Video #2: Assessing Antique Singing Bowls

Antique singing bowls were made from bronze, a mix of several metals including copper, tin, nickel, silver, gold, zinc and others. Each bowl produces several tones at once: a principal tone and several harmonic overtones. Listen carefully to pick out several audible tones. Additional tones fall outside our hearing range but can be measured with an audio device.

Harmonic overtones are researched for their ability to activate alpha and theta brainwaves and produce profound positive effects. Overtones are not always pleasant, however. Many singing bowls on the market sound dissonant. We choose only the most harmonious sounding singing bowls for Himalayan Bowls.

The craftsmanship of antique singing bowls has never been replicated. Our new hand hammered singing bowls come close, but still cannot compare to our fine antiques. They are extremely refined objects, made with the best materials, great care and incredible attention to detail. Antiques often contain precious metals - silver and gold. The beauty and tone are greatly enhanced by silver and gold, which are far too expensive to be used in new bowls.

The aging process greatly improves the tone. The older the bowl, the warmer and more mellow the tone becomes. The oldest bowls have a warm and peaceful tone that is like nothing else in the world. Our hand hammered new bowls will be the fine antiques of tomorrow, but it will take decades for them to acquire the warmth of a fine antique.

Please read my pages on choosing your bowl and shopping for a singing bowl for important tips about choosing a high quality singing bowl. Almost all bowls found on the web are new. Many are advertised as "vintage," "old," or even "antique" but are actually new. New bowls are finished in a variety of colors and applied patinas. A few antiques are available but you should always hear a bowl before you buy to ensure it has a good sound.

Crystal bowls are often called singing bowls, but they are a very different instrument. Crystal bowls do not produce the warm and complex tone of bronze singing bowls. Crystal bowls produce one powerful tone that can become very loud and piercing. Caution should be used around children and animals with crystal bowls. If played too loudly, the tone could cause pain and possibly hearing damage.

Antique singing bowls were made in a variety of shapes and sizes. The picture above shows the most typical shapes. I categorize each singing bowl by size: small, medium, and large. Within each size, there are a wide variety of shapes, special features like engravings and sound enhancement features like specially shaped lips, specially shaped bodies, extra thick walls and extra thin walls.

Some bowls are finely crafted with a perfect shape and beautiful details. Others are a bit rustic. The best sounding antiques are well finished and have a symmetrical shape. However, the shape does not always represent the sound. I have seen beautifully shaped bowls that sound terrible and humble looking bowls that sound great.

Many fine and very old singing bowls are unassuming, like the 15th century bowl pictured above. This bowl looks very plain, but when it was new it had a traditional pattern of circles and dots engraved around the rim. The shape is simple yet elegant. The tone is exquisite, with a warmth that only comes with age. By contrast, the 18th century bowl below is highly ornate, with high gold content, fancy shape and gorgeous engravings. The tone as well as the color is enhanced by the brightness and clarity of gold. These are both top quality bowls from my own collection.

There are a wide variety of shapes but generally singing bowls can be categorized as low sided (manipuri), straight sided (thado bati) and large rounded bowls (jambati). Low sided bowls tend to sound more clear, steady and bell-like. Straight sided bowls have a larger resonating chamber, producing more echo and a fuller tone. Large bowls range from bright and bell-like to extremely deep sounding and grounding. The size and thickness determine the pitch. The larger a bowl, the deeper the principal tone. However, the thicker a bowl, the higher the principal tone.

Engravings are common on antique singing bowls. The designs are usually simple, most often lines engraved around the outside lip. Some bowls feature concentric rings around the inside. A few bowls have more complex patterns including lotus flowers, vines (as in the above photo) or small circles which run around the rim like a necklace. Such complex designs are less common and highly sought after.

Engravings usually go around the outside lip but may also be found on the interior or exterior bottom, around the inside wall, even on top of the lip. Engravings are often worn away with age.

Engravings on antique bowls are very well finished. An easy way to spot a fake antique is to look at the engravings. If a bowl looks old but the engravings look like they were done in a hurry, it is probably not an antique. Likewise if the bowl has overly complicated designs such as a picture of a Buddha, mantras or any pattern that covers the bowl, then it is definitely a new bowl. Antiques never have complicated figurative designs.

Singing bowls are sometimes inscribed with written characters. The inscription may be the owner's name or initials, a place name, a mantra or prayer. Sometimes an unintelligible script turns out to be an abbreviated version of a prayer, with the first character of each word represented. One of my own favorites is the inscription on the bowl above, which appeared on the Himalayan Bowls homepage for years. This character is a Sanskrit 'om.' The character in the Himalayan Bowls logo is a Tibetan 'om.'

Although singing bowls are commonly referred to as Tibetan Singing Bowls, Himalayan Bowls may be from any region around the Himalayas. Singing bowls of various types are found throughout Asia. While some inscriptions are Tibetan, many singing bowl inscriptions are in another Sanskritic alphabet. There were many languages in the region, each using a derivation of Sanskrit in written form. Many of these alphabets are centuries old and no longer in use. Usually when I try to get inscriptions translated by my Tibetan and Nepali friends, they say "it's too old - I can't read that."

It takes a great deal of experience and knowledge to accurately assess antique bronze. While I cannot give a full course on the web, I can offer a few pointers:

Nice antique singing bowls are generally very refined. Roughly shaped bowls are often new.

Antiques are never found larger than 12 inches in diameter. Most large bowls are 10 - 11 inches diameter. Very large and heavy bowls are always new.

Hammer marks are not the best sign of age. New bowls are often hand hammered. Don't be fooled by dealers who tell you "look at the hammer marks - it's really old." Antiques do have hammer marks, but the oldest bowls are smooth.

Do not mistake grime or oxidation for patina. A dirty or rusty bowl may not be an old bowl. New bowls may be chemically treated, thrown into fires, buried in mud, etc. to give them an antique look. Surface color is not a true test of age unless you really know what you're looking at.

Surface micro-fractures are a good sign of age, but they may be present in new bowls due to imperfections in the manufacturing process.

Look closely for small machine marks to see if a bowl is new. Many new bowls will have tiny symmetrical marks indicating the use of a modern tool. Inside under the lip is a good place to look.

Look for sandpaper marks on the bottom. Sometimes new bowls are sanded as part of the finishing process. Antique bowls will have scratches in random directions. Sanded bowls will have many parallel or perdendicular scratch marks.

In antique singing bowls the mixing of the alloy was sometimes imperfect, causing one metal to stand out as a spot or streak in the surface. It is fairly common to see some copper coming through to the surface due to the old world manufacturing process.

Some alloys have high gold, silver or iron content. Some are dark in color and others light. While it's impossible to know the exact content without metallurgic testing, I can examine a bowl and tell which metals dominate. For example, the bowl pictured above clearly contains a high percentage of silver. I purchased it from my good friend and fellow bell ringer Karma Moffett. When I first saw it, it had a deep tarnish typical of silver - not bronze. Karma and I knew the rarity of this find. It also happened to fit into my singing bowl set so I brought it home and polished it. Click on the picture to see the result.

Fine antiques are made of a high quality alloy of several metals including precious metals that are too expensive to be included today. The exact composition varies from bowl to bowl, and there is no way to tell the number of metals without metallurgical testing.

Sellers that tell you a bowl is a "seven metal bowl" are using a sales technique. They are not close enough to the manufacturing process to know how many metals are really in the alloy. Singing bowl sellers in Asia always say their bowls are "seven metal," even though they have no real knowledge of the content. Contrary to this popular myth, it is not possible to tell the composition of a singing bowl by looking at it. The truth is no one knows how many metals or exactly which metals are present in an individual bowl. For more about the myth of the "seven sacred metals," please read my page of questions and answers.

Antique bowls, when high quality and in good condition, have a beautiful warmth and balance that no other instruments match. New bronze bowls are getting close, but still do not compare to the beauty, warmth, and rich harmonic balance present in a fine antique. I offer bowls that have excellent tonal balance, multiple harmonic overtones, and a pleasant harmonious feel.

A genuine antique singing bowl is a work of great beauty, and I hope this page has helped to shed some light on their unique properties.

Please visit the other information pages and our singing bowl galleries. For more information on assessing antiques, please view the Video 2: Assessing Antique Singing Bowls