Tinware shops cast tin into different household utensils, including wine kettles, wine bottles, candlesticks, incense burners, incense tubes, teapots and chafing dishes. As tin containers can keep wine from spoiling, to this day tin wine kettle and bottles are still found on the tables of wine shops and restaurants. Other tin articles have been replaced by aluminum and alloys.

We know of three types of tinware shop signs. One was a string of round tin spindles with a trailing red silk sign pendant; another was a wooden sign beam hung with a tin kettle, a tin bottle or other tin objects; and still another, a tin-engraved sign of characters and auspicious patterns. The left picture belongs to the first type, the goods-type sign.