Hairpin Museum 
百鍊鋼化作繞髮柔 髮簪博物館
  • About Museum
    • About us
    • Story of the Curator
    • Donations to the Museum
    • Inter-museum Loans
    • Collections >
      • New Accessions
      • Collections Policy
      • Donations
    • Contact us
  • Galleries
    • Hairpin Gallery
    • Pictures Gallery
    • Old postcards about Chinese woman
    • Facebook page Albums
  • About hairpins
    • Hairpins in Society and Art
    • Material & Technology
    • Wearing hairpins
    • Old Catalogue Illustrations
    • Material >
      • Metal
      • Plant Materials
      • Hard Tissue
  • Hairpin Hospital
    • Conservation Laboratory
    • Deterioration >
      • Wrong kind of glue
    • Cleaning
    • Conservation/Restoration >
      • Reshape the old silver hairpin
      • Broken Jade hairpin
      • Repairing a broken hairpin with silver wire
    • Proper Packing >
      • Emergency Packing
  • 中文版

Picture
There are several kinds of metals that are used to make hairpins.
We can see different metals or alloys with different properies and values used on hairpins.
Gold hairpins are very valuable and this noble metal is usually used to display wealth, although it is also a form of money in itself.
A pure silver hairpin is very shiny but too soft to make practical objects for use. It is usually alloyes with copper to make it harder.
Nickel silver - an alloy of copper and nickel - looks like silver but is much harder and cheaper than real silver.

Left picture from top:Silver, copper, bronze and nickel silver.

Purity Marks on Hairpins

In Chinese culture, as in European countries, silversmiths always marked their objects with the quality of the metal or silver.
In the pictures each silversmith has stamped the quality of the alloy on the back of the hairpins.
"足紋"(left and centre), "足銀"(right) Both characters mean "pure silver".


A page about all the marks on the hairpins.  Click Here
Click on the images for a larger view.
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.