away from many years of handling.
2. Manufacturing marks - new singing bowls usually show some evidence of being recently made whereas antiques rarely show any manufacturing marks. As I explain in The Singing Bowl Book, the easiest way to tell is to look for obvious tool marks around the surface. Next, look at the rim. The rim of an antique will look rounded and smooth with no hard edges. New bowls usually have some hard edges at the rim although in recent years, new bowls can be sanded down to look more like antiques. Since they are made so similarly to real antiques, it can often be difficult to tell the difference. Around the year 2000 it was a common misconception that hammer marks prove a bowl is antique. However, the presence of hammer marks is not a true test because the oldest bowls show few if any marks, plus new singing bowls can have hammer marks. Hand hammered bronze bowls are still made today and even cheap brass bowls are made with fake hammer marks.
3. Shape - The majority of new bowls are made in only a few shapes so if you see one of those shapes, it is definitely new. Just scroll down the listings for singing bowls on Amazon and you will see the same shapes over and over. These are brass bowls which are made in large quantities and always exactly the same. Hand hammered bronze bowls are more difficult to spot because there are more variations in the shape. Just being handmade does not mean it is an antique. Real antiques can be hundreds of years old. Antique bowls have unique shapes which are not exactly reproduced in new singing bowls. By familiarizing yourself with the various shapes represented in The Singing Bowl Museum, you can better tell if a bowl is genuine or not.
4. Signs of age - Real antiques show various signs of age, some of which can only be seen under magnification. In The Singing Bowl Book I show magnified pictures of a new bowl and an antique, copied below. Looked at under a 10x magnifying glass is even more telling. The new bowl looks smooth and has little variation in color or texture. Any scratches are from manufacturing and they run parallel to each other. By contrast, an antique under magnification looks much more complex. There are variations in color, small dots of patination and random scratches going in all directions. Some marks are deep and some are shallow, showing the variety of events in the long life of the bowl. New bowls do not show the depth of complexity and layers on the surface like a real antique.
5. Ask an expert - If you are still in doubt whether a singing bowl is antique or not, please send me a photo and I can tell you more about it. Without the knowledge from handling many singing bowls, it is difficult to know what you are looking at. Since I have catalogued virtually every type of singing bowl made, I can usually provide more information about the authenticity, age and sometimes more details about its history or manufacturing. Click the contact form or live chat to get in touch.
Photos below: An antique shows complex variations in the surface of the metal. Even if the bowl has been thoroughly cleaned, old marks will be visible under 10x magnification. These zoomed photos show that even under 5x magnification, the antique (top) shows much more variations on the surface while the new bowl (bottom) looks more uniform.
In the photos below, which is the new bowl and which is the antique? The bowl on the bottom looks more shiny and symmetrical but it is the real antique. The new bowl (top) has been colored to look similar to an antique. Notice the hard edges right at the rim. Notice the prominent hammer marks. These are signs of a new bowl. The antique (bottom) has been cleaned but shows the smooth wear and correct shape of a real antique. There is an engraved line around the middle and complex coloration in the surface. But they look very similar, don't they? The difference in age is at least 300 years. In a photo it is still difficult to tell. In person, the difference is more obvious and looking under magnification is really the only sure test.
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