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Subject:My first purchase of year 2014...
Posted By: Corey Sun, Jan 19, 2014 IP: 193.169.154.71

-just arrived from Hong Kong a few days ago. A very fine jade 'pei', skillfully carved with fine detaling and fluid compositions. Made in a good quality jade material that shows in-depth calcification due to burial. It dates to the Han dynasty and the condition is excellent for such an old piece.

I regulary buy archaic jades for my own personal collection, but when fine pieces like this one are offered for sale, I usually can't afford them.

If an archaic jade carving of this quality was auctioned in northern europe, I would probably have to pay ten times the price I paid for this one. I'm very happy with this purchase.

Hope you like it.
/Corey



Subject:Re: My first purchase of year 2014...
Posted By: Super Mon, Jan 20, 2014

Hi, Corey:

I am glad you enjoyed your first purchase of 2014 and I truly admire your tremendous love of jade. For this I kowtow to you as a fellow jade lover.

When you called this piece "archaic", does that mean you believe it is that of Han dynasty or earlier or it is more than 1000 years old? Unfortunately, based on its one and only picture that was being posted here,I was not convinced by either its material or its quality of carving (its weathering is really bothersome, looks very artificial) that it can be archaic. Sorry. Of course, I can be wrong since I am no jade expert and better pictures may convince me otherwise. I just hope you may want to become more "selective" in your future purchases of any "archaic" jade carvings from Hong Kong or China because if any jade carvings are indeed good or great, they will not need to send them overseas. They can and would fetch much higher prices in either China or Hong Kong. No pun intended. I believe if you truly love archaic or antique Chinese jade carvings, you should consult Lee, Dave, Adam, to find out where you may be able to acquire some authentic jade carvings because they appear to be quite active in the buying/selling of them(no disrespect to other jade collectors/experts in this forum) Of course, they will not be cheap. You will always get what you are paying for, just like diamonds, if the prices of them are too cheap, something will be fishy about what you are getting. There is simply no FREE lunch in life. I know because I have been collecting coins (Hong Kong and US) for my whole life and seldom would I be able to obtain any "good" and rare coins CHEAP.) (*I did once acquire a US $5 gold coin(about 1/4 troy ounce of gold) and a US silver dollar (about 0.78 troy oz silver) set for US$ 17.50 but that was a rare exception.)

From reading some of your previous messages, you seemed to believe that genuine jade carvings could be mass produced in China at ancient times, to the point that there would be tons of inferior jade carvings being produced. (my smart friend who built his half-a-million dollar jade collection from eBay had the same belief) I respectfully disagree with your hypothesis, because from all my previous researches on Chinese jade carvings, there was really no nephrite jade ever being mined inside the Chinese border during most of the Chinese dynasties because the main and only source of nephrite is Xianjiang (where Hetain jade came from) where nephrite jade came from Hetian or the Kunlun Mountain, some were mountain jades and some were river jade (including seed jade), most were Hetian jade and some were bi yu (dark green jades). Some of these Kulun mountain jades were also minded in Qinghai (like those being used to make medals for the last Chinese Olympics). Since Xianjiang was a Muslim territory during most Chinese dynasties and they always revolted against China, therefore during many Chinese dynasties especially Sung when the Chinese emperors were week and busy in fighting foreign invasions, it was extremely difficult and almost impossible to import significant quantity of Hetian jades from the far away Xianjiang to China. The supplies of them were therefore very limited and their costs very high. It was not until the Qing Emperor Qianlong who had a reign of 60 years (actually longer, but he abdicated after 60 years because he did not want to have a reign that was longer than that of his grandfather, Kangxi. But he actually still controlled the empire after his abdication.) that he had finally ended the revolutions in the Xiangjian areas and the transport of Hetain jade became much easier.

However, even in the Qianlong era, with the supplies of Hetian nephrite jade became more abundant, it was still highly regulated by the imperial government, just like the supply of salt (regular table salt), only the imperial government was allowed to import Hetian jade material from Xianjiang to the jade shops in the capital. No private trades of either jade material or salt were allowed. Any smugglers of either jade or salt would have their heads chopped off. Also, prior to the reign of Qianlong, you seldom saw the other Qing emperors wasted their time in jades because they were busy consolidating their political powers by killing off thousands of "Hans" (Qing are Manchurian and were considered foreign people by Hans)many of whom were found to be guilty of complaining about the Qing government in their books or other printed material. Many innocent Chinese scholars were killed off during these earlier Qing eras.

However, even when the supply of Hetian jade became more abundant during the Emperor Qianlong era, good Hetian jade was still not cheap. The Hetian nephrite jade used to make a pair (two) of jade bowls during the Qianlong era would cost 5,000 taels of silver. At last Friday's closing silver spot price of US$ 20.37 per troy ounce, one Chinese tael is about 1.2 troy ounce or is worth about US$ 24.44 per tael. Therefore, the material alone for making a pair of jade bowls during Qinglong's reign will cost about US$ 122,220. (yes, that much because it wastes a lot of material in making jade bowl. Try to find a jade bowl that was made of genuine nephrite jade, even today, it will not be cheap or easy to find.) Also, before they had discovered the method of using grit with high hardness (such as corundum) to polish a jade piece (final process) during the later part of Qianlong era, the average time spent on polishing a jade carving will be around one year. Can you imagine the labor cost for just the polishing of a genuine Qianlong jade carving? It is for these reasons, when any time people claimed that their pieces are that of Qianglong era, I would always take it with a grain of salt because any authentic and significant Qianlong jade carving will be worth at least six figures in US dollars in today's market. Also whenever I saw a jade carving that was labeled as jadeite carvings of any dynasties before the Qing dynasty I would start laughing because jadeite was not recognized as "real" jade until the middle Qing dynasty. It is only until later Qing dynasty, the restrictions on the import and trade of Hetian jade became more relaxed and the supply of Hetian jade became more abundant which resulted in "cheaper" prices of jade carvings. But still authentic and good jade carvings were never cheap, at any time. Case in point, during the 60s when my smart friend was working as a school teacher in Hong Kong, he was making about HK$ 900 a month(at that time HK dollar to US dollars is about a 5:1 ratio unlike today's 7.69:1 ratio), according to him a piece of good Qing dynasty Hetian jade carving at that time would sell for HK$200-300 a piece, about one third of his monthly salary. I remember my father bought a Leica M3 camera (made in Germany) around that time and it cost him about HKD$3,000. Good stuff like a genuine Rolex watch will never be cheap, no matter in what time period. If you can buy a genuine 14k gold Rolex watch cheap, it will either be stolen or a fake. That is no different with Hetian jade carvings or any authentic archaic jade carving, IMHO.

Therefore, IMHO, there are really no such things as "mass produced" antique or archaic jade carvings due to the HIGH costs of both the material and labor in making any jade carvings at ancient China (or even in modern China, many modern genuine quality Hetian jade carvings are very expensive). No jade carvers will waste their time in making any inferior jade carvings or in mass producing them. I recommend you to acquire a copy of the September 1987 National Geographic magazine where there was an article titled "Jade Stone of Heaven" written by Mr. Fred Ward (I had a copy that was autographed by him) in which it states that by 1987 it was already quite difficult to find nephrite jade in China and therefore all nephrite jade were reserved for making "high-end" fakes. If you ever examine the type of nephrite jade used to "make" some of these so called Qing dynasty or even Hongshan jade carvings, you will easily find that the type of nephrite material used to "make" them can only be found overseas, like from U.S.A. or Canada, therefore there is just simply no way that they could be made at ancient time in China. (*If anybody would like to acquire a copy of this magazine or article, please let me know, I believe I may have several spare copies.)

The most credible jade material in making some of the authentic archaic Chinese jade carvings are:

Hetian nephrite jade,
Xiuyan jade (nephrite, bowenite and serpentine) and Dushan (Nanyang) jade. Of course, some may debate/argue that at one time nephrite jade was being mined inside the Chinese border, but just like the rumor that jadeite was being found in California, USA, I cannot yet confirm their existences.

Please understand that I do not mean any disrespect to your or your jade collection and I do admire your love for jade. However, after I had spent some time in studying jade, I had become a bit discouraged because unless one has a 'deep" pocket, the knowledge and the source, it will not be easy for anybody to acquire authentic antique jades in "bargain" prices. For truly archaic or neolithic jades, it will be almost ten times more difficult. Now of course I can be wrong or if you are lucky enough to inherit some good jades from your elders and/or ancestors like Adam did. Again, no pun intended to you or any jade collectors/experts/traders/lovers in this forum.

Best regards.

Super



Subject:Re: My first purchase of year 2014...
Posted By: Ernest Wilhelm Mon, Jan 20, 2014

Sorry...you have to go back to the books, and museums. This is not an old item, nor did it have a natural burial. It was immersed in something, but that was done to make it look old.Before buying any more "old" items, better study more.
Ernest

Subject:Re: My first purchase of year 2014...
Posted By: adam Tue, Jan 21, 2014

Not old...

Subject:Re: My first purchase of year 2014...
Posted By: idcloisonne Wed, Jan 22, 2014

Not only that, it's highly illegal to buy items from this supposed period, made with this rare and valuable type of material, and take them home, outside the country of China.
If anybody goes to China today, buys a supposedly antique piece, with no indication that it was an export sale was permitted with a seal of some kind and paperwork. You are wasting your money.
Some old Chinese items are permitted because they are not of great quality and/or in poor condition.
Buyer beware... there is a whole industry in China with workshops designed to age, repair, renovate, assemble pieces such as large cloisonne items for sale to the naive foreigner.

Subject:Re: My first purchase of year 2014...
Posted By: Corey Thu, Jan 23, 2014

Thank you for your comments. I was prepaired that the carving would be declared fake when I uploaded it here, especially since I honestly wrote that it was bought from a Hong Kong dealer.

But if this item really is a fake, then can't we at least agree that it is a high end fake.

The carving is quite good and so is the jade material. I personally disagree with ernests statement that the weathering is artificially made by immersing it into something.

Usually the method used for making a convincing weathering is to pack the jade with the corpse of an animal and then bury it. But to achieve an in-depth calcification like in this one, the item would probably have to be buried for a couple of generations, I would guess.

The other option would be to use a piece of old jade that is allready calcified and then carve the object out of that.

The dating to the Han dynasty is made by me and in my opinon the style of this carving matches the style of that period perfectly.

The function of this type of carving is for protection of the wrist of an archer. It DOES have a small size for that purpouse though (only 10 cm long), but still fits well for my arm.

The seller had a return option btw, but nah! -it's a keeper. And since it wasn't exspensive I'm pretty sure to get my money in again if I decide to sell it off later on.

I here upload two more pictures of the backside and a sideview. Note the brown color that also comes from burial.

Any further comments are very velcome!





















Subject:Re: My first purchase of year 2014...
Posted By: Mike Fri, Jan 24, 2014

Wanted to respond to this part:
"But if this item really is a fake, then can't we at least agree that it is a high end fake. "

All fakes perpetuate the darkside of this hobby that we so truly love, also costing the novice much money and preventing newbs from joining the hobby altogether.

High quality jade is pure in color, free from inclusions or changes in tonal appearance, and is of some even translucency. Also, there are areas of carving that are simply incised and have no three dimensional depth.


Subject:Re: My first purchase of year 2014...
Posted By: Corey Sun, Jan 26, 2014

Thank you for your comment.

With 'high end fake' I mean an advanced fake that can fool even the knowledegable and experienced collector.

If a skilled jade carver masters both the carving technique and the style of for example the Han dynasty, and then use the method of burial together with the corpse of an animal, then it is becoming almost impossible to seperate the fake from the real one.

This is perhaps the main reason why the larger and most reputable auction houses focus so much on provenance especially with archaic jade.

One thing to look after in order to seperate the fakes from the real ones is if the calcification has gone inside the jade because usually the fakes has only been buried for a shorter period of time and the calcification will only be on the surface.

If you look closly on the pictures shown here you can see that that some of the surface calcification still remains within the incised lines, in the corners, and at the inner edges of the openwork parts, which shows that the carving has probabaly been cleaned. This is a very common practice with burial jade in China.

What is left is the areas of calcification that is inside the jade.

If a technique of immersing the jade into some chemical solution in order to simmulate an in-depth calcification is used in China today I don't know, but if that is the case, then this is area where scientific methods could be used in order to tell the difference I presume.

For example some of the more advanced gemmological methods like infrared or reflective spectroscopy would give different readings for an artificially made weathering and a genuine calcification.

- Just a thought on the scientific testing of antique jade ...
















Subject:Re: My first purchase of year 2014...
Posted By: Corey Sun, Jan 26, 2014

The jade material itself is not as pure white as seen on the photographs and it doesn't have the delicious greasy feel of the best pebble material, so it's not top quality mutton fat jade, but it still lives up to Mike's description of high quality jade, doesn't it?

The finely incised lines of the carving that have no three dimensional depth, are very typical for jades of the Han dynasty and the Warring states period.

The artistic expression is good and the quality of the carving in my opinion is above the average quality for those of Han.

The style is correct, the weathering, the material ...

BUT it was bought from a Hong Kong dealer ...

Super, your comment is very long and informative and I really appreciate, but i'll have to wait with an reply untill I find the time for it

I'll also comment on idcloisonne's post later on when I find the time to do so.

The illecit trade of cultural relics is something any collector of art and antiques should pay attention to.

/Corey










Subject:Re: My first purchase of year 2014...
Posted By: Super Mon, Jan 27, 2014

Corey:

I cannot say for sure that your piece is not that of Han dynasty. I cannot judge its authenticity based on the style or quality of its carving alone because very often even real jade experts disagreed on the age of a jade piece and it took years for one to learn enough about carvings in order to appraise the age of jade pieces. I am certainly no jade expert. May be Lee can render his opinions on your piece.

However, I did spend some time in the studying, examining and testing of different types of jade material. The jade material used in the making of your "archaic" piece is simply highly suspicious. Those white carving lines shown on your piece may not be a good sign. Even if it passes the scratch test, without performing a specific gravity test, it may not be necessarily nephrite jade. At best, your piece is made of cheap Kunlun mountain nephrite jade that are still readily available in China.

Based on its material alone, I simply cannot call it a "high end" fake because if the best jade material and decent carving skills was used in the making of your "archaic" piece, then I would be very hesitated in saying anything about it. If I can judge your piece based on its material alone, then I am afraid it may not be as "high end" as you might have thought. No pun intended.

That is quite often a misconception that just because a piece is a burial piece therefore there would be a lot of weathering found on the jade itself. You theory that artificial weathering was made by burying a jade piece inside a animal's corpse, then buried, IMHO, is simply a myth, created by some Chinese jade books.

What caused weathering? I believe weathering was caused when the jade piece itself was being exposed to outside elements (chemicals), either in the soil itself or with substances (such as metal or chemical used to preserve the body) that were buried with it. The problem is the degree of weathering will depend on the quality of the jade material. Stones such as serpentine or stones with lower MOH hardness or specific gravities will have much less protection against outside elements (chemicals). However, good stones such as nephrite or even bowenite, especially those that have good polishing will act as protective layers for them, even after long burials, there may not be any or too much weathering. There is often a misconception that genuine Hongshan pieces must have a lot of weathering found on them due to their long burials. As a matter of fact, some genuine Hongshan pieces, once cleaned with just mild soap and water, appeared to be pristine, new and with superb luster. It is because many Hongshan tombs were located at higher grounds, with bodies buried in almost air tight stone coffins, and most important of all, the stones used to make them are good and the polishing (with animal grease) was simply superb which protected them from outside elements.

Therefore, for good nephrite jade carvings to have any types of weathering or "staining" inside or on them, the jade pieces have to be cracked, either naturally or artificially, then color stain could be permeated into the crack lines, either via natural or artificial processes.

Those brown lines on your piece, I believe may be simply natural impurities of the stone. In that case, it will automatically disqualify your piece from being an archaic piece because even today, no respectable jade carvers will waste their time on any "imperfect" stone. Secondly, those whitish substances on your piece, I believe was created by corroding the stone with strong chemicals. Many collectors believe fakers used acid, but I have been working with many strong chemicals in clinical laboratory before, therefore I know that alkali such as NaOH (or lime) can be much more corrosive and can eat through most stones rapidly.

Just as I have mentioned before, if you would commission a good jade carver in today's China, it would cost you thousands of US dollars just to buy a piece of decent Hetian nephrite jade price of which rises tremendously each year due to short supply. It will then take the carver a year or two of his precious time to finish your piece. Even if he will charge you thousands of dollars, he would only make very low wages due to the many work hours he will have to put into the making of a good jade piece.

Based on your pictures, there is simply no luster whatsoever on your piece. Your piece looks completely dead. Modern jadeite pieces have a lot of luster, resulted from high-speed polishing but they look wrong and the Chinese called it 賊光 (thief luster). Some jade collectors believe one can increase the luster of a jade piece by simply waxing it. That is absolutely not true. Before high speed polishing tools and high hardness grit were discovered and invented, it took a long time to achieve nice luster on a piece. Please try to obtain an authentic Qing dynasty Hetian jade carving, comparing its luster with that of a modern jadeite piece, and with your piece. I believe you may see the difference among them.

Please look at the material and luster of this jade statue posted by idcloisonne:

I cannot say for sure that it was made of nephrite jade without personally handling/testing it, but I like its luster, the decent quality of its material and its caring style. Therefore, I can find no fault with his dating his piece as
"early to mid-20th century".

If I see a piece similar to his piece, I would be quite interested in acquiring it at a fair price, but if I see any pieces similar to your piece, whether it is offered by a Hong Kong dealer or by any large auction houses, I would stay far away from it. Again, no disrespect intended.

Please understand that I do not believe I know a lot more than you on jade collecting and therefore I sincerely apologize for appearing to give you a lecture here. You can very well be correct in the appraising of your piece as that of Han after all. May be other experts such as Lee can shed some light. Cheer.

Super



Subject:Re: My first purchase of year 2014...
Posted By: Corey Fri, Jan 31, 2014

Quote: "The brown lines on your piece, I believe may be simply natural impurities of the stone. In that case, it will automatically disqualify your piece from being an archaic piece because even today, no respectable jade carvers will waste their time on any "imperfect" stone."

This is simply completely wrong. Otherwise it would also disqualify the yellow jade belthook that sold for $1.299.768 at Christie's in 2008 from being an archaic piece because of the natural impurities in form of darker brown inclusions.(see photo below)

The brown lines in my piece has to do with the calcification. This is why the appear as linear borders between the calcified areas and the non-calcified areas.

It's possible that the calcification has appeared on the stone before the carving was done, but that it should be made artificially wtih chemicals I totally disagree with.

A brand new carving of this quality in good quality white jade would be more valuable without the weathering. The chinese have a different approach to it. They make such objects in archaic style as a hommage to the culture of their ancestors, and don't see them as "fakes". This is generally a western misconception and also one of the reasons why jade collecting is so difficult.

I also disagree with your statement that the material is Kunlun jade at best. You can't seperate mountain jade from river jade by its luster but by its feel. River jade have a greasy feel that mountain jade doesn't have.

It's a tricky thing and can take some time to learn how to tell them apart, but even then this is in fact something that can also be tested gemmologically, since river jade will have very fine pores in it that can be seen with magnification. Unfortunately the area of chinese jade carving has largely been neglected by the western gemmoligcal institutions.

My hope is that this will change within the near future given the dramatic price increase especially in hetian jade, but also in other types of nephrite, that has occured within the last twelve years.

Corey



















Subject:Re: My first purchase of year 2014...
Posted By: Super Sat, Feb 01, 2014

Corey:

It is quite possible that everything you said could be correct and I am not here to convince you. When anybody starts collecting anything, whether they are coins or jades, they would have to pay a lot of tuition(for fakes or overpaid for genuine items)before one started to learn. I did that when I first started collecting coins some twenty years ago and again when I first collected jades. From some of these painful and some time costly experience, I started buying good reference books and studied things I enjoy collecting because it will be absolutely no fun after you have spent tons of time and money, only to find out what you collected are all worthless junks. My smart friend bought seven beautiful and lighted cabinets to house his "half-a-million dollar" Neolithic and archaic jade collection in his new house and even taking pictures of his jade collection, making them into a book which he sold on Amazon.com He bought all these jades from eBay for about 20k and he was very proud of his achievements in being able to buy such priceless jade collection for such low costs. He invited many Chinese who live in our city to his house to enjoy his priceless jade collection. I dared not say a single thing.

I also went to one of my Chinese friend's house where they had many great looking wooden display cases (with glass tops) inside which many shinning "gold" coins were being housed. I asked them what they were and they said they were very good coin collections they bought for investment purposes. Only later after some researches I found out they were all gold-plated bronze tokens made by private mints to rip off people. The cases housed the tokens are worth more than the "coins" themselves.

Therefore, I can only wish you luck and again you can be indeed very accurate in your assessments regarding your jade collection since you can personally handle each of them while we only judge them from low-resolution pictures and therefore I can be indeed wrong. If that is the case, I would like to apologize in advance. Cheer.

Super

Subject:collecting is not easy
Posted By: idcloisonne Mon, Feb 03, 2014

Sharing your collecting adventures as well as your friends' was a valuable lesson for us all. I have come across and include my self in this, people who believe they can magically acquire valuable items for less than they are worth without any knowledge or study.
Within a few years, reference books start to pile up on your shelves and the more you read the more you realise that what you are trying to do is a complicated challenge and you have a lot of savvy competition.
With more experience under your belt, your humility grows as well as your skepticism. I think that is part of the endless fascination with finding your preferred type of collectible. It's not easy.

Subject:Re: collecting is not easy
Posted By: Corey Thu, Feb 06, 2014

Yeah, I must admit that the pictures shown here are not top quality. You can't relly see how fine the chilongs are carved. It would have to be photographed from different angles, and also the lighting conditions should be better.

I actually uploaded it here because I was happy with the purchase and therefore wanted to share it.

I still stick to my own knowledge and experience eventhough I always like to hear others opninons too.














Subject:Re: collecting is not easy
Posted By: Corey Fri, Feb 07, 2014

About collecting valuable items for less than they are worth ...

Take a look at this yellow jade bi that was sold for only $125 via liveauctioneers.com.




Subject:Re: collecting is not easy
Posted By: idcloisonne Sat, Feb 08, 2014

FYI about liveauctioneers.com.
A sale recorded on this site, does not mean it was sold. That is how the bids are registered online, but they do not take into account any 'reserve' amount set by the owner of the piece.
To see an example of this, go to the 'sold item' archive and look up something specific. You will see that some listings were sold three or four times. Meaning, they did not actually sell, and were resold till they got the amount they needed.
Consider that the owner who put his valuable antique at auction needs to pay about 30% or more of the selling price to the auction house.
The auctioneer also gets 20% or more as a commission from the buyer. Lucrative.
So reserves are commonplace in live auctions of this kind.

Subject:Re: collecting is not easy
Posted By: Corey Fri, Feb 07, 2014

And then take a look at this related yellow jade bi that was sold at Bonhams for $20,000 for comparison of material, period and wormanship.

Somebody made a great deal ...



Subject:Re: collecting is not easy
Posted By: Corey Fri, Feb 07, 2014

About the purchase of antiques from Hong Kong, and also on the trade of artefacts looted from tombs there is this article from 2003. -See link.

I have personally known people who have made their livings from buying up antiques in China and then sold them in europe, and I know of dealers who regulary travel to Hong Kong to buy antiques and then sell them from their shops or via auctions.

But since I'm in a public forum, I have to be carefull about what I'm saying and therefore won't go into further discussions on this topic.

Corey









Subject:Re: collecting is not easy
Posted By: Corey Sat, Feb 08, 2014

Links didn't upload. I try again:

URL Title :Time World - Spirited Away


Subject:Re: collecting is not easy
Posted By: Coery Sat, Feb 08, 2014

Link:

URL Title :Liveauctioneers - Yellow Jade Bi


Subject:Re: collecting is not easy
Posted By: idcloisonne Mon, Feb 10, 2014

Now that we know which auction house 'sold' this bi, it is even less likely, that a purchase actually happened at $125.
I.M. Chait in Beverly Hills, California, is a Chinese run high profile auction house, in a very pricey commercial district.
I know this from winning several pieces from their auctions over the years.

Subject:Re: collecting is not easy
Posted By: Corey Wed, Feb 12, 2014

But with an estimate at only $300-$400 it would still have been a great deal if you got it for that price. They would have to let it go for $400 since the estimate wasn't higher than that, wouldn't they?

Btw I had added this jade lotus to my watch list at ebay because of the pebble material. At $12 + $4 for shipping it was great price for the valuable material for re-carving, but I forgot about and someone else bought it before me.

URL Title :Jade Lotus - Ebay


Subject:Re: collecting is not easy
Posted By: Corey Wed, Feb 12, 2014

The same jade lotus later appeared at liveauctioneers with an estimate at $500-$800.

So apparently somebody are having some succes with acquiring valuable items for less than they are worth ...

URL Title :Jade Lotus - Liveauctioneers


Subject:Re: collecting is not easy
Posted By: Corey Sat, Feb 08, 2014

Link:

URL Title :Bonhams - Yellow Jade Bi


Subject:Re: collecting is not easy
Posted By: Corey Mon, Feb 10, 2014

idcloisonne, you are right. The starting bid was $150 for that jade, so that must mean it was left unsold then. Strange. It would have been a give away price for a yellow jade bi of that quality. The estimate was only $300-$400.


Subject:Re: collecting is not easy
Posted By: idcloisonne Wed, Feb 12, 2014

Yes.
Another odd aspect is the fact that this well known and experienced auction house would put such a low estimate, that could be a 'come on' value, that auctioneers use to encourage bidding. The other thing is that this is an auction with buyers attending in person, with the opportunity to examine the goods before hand.
It is a bad sign if none of them, thought this was worth bidding on. Lots of Asian collectors in California...

Subject:Re: collecting is not easy
Posted By: LEE Mon, Feb 10, 2014

I agree with
super, it high lights the danger of western dealers buying high end jade replicas and selling them as the real deal back home to the novice collector.

Subject:Re: collecting is not easy
Posted By: Corey Mon, Feb 17, 2014

There is also another jade carving that was offered at ebay with the same kind of weathering offered for $6000 (AUD), which is a bit pebbery for an unprovenanced jade, but still it recieved 4 offers.







URL Title :Jade - Ebay


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Subject:Re: collecting is not easy
Posted By: Corey Thu, May 29, 2014

A selection of Shang dynasty jades also with a similar kind of weathering can be seen at
weisbrodinternational.com - Inventory#1216 and Inventory#1215.

Subject:Re: collecting is not easy
Posted By: Corey Sun, Jul 20, 2014

For a neolithic jade disc that also have the same kind of weathering see Sotheby's March 2011 Lot 58.

Although it's not recognized in the description I'm personally covinced that the jade did not have the brown color at the time of its making but that it comes from alteration through burial together with the process of calcification.

Subject:Re: collecting is not easy
Posted By: Corey Fri, Oct 27, 2017

And then there was a sale of archaic jades at Bonhams in 2016, which included a Shang dynasty jade cong with a remarkably similar weathering of the kind that accordingly to Ernest Wilhelm is made by immersing it into something ...




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