Documentation
Each singing bowl you purchase from Best Singing Bowls comes with a printed sticker on the bottom with a unique identifying number. My database has the weight of the bowl to a 1 gram level of accuracy for identification along with dimensions, at least for bowls I have brought back from the Himalayas since 1996.
Age
My intention is to only sell old bowls on this website. I’ve been at this a long time and I like to believe I can’t be fooled. That being said, I cannot guarantee a minimum age on the bowls. There simply isn’t the documentation to support this. Even verbally my Tibetan bowl meditation suppliers are unwilling to provide this for me unequivocally. I am confident no bowl I sell is less than 50 years old as no source has documented a traditional bronze bowl manufacturer operating in that time in the Himalayas. There is a type of Jambati bowl that was made into the Sixties and a Thadobati that might be even newer but they have a distinctive look and so are easy to avoid. When sourced in India it is a bit tougher as there have been “traditional” bowl makers operating in the last half of the 20th century. Still what is made today, in part from commercial necessity, has distinctive characteristics not seen in older bowls. That being said, the vast majority of what is offered on this website is significantly older than just 50 years. Some experts in antique bronze artifacts will identify many of the bowls I sell as 19th century or before. Some self-styled experts who also sell singing bowls will label some of what I sell as 12th to 14th century. I suspect the truth is somewhere in between and have my own dating system based on physical characteristics. Please see the section on Antique Brass Identification for more information on this topic. Age is an opinion, however well informed, not a guarantee.
I have a history of working with quality assurance and trying to make sure consumers receive proper information. For instance, I lobbied for the first organic food labeling legislation in California in 1979 as well as the 1990 Federal law . During the Clinton administration, I was heavily involved in organic regulatory issues to the point of meeting with my congressman and submitting a detailed technical response I wrote for a leading ecological farming advocacy non-profit. At the time the USDA controversially proposed organic regulations which would have included irradiated foods, genetically modified organisms, and toxic sewage sludge in the definition of USDA “organic’. I also helped set standards for the organic cotton industry as a founder of one of the first organic clothing companies “Maggie’s”.
Pedigree
Nepali and Indian industry have been responding to the demand for high quality bowls with better and better new material. They are also responding to the high prices of antiques with the time honored craft of making “replicas”. Genuine Tibetan bowl meditation antiques have distinguishing characteristics that are apparent to highly experienced professionals while the difference may not be as clear to the general public. As with any market where there are fakes, misrepresentations and lazy sellers, pedigree can be the difference between a claim a bowl is old and it actually being old. When you buy from Best Singing Bowls you get the benefit of a decades old supply chain that operates with integrity.
Certificates
We can prepare a certificate for any bowl sold off of the website for a fee of $15. They are delivered electronically in the form of a PDF file.
History: Assessment of age and place of manufacture with reasoning supporting the estimates.
Physical characteristics including singing bowl type, dimensions (width, height, rim size and weight), state of preservation and thickness
Appearance: Artwork description, state of preservation, special features and coloration.
Sonic characteristics: Fundamental frequency in Hz, note and octave designation for fundamental frequency and overtones, subjective impression, playing characteristics with mallets, leather ringers and wooden ringers.
Playing and listening instructions.
Year of sale.
