Two for Tea

After spending the morning walking the dual subdivisions sales I detailed in the two previous posts, and after having lunch at Smugala's in Oakville with my family, there was time for one last garage sale on the way home.  This one was in the Tam O' Shanter subdivision off of Christopher Drive.  The house ended up being next to the home of a childhood friend, one who unfortunately made some extremely poor choices in young adulthood and has since faded into obscurity.

I found a few pulp paperbacks which may be fodder for a future post, but then this caught my eye.

The teapot definitely has some age to it, but I'm not sure how old or who the manufacturer is.  There is a hallmark on the bottom of the cups:

Identifying Chinese (?) hallmarks is about impossible, even (or maybe particularly!) in the age of the internet.  There are hundreds.  I tried Google Goggles, but even it was baffled.

As you can see it's crazed like...well crazy.  If you're not a collector of pottery, crazing is the appearance of multiple lines of fine cracks on the surface of pottery.  It's normally not structurally damaging, but rather aesthetically.  It was only $3 and I liked the look of it, crazing and all, so I bought it. 

As I was checking out, my youngest son ran up to me with another tea cup, this one featuring a dragon.  He said he wanted to buy it, but when I looked, I saw it was actually part of a set.  Again, I'm not sure of the age, but I suspect this one to be newer than the other. 

Another hallmark to ponder.

It was also marked $3, so I put up for that one as well.  I'd like to use these for tea, but not knowing the age, I'm not sure these are safe to drink from.  Any Asian pottery experts out there?