I was in the middle of chiseling tiles off the walls o f the bathroom downstairs, and had just laid down a successfully salvaged tile upside down on the sink.

Though I had removed about eighty tiles before this moment, this was the first time I noticed the manufacturer’s stamp. What I saw was this:

Now, what I find even more amusing than the fact I saw a winged penis and scrotum, was that I found this symbol perfectly acceptable for bathroom tile. And those Japanese can have an aggressive sense of humor… oh, wait. Made In Japan is upside down, isn’t it?

I did some poking around online for N.T.K. ceramic tile, which only came up on sites selling antique tile; which referenced the dragonfly mark. NTK Ceramics is now geared more towards technological and industrial applications, such as spark plugs and conductors, and only their Brazil site acknowledges the tiles as being part of their product line.

I can believe these tiles are quite old (our house was built in 1908) and, really, whoever installed them did an excellent job. It’s the subsequent neglect and “repairs” that is forcing us to remove the tiles in order to fix the decaying wall. I think my favorite part was the section of tile that had been epoxied back on.