Items from Japan marked Nippon, especially ceramics, have long been prized by collectors and decorators.

This Nippon vase has it all: moriage beading, a labor-intensive French enameling technique (ala Longvy ceramic) and an Art Nouveau style painting. ($350)

Over the years, the value of these items has been commensurate with that demand, but we shouldn’t make the mistake of assuming that everything marked Nippon is going to be very valuable.

In 1891 a protectionist U.S. Congress, in an effort to get Americans to buy American, passed a law requiring that all items imported in to this country be marked with their country of origin.

The Japanese marked their items with their word for their country, “Nippon,” a word meaning “land of the rising sun.”