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Only a little bit more than two years ago, if you care to browse over the jade listings on eBay you would find almost daily listings of these large sized nephrite jade carvings that were being listed as �Hongshan�. They came in different forms and styles, most common forms would be that of birds, Apollo, pig dragons, cicadas, turtles and any unusual shapes or forms you could ever imagine. Most of them would be about 4 -6 inches long, weighed around 350 � 500 grams. A few would approach 8-10 inches long and weighed more than 1 kg. Some of them were quite crude and some such as the pig dragons looked like they were mostly being made modern. However, there is one unusual characteristic about them and it is that they were all made of genuine nephrite jades. Some were made of apple green nephrite jades that may resemble BC nephrite jades but yet different. Some were made of darker green nephrite jades that contained a lot of actinolite and therefore iron. The surface of a few was actually rusted due to their high iron contents. A few were made of unique nephrite jade materials that were simply not found anywhere today. The weathering found on some looked like they might be created artificially but on some they looked genuine. One thing that is very hard to fake is the �fading of color� in the inner jade texture and part of the jade carving will become translucent (usually around the edge) in its texture due to aging. Such fading of color were found in a few of these large jade carvings. The quality of jade found on a few of these Hongshan style carvings is simply amazing, their S.G. is 3.0 or higher and the jade color is simply a beautiful apple green. The one made of darken green nephrite has a hardness of 6.0 and higher. In short, they were not made of �junk nephrite� or �left-over�.

One interesting thing is that many of these large Hongshan style jade carvings were only listed at US $20 or lower at the time on eBay. Very often, the postage (sent from China) would actually cost more than the cost of the item. May be because of their low prices, their ready availability and their crude looks, many jade collectors would not believe they could be made of nephrite or they could be authentic or old. Quite a few forum members called these types of large jade carvings �modern fakes� despite the fact that they might not have ever bought a single piece to study but based their personal opinions solely on the low-resolution photos of the jade carvings posted on eBay or on this forum. Other members tended to agree with them due to peer pressure.

I honestly do not believe these large jade carvings are genuine Hongshan because I do not believe they were really that archaic. I believe some of them might be made with the assistance of metal tools based on their carvings and tool marks. Some of them may not even be Hongshan. Very often, the Chinese dealers tended to call all Neolithic style jade carvings �Hongshan�. A few even called �Liangzhu culture� carvings as �Hongshan�. The one intrigued me the most were those with ancient scripts carved on them. They were being labeled as �fakes� two years ago because some jade collectors said �scripts� were never seen on authentic Hongshan jade carvings. With newer Hongshan jade literatures and researches becoming available, we now know that ancient scripts were indeed being found on authentic Hongshan jade carvings. However, those scripts found on them were quite different than those being found on eBay jade carvings. I do not know if that means the scripts found on the eBay pieces could be �imitation� or they might come from different cultures. I have not seen the like of those scripts in any Chinese references. However, the scripts found on some of these large Hongshan jade carvings were quite unique and different.

In the beginning, quite a few forum members here were ready to show that all these large Hongshan style jade carvings were indeed �modern fakes� despite the fact that they were made of genuine nephrite, some even in high quality and unique nephrite, with quality carving skills and convincing weathering. They attempted to show that nephrite jades were both readily available and could be acquired cheaply in China. They show references of jade sources and pictures of piles of jades outside jade factory in China to prove this was the case. Little did they know that nephrite jades were never officially being discovered in China and there were no known nephrite mines ever being found inside China? Most of the nephrite used in China were being imported from the far away Xinjiang which was under the control of Muslim tribes and were both difficult , expensive and time consuming to transport to the capital (s) of different Chinese dynasties due to border disturbance and foreign invasions. Therefore the availability of nephrite jades in China were never that abundant in some dynasties and many authentic jade carvings in ancient China were made of local Chinese jades such as Xiu Yu (serpentine, bowenite or a mixture of serpentine with nephrite), Dushan jade (feldspar) and other lesser quality of hard stones found locally. Many of the jades or jade sources they used to show the abundance of nephrite jades found inside China were later found to be xiu yan jade (serpentine).

In later part of the Chinese history, in the middle of the Qing dynasty, jadeite were being imported into China for making jade carvings and it replaced the place of nephrite as the favorite of Chinese. At around 1850, spinach green nephrite jade embedded with black granite spots were being imported from Russia into China and many imitation copies of archaic jades were being made during the late 20s and early 30s in Beijing jade workshops using this type of Russian jade.

A few members had attempted to show that BC jade from British Columbia, Canada, is also readily available and can be bought cheaply and therefore it can be used economically to make all these large Hongshan jade carvings. A few has posted pictures of large BC jade boulders in this forum without any pricing information. It is true that BC jade can still be bought in large quantity and yes it is also true that most of them were being exported annually from Canada to China to make jade carvings. However, if you have ever looked at genuine BC jade, they have these unique look of them in both color and appearance. Many Chinese were turned off by them and only recently they started to accept them as jade. Same had happened to the Taiwan jade that was mined between late 60s and early 70s. They simply did not look like �jade� to Chinese despite they were nephrite with high quality. Therefore, if you would bother to examine many of these large Hongshan style jade carvings, except may be a very few, you would never say that they were made of BC jade. Their color and textures simply ruled that out. Another misconception is that nephrite jade including BC jade is so cheap that they can be easily found and cheaply bought inside China.

The foundation of such a belief, to me, is a total mystery. If there is no nephrite jade can be mined inside China and China depends totally in acquiring all of their nephrite jade supplies from overseas, how can they be able to sell the raw nephrite jade materials cheaper in China than in the countries that produces it? It costs a lot of money to transport them from Canada (or other countries such as U.S.A.) to China with daily rising fuel costs. How can they sell jade carvings made of this material cheaper than its material cost assuming the labor cost in China is next to nothing (which is not true by the way)? There are a few forum members continually stated that was such a case in China:

(1) Genuine nephrite jades can be bought cheaply, in large size and in quantity in China today.
(2) BC nephrite jade could be bought as low as US$ 4 a kg.
(3) Therefore these large HS jade carvings could be found everywhere inside China and could be bought cheaply.

I had once posted a special thread in challenging anybody to find large jade carvings (Hongshan or not) that were made of genuine nephrite jade, at least 10 inches or longer and weighs at least 1 kg or more, that sell for US$20 or less anywhere inside China and posted their pictures and purchase prices in this forum. There were never any responses.

I am issuing a similar challenge: I challenge anybody to find any large pieces of genuine nephrite jade rough that weighs 2 kg or more and that sells for US$5 per kg or less. It would be better if they can find them in BC jade or Siberian jade. I would more than happy to acquire all of them as long as I can afford.

Since two years ago, I have been studying diligently the sources of jades in China or sources of jades available to China for carvings. I have been acquiring jade books written by different renowned jade scholars such as S. Howard Hansford. Some of the books I acquired were collector items in their own rights. I had started my attempt in learning more about tool marks found on jade carvings. However, I have not been able to identify a window of opportunity for the availability of a large quantity of large nephrite roughs in feasible prices in any time periods after the Qing dynasty for fakers to make all these modern Hongshan jade fakes. There may be small window of opportunity along the time line, but there were simply no demand for such crude �Hongshan style� jade carvings. Simply said, there were no markets for such finished products. The fakers would be much more profitable to use nephrite to carve fake copies of archaic jades such as Han jade disc, Warring States jade carvings to make a much higher profit. (*As stated on the September, 1987 issue of National Geographic, article �Stones of Heaven�) The only explanation for these large Hongshan jade carvings to be able to be sold for such ridiculously low prices (US$20 or less) two years ago is that there was no manufacturing or material cost involved. According to my friend, B�s �No-cost� theory that is why they could be sold so cheaply. Therefore, while it is true that quite a few of these items (especially the one that is less than 1 kg) could be �modern� jade copies, they could not be made within the last ten years because no large quantities of nephrite jades were readily available cheap enough to make these fakes since the late 80s. For those large HS jade carvings (greater than 1 kg, longer than 10 inches) that were carved with great carving skills, in amazing details, and of unique or quality nephrite, I truly believe they simply cannot be �modern fakes� and can very possibly be �ancient�. However, how ancient or how to prove their ages will be another matter.

The interesting fact is that if you browse over the eBay today, you can hardly find a single piece of these large Hongshan style jade carving that were once so abundant just two years ago. If you happen to find one, it would almost costs 10 times more than before. The sad part is that today you would indeed see many �modern jade fakes� that were ugly and were made of �non-jade� material and yet their listed prices are much higher than the sale prices of those large jade carvings that were once so abundant. That proves the �No-cost� theory is correct and that in order to make a �modern fake� especially the large ones, even with non-jade material but adding the labor cost, it would actually cost a lot more than the sales prices of some genuine and/or ancient jade carvings. I have corresponded with a few dealers in China recently and they all lamented that they were afraid that they might have come to the end of their eBay jade business. There were no longer any decent jades to be had in China in decent prices, even bad jades commands a large premium. (*Interestingly, a forum member found a jade turtle for me inside China recently but the dealer asked for RMB 1000, about US 150 and it was not even as good as some of the one I bought two years ago in much cheaper prices) Compounded with increasing shipping cost and a worsening U.S. economy, their business had dropped tremendously recently. Interestingly enough, they believed the jades that were bought just two years ago (included those bought on eBay) would be worth a lot more today. To prove this, I had just seen a Hongshan style jade turtle (about 3.5� x 2.5� weighs about 300 gram) with a single script carved on it was recently sold for US$87 plus shipping on eBay. I had bought a similar turtle two years ago for about US$10.

The intention of my message is not to say that all these large Hongshan style nephrite jade are indeed authentic. I do not believe they are. I believe quite a few of them are copies and could be quite modern (made within the last twenty years); however, I also believe some of them are quite old (at least a few hundred years old) and cannot be modern fakes. I believe some of us may have missed the opportunity in buying some of these pieces in very affordable prices 2 years ago due to the belief that they are �modern fakes� and junks despite they were all made of genuine nephrite. I also believe that some jade collators might have unintentionally misled other members that nephrite jades are readily available and are cheap inside China. These are simply their opinions but are not supported by facts. I have the advantage in collecting different jade roughs, rocks and slabs from different sources for my study and therefore understand how difficult sometimes in obtaining some of these nephrite jades (try to obtain a genuine and completely black nephrite sample, it is not easy; for that matter, try to obtain a genuine yellow nephrite sample, it is almost impossible.) I also have the fortune (or unfortunate) in examining over 1,000 pieces of jade carvings (not all of them are mine) and tested/studied their materials. Recently I had attempted to study their tool marks (very difficult). The one thing I learn is that you should never make any haste conclusions regarding any jade carvings if all you can base on are low-resolution pictures of the carving itself. Even with high-solution pictures and even sometimes examining the real pieces personally, it would be almost impossible to correctly attribute a jade piece. I would probably take me another 10 years at least, to begin to understand jade. It is also very difficult to understand Neolithic jades because they are a total different animal and any theories or principles that may apply to dynasty jades would not be applicable to them. These are simply my personal opinions.

Bill

Dear Bill,

if you browse through ebay you may still find many of the items as you described, please see:
chineseart4all, oriental_crafts, xudong998 etc...

However, the carving on all of these items is poor. I'd rather would like to purchase a small jade that is of excellent craftmanship than one of these large boulders that are so simple and crude i their execution. The formal elaboration of these artifacts and their stylistic reduction is mostly due to the inability of the jade carver to create a real sofisticated and animated zoomorphic artifact. The examples that you have posted all along are either the first experiments of mankind or pre-human races to work jade or the clumpsy results of later artisans that have lost all ability to create fine-art and try to unsuccessfully imitate the sublime work of their unreachable predecessors. For me the value of a jade artifact lies first in the sensitivity of it's carving.


Diasai

Hi, Diasai:

I did not see either chineseart4all or oriental_crafts have any large Hongshan nephrite jade items for sales. xudong998 did have a few, however most of them were indeed poorly carved, may or may not be made of nephrite, weathering are artificial and the cost especially the postage are almost cost prohibitive. In short, not too many of them are old carvings and are not made of good nephrite jade.

When you said "the carving on all of these items is poor", I do not know if you refer to only the items you have seen on eBay currently or you refer to all the large Hongshan style jade items you have seen so far. I am afraid I cannot agree with you in that regard. Using the first green jade turtle as an example. The carving of it is not poor, may be the picture of it is. You cannot expect it would be made life-like, like a piece of real turtle. However, even with today's technology and tools, such a jade turtle would neither be cheap nor easy to carve.

How are you going to judge the quality of carving on a jade piece, especially those that were carved in different time periods or by different cultures? The best jade carvings, to many collectors, would be those that were made during the Qing emperor Qianlong era. Many imitation archaic jades were made during his reign and they were difficult to be told apart from authentic archaic jades due to the quality of their carvings. During the 20s and 30s the jade carvers who used to carve for the emperors were now carving jade pieces for sales to tourists. If they had carved a superb Hongshan style jade carving, would that mean it would be considered as genuine Hongshan jade carving or still a good copy?

Therefore how can one judge the authenticity of a jade carving based solely on carving quality alone?

Also, who should decide what is good quality and what is bad quality?

There are many supposedly authentic smaller Hongshan jade carvings for sales, from a few thousand dollars all the way to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some of them were certified by Gu Fang. If they are all genuine and authentic, why are there such a large price range? Is it because some are more authentic than the other? Or like you said, the carving quality of some are far better than that of others?

In today's world, there are a lot of artists, some are very talented and some are mediocre. However, sometimes the artworks of the mediocre one may actually sell more than those who are talented. Why? Since there are so many artists with different talent levels, would their created arts also be in different quality: some exceptional, some average and some mediocre? Again, who would be the judges for that? Would it not be true that in any era including Hongshan era, there would be craftsmen with different talents and different skills, therefore resulting in different quality of art works including jades?
Or do you have a pre-set mind that ALL Hongshan jades must be exceptional?

However, did I even say any of these are authentic Hognshan jades? The answer is NO. So if they were done later, by different people than Hongshan cultures, then how are you going to compare their arts with that of Hongshan's? It is almost like comparing which fruit is sweeter or better: orange or apple?

I was glad that you had invited me to examine the Hongshan jades in your web site. I do not know whether all those jades exhibited there were from your own personal collection or not. Due to their small pictures or general low resolution, I had difficulty in examining all of them closely. However, my other friend and I were not really impressed with some of the smaller Hongshan pieces displayed there. To me, while they do seem to be much better than most of the average eBay Hongshan pieces, however they are far below those genuine one I have seen published on jade books. No offense intended. It is possible when I have more time to look at them closely I would change my mind. It is almost impossible to judge a jade carving by pictures only.

You need to understand that my goal is not to show that any of these large Hongshan jade carvings are authentic. I already said that they were not. However, I do not believe all of them are modern either. I believe some of them are old. Have you really ever bought any of these large pieces and study them closely? If you have, did you not find a few of them were much better than the rest?

May be if I can take better close-up pictures of some of the better pieces, you may have a change of mind regarding their ages. I do not believe I can convince you of their quality of carving.

Thank you for your comments.

Bill

Dear Bill,

concerning archaic, neolithic Hongshan and Pre-Hongshan jade, an authenic artifact is always perfect in terms of stylistic abstraction and artistic elaboration. Note for example the exceptional carving of the horns, ears and slit wholes of the authentic specimens I have posted above, this is sublime craftmanship. Among other criteria e.g. the exceptional jade material that has been used for the carvings, obviously the carving quality of the artifact is the first indicator of an artifacts value and the main reason why these artifacts above are precious and unique. You cannot compare them with the bulk items that can be purchased on some markets. Concerning the green turtle, to me it simply appeals uninteresting. The best jade, in terms of carving, is always the most valid. Even if all these jades sold as "Hongshan" on the chinese markets would be authentic, they never will have any value at all, because of their poor carving quality and sad expression, they are not art. Supposed that the artifacts you posted here are not authentic, their value is even less and so the price you pay for them at the chinese antique dealers is their actual value. The question is not how to carve the piece of turtle 'life-like', but how to carve it with sense. The jade humanoid artifacts I have posted above, I can easily imagine to act as magical, protective artifacts, helping the mind of the wearer to connect to a higher level of spiritual awareness, but what could be the purpose of the artifacts that you show us here? I see in them no totemistic, nor taumaturgic nor magical function at all and I am shure that these artifacts you have posted here are the contrary on how a 7000 year old authentic sacred and holy ritual artifact should look like. An authentic hongshan artifact radiates it's power and beauty also on a very small photograph.

Best
Diasai

Hi, Diasai:

While I may not have problems in agreeing with you in that most of the authentic archaic, Neolithic Hongshan and Pre-Hongshan jades should be carved with exceptional skills, in excellent stylistic abstraction and artistic elaborations and with superb jade material. However, there is simply not always the case.

Using the jade carvings excavated from Shang and Zhou tombs as examples. While the jade carvings found in the tombs of emperors or important royals and nobles were indeed mostly made with superb Hetian nephrite jade materials and with superb carving skills. That is simply not always the case due to the difficulty in locating a large quantity of Hetian jades in a short time period in the making of such burial jade items. Very often, time was the essence (cannot wait too long for the burial to happen) and it was simply impossible to find adequate Hetian jades for making so many burial jades. That is why many burial jades found in these Shang and Zhou tombs, especially in that of lesser nobles, were not Hetian jades, but were made of local jades (not really jades) such as Xiu Yu (Xiu Yan jade, serpentine) or Nam Yan jade (also known as Dushan jade, a type of feldspar, with a hardness of 6.5 to 7 and a S.G. from 2.5-2.9). Even with authentic Hongshan jade carvings, not all of them were made of nephrite jades, many of them were made of bowenite, a type of serpentine or other hard stones. Therefore to assume all Neolithic or archaic jades were made of superb jade materials are simply incorrect. (*They were made of supposedly beautiful stones.) http://www.chicochai.com/jadeforum/read.php?forum=1&id=29339#29381

Not all archaic jades would be carved delicately or exceptionally. If they were used as ornaments or for worship/sacrifice/religion, of course they would be carved with exceptional skills. However, using burial jades as examples, many burial jades especially those found in tombs of lesser nobles were hastily made due to inadequate time and the fact that they would be soon be buried any way. Therefore, some of the burial pieces were simply not carved that well.

Even Neolithic jade carvings such as those of Ling Jia Dui culture (http://art.taocang.com/art/baoyu/59432.htm) were not necessarily carved in good-looking materials and with apparent exceptional carving skills (at least not to the general public). Their jade carvings were chicken-bone white and look very primitive (see the jade eagle, jade man and jade dragon posted here; for better pictures, please refer to p. 89-92 of the book �The Pictorial Handbook of Ancient Chinese Jades� written by Gu Fang.) If these three pieces were listed on eBay or in this forum with low-resolution pictures, I wonder how many members would call them �modern fakes�. Same can apply to some of the Liangzhu jade carvings, while some of them were extremely beautiful but some were very primitive and did not look exceptional. That may be why at one time one member had posted four pieces of authentic Liangzhu pieces with four fake Liangzhu pieces in this forum and asked other members to separate the fakes from the genuine pieces. I believe I was the only one foolish enough to attempt the feat. The reason I could pick all the genuine ones was not because I was really that knowledgeable but because I had seen each of those four authentic Liangzhu pieces on different jade books. If you judge them by either the material or the carving quality of these pieces based on low-resolution pictures, you would never guess they are the real Liangzhu. This shows you how difficult it is to tell how good or how bad a jade carving is based on solely on pictures alone.

On the other hand, during the Qing Emperor Qian Long�s reign, his imperial jade carvers had done such a great job in making copies of archaic jades (such as copies of Shang, Zhou jade carvings) that even Emperor Qian Long got fooled by them. Many of them were made in the best Hetian jade with exceptional carving skills and with convincing weathering. However, does this make them �authentic� archaic jade pieces? Therefore you can see how futile your pre-set criteria for authenticating Neolithic and archaic jades are.

So if I understand correctly, a great jade carving must be both �authentic� and �a piece of art� to be valuable, correct? You stated, �Even if all these jades sold as "Hongshan" on the Chinese markets would be authentic, they never will have any value at all, because of their poor carving quality and sad expression, they are not art.� Now I found that very disturbing. Does it mean all these Ling Jia Dui jade carvings would be worthless because I simply do not believe they are arts even though they may be authentic? Similarly, many of these Neolithic or archaic jade discs to me are quite boring and not arts; some of them look totally corroded, like a pile of corroded stone rings, does that mean they have no values at all? Secondly, who will be the judge in deciding whether a jade piece is piece of art or not and for that matter, a piece of great art. On the three jade apollos posted by you, I do not agree that they were pieces of art and except the most left one I do not believe they were made of high quality nephrite jade material at all. I do not see or feel any Hongshan spirit on them. I certainly would not pay thousands of dollars for any one of them even though they may be authentic. In the same token, I cannot understand why any of those Hongshan pieces posted at your web site are necessarily pieces of art and indeed capture the Hongshan spirit especially if you can acquire them in bulks. I guess beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Sorry!

However, I believe the biggest point you have missed so far is that I have never claimed any of these large Hongshan style jade carvings are genuine or authentic Hongshan jade carvings. It is very possible they were made much later because to cut and carve such large jade carvings, one would almost definitely require metal carving tools that would not be available during the Hongshan era. It is also possible that some of them may not even belong to the Hongshan culture. Therefore if you attempt in using your pre-set Hongshan authentication criteria for genuine Hongshan jades on jade carvings that were carved much later or belong to another culture, it is almost like trying to judge how great a U.S. football player is by using the same standard to judge a soccer player. Would that not sound just a little bit silly?

I touch and examine the green jade turtle I have. Its jade texture is semi-translucent especially around its edges. It was made three-dimensional without any wasting effort, without any modern tool marks anywhere. Its inside is hollow with a long neck/head protruding out at one end and an eagle carved on its back (close to its tail end), with one ancient script carved convexly on each side of its body. It exonerates serenity and inner beauty. To me, it captures the Hongshan spirit even though if may not be a Hongshan piece. By the way, this is not a �bulk purchase� piece. This is a very old piece the dealer had before eBay even started selling jades. If there are any pieces like it I would buy every single piece of them because there is absolutely no way, even with today�s technology, the jade carver can find such superb jade material (S.G. > 3.0) and carved it with such superb skills. This turtle is carved with love and pride. There is not a single sharp edge on it. You will not see such a nice piece being made in modern times. It may not be to your taste but that does not mean it is not a piece of art and therefore worthless. Therefore, I respectfully beg to differ.

Thank you very much.

Bill

Dear Bill,

please don't twist my words arround as is convenient to you. The Lingjiatang artifacts above are masterpieces, this I pointed out several times before also on the chicochai jade forum. They do have their own iconographic style and are carving masterpieces. How can you dare compare them to the artifacts you have posted above?

I will post two more photographs of Lingjiatang artifacts for comparison. Maybe with better photographs Bill you will see what I mean with masterpieces.

Diasai

Hi, Diasai:

Thank you for posting better pictures. However, the two pieces still do not look like master pieces to me. I am not sure I would get really excited about them and would want to look at them everyday. Of course, I would like to study them.

There were many oil paintings painted by the Masters and some were auctioned for millions of dollars with their prices going up every day. Some, I agree are really master pieces whether they deserve such high prices will be another matter. Others, I am sorry, I do not believe they are really that great.

Tastes, are subjective and therefore there are such vast price range among genuine archaic jades. Does that make one really better than the other, because of their higher sales prices or because they are really that much better in their quality of carving and jade material? I do not believe so. It depends more on demand and supply. If there are more collectors want the same type of jade items and there are only a limited quantity of such jade items available, then the prices of such jade items will go up.

Therefore while Anita suggests there would be a scanning machine (should call it authenticating machine) coming out that can authenticate a jade carving and tell whether it is authentic or not. However, due to human greed and bias, this would never come true. The grading of rare coins had always been controversial, because such grading was invented by human and graded by human. Very often, one grade different for a coin can mean hundred or thousand dollars difference in their sale prices. Therefore you will find coin dealers overgrade their coins in order to get bettet price. Many people have tried to come up with an automatic electronical coin grading machine. However, such machine is invented by man and no matter how great it is, it can never be able to grade coins perfectly and accurately. As long as the jade authenticating machine is made by man and there are greed, such machine will never work.

May be the only difference is, small collectors will collect low-priced jade fakes and high rollers will collect high-priced jade fakes. Of course, once a while, there would be some genuine and authentic jade carving out there, however, who are going to judge them if they are really pieces of art or just a pile of old junks? Who dare to argue with the experts? Old does not necessarily mean they are great. Very often the value of many collectibles have nothing to do with their ages. Therefore while many of us believe those jades in our own collection are indeed authentic and will be worth a lot of money in the future, I do not have such illusions. I do not believe anybody can acquire any archaic jades in the budgets most of us can afford. I believe we would have better luck in just acquiring some nice Hetian jade carvings, whether they were made in Qing dynasty or during the republic era. I believe that will be much more realistic. However, it is every jade collector's dream that may be one day one of us would find that gem in the hay stack. Therefore jade hunting is more exciting than the actual collecting itself. I believe you should just relax and enjoy your jade collections. If you believe they are the best jade collection in the world, just like what Anita thought about her collection, then to you it would be the best jade collection in the whole world. There is simply nothing wrong with that.

Bill

A wise man stated: Die Welt will betrogen sein, darum betruege sie.
Ernest

yu zi bu ke jiao

In my previous message:

"If there is no nephrite jade can be mined inside China and China depends totally in acquiring all of their nephrite jade supplies from overseas"

will be better stated as:

"If there is no nephrite jade can be mined inside China and China depends totally in acquiring all of their nephrite jade supplies outside China.."

It is not my intention to say that any large Hongshan style jade carvings I posted in this thread are authentic Hongshan jade carvings. I do not believe they are. I believe many can be modern copies that were made within the last twenty years (but not within the last 10 years) however a few cannot be modern copies and can be at least a few hundred years or older. These are simply my personal opinions based on my study of jade material and tool marks.

The pictures I posted for some of these pieces are the original pictures used by the dealers and may not reflect their actual looks (in many cases) and I would try to post better pictures later for comparison and to show why I believe some of them are ancient.

I am not here to promote or attempt to sell any of the items I posted or plan to post in this forum. I may or may not own every single piece I posted. I have not yet sold a single piece of my jade carvings to the public at this time and may not be interested in doing so. I do not believe once they were sold I can replace them. Not necessarily because they are truly authentic items but because of demand and supply.

Thanks.

B

On the 3 pices I posted in this message, the pictures of the large turtle carapace are very bad. The actual piece looks much better. This piece is quite huge and its carving are very complexed. I do not believe such a piece can be made today and sell for such a low price. It also has spots with "fading color" shown on its jade texture (shell) which to me is an indication of old age.

The jade fish looks rusted but after I had rejuvenated it with vaseline it now has a beuatiful green color. I will try to post some new pictures later. This piece contains a very high amount of iron and as a result its surface became rusted but it was made of high-quality nephrite jade that contains large amount of ferro-actinolite. Its hardness is 6.0 Look at its holes. They were not made with modern tools.

The third turtle is the one with script. I do not know what to make of it yet. It may not look like nephrite but it was made of real nephrite. This piece resembles the piece that was recently sold for $87 on eBay except with a different script. There is a possibility that it can be a modern copy but I need to examine it closer to determine.

B

At that point I'll suggest everyone reading this to post the worst thing/fake you have seen so far...let's try to beat Bill.

This would be a real challenge...let's start the game...

good luck!

Pipane

You will never learn, will you Bill?

Good luck!

Pipane





URL Title :Pipane Asian Art Gallery

Dear Pipane

What do you think about this website? Familiar with the pieces? eBay junks with vaseline petroleum jelly? or genuince without any doubts?

They even have prevenance as "excavated pieces".

I would be embarrassed to own those. Give me a few dollar, I'll buy you one of those cut-opened sweet potatoes horned HS statue around my place.

Have fun
Anita Mui

http://www.innaja.org/
USERNAME: anita_mui
PASSWORD: anitamui

The only difference between those large nephrite Hongshan style jade carvings and those that are for sales at Pipane's web site is this:

(1) While many of these large Hongshan style nephrite jade carvings can be indeed modern (made in the large 20 years), but every one of them (at least the one I examined) were made of genuine nephrite jade, sometimes of high quality and unique nephrite material that was long extinct. A few of them, based on the quality of their material and carving, their tool marks (or lack of tool marks), the carving skills used to carve them (like their holes) and the weathering found on them, show that they had to be carved at least a few hundred years ago or older. Even if the majority of them are modern, because of the intrinsic value of the nephrite, they are worth much more than their low sales prices. These pieces can no longer be made modernly due to rising material and labor cost. Therefore, the risk in obtaining them is minimal and acceptable even though they may not be genuine Hongshan jade carvings but a few of them are ancient jade carvings made of quality materials with above average carving.

(2) Those small Neolithic jade carvings that are listed for sales in Pipane's web site are promoted as genuine Hongshan items. Unfortunately, they are very dubious. The quality of the material used to make them are simply questionable and despicable, many of them are not nephrite jade but were made of poor quality stone with tons of weathering that were rarely seen on genuine Hongshan jades. Pipane had been attempting to convince collectors his items are genuine Hongshan articles and their asking prices were in thousands of dollars. If one even bothers to compare his items with the authentic Hongshan jade carvings posted in legitimate sources or references, one would immediately see the difference between them. Worse, Pipane did not seem to own these �suspicious� Hongshan jade carving but simply served as a middle-man in selling them. Nobody seems to know who Pipane is. He had used many pseudonyms in presenting himself as a Hongshan jade expert and in promoting his jade items (and other antiques) in this forum and other jade forums. He was expelled from the Yahoo Hongshan group and ended up in setting up his own group. Pipane always acts like he knows a lot about jades but yet he did not seem to study any jade books (not until recently at least), many of his opinions regarding authentic jade pieces posted by Anita seemed to be way off marks and lack references or supports. He once attacked me that there was no such thing as authentic Hongshan jade turtle carapace, only to be proved later that there was indeed such a thing. Simply put, Pipane is an antique dealer who is more interested in making a �quick killing� from selling Chinese antiques that may or may not be authentic, and not a scholar who is more interested in finding out the truth. Therefore, in may personal opinion, to purchase any pieces from his site, is no different than purchasing anything from any of these unknown antique sites, the risk is extremely high and Caveat emptor. May be that is why he does not want any of the forum members to believe that they can obtain any nice and ancient jade items without going through him or other dealers like him. Sadly, I did trust a jade dealer who seems to know a lot about jades like him and ended up buying a lot of high-priced jade fakes. Equally upsetting, there was another forum member who had just posted several jade carvings and ivory carving in this forum, only found out in hard truth from other members that they were neither authentic or made of real jade or ivory. When he attempted to obtain a refund from the supposedly reputable dealer, he was insulted and abused.

Bill

Dear Bill,

I think it is your own fault if you believe that you can collect authentic neolithic chinese jade sitting on your sofa in front of your pc, order jade online and forge theories on how neolithic jade should be. I know Chinese private collectors, they travel twice every year to Inner Mongolia, they have yearlong connections to other antique collectors and they search China wide and far for authentic archaic jade. Even they have problems to find a valuable authentic jade. Many of them build up their collections since many decades and longer. Ok Bill, now you arrive, trying to collect neolithic jade since TWO - ridiculous - years without lifting up and having been to China since you had started collecting jade. You should learn pacience first. The same applies to Anita which is concerned with neolithic jade since about 2 years. I am shure Bill, that if you look on your jade artifacts that you have posted here after 20 more years of collecting you will SEE and KNOW why these artifacts are completly worthless in terms of art.

Diasai

Diasai:

You still do not get it, do you? I do not believe you really understand what I am trying to say at all.

I am not trying to collect any genuine neolithic jade carvings including Hongshan at all. Do you know why?

It is because there is no way I can guarantee that even I would pay thousands of dollars in acquiring a supposedly genuine Hongshan jade carving, even with Gu Fang's authentication paper or that of even Professor Guo Dashun, I would be able to sell it as such when I need to dispense my collection.

Have you seen any Hongshan jades for sales in the last few years by any of the major auction houses such as Soetheby's, Christie's, etc.? For that matter, have you seen any of them listed by even the Chinese auction companies? I do not believe so. Do you know why? It is because when it involves thousands of dollars, there would be tons of high-priced spectacular Hongshan fakes being made. Not even the Chinese acution companies can detect some of these nice fakes and ended up selling them as the genuine articles. Even the National Palace Museum in Taiwan had displayed some really bad Hongshan fakes in their museum as genuine Hongshan and became laughing stock of the century. Therefore, how in the world can any average jade collectors have hope in proving to other collectors out there what they have are indeed authentic Hongshan jade carvings? Why would anybody spend so much money in acquiring them, for their beauty, their inner spirit? It is more risky than buying stocks in today's stock market. Do you really believe if you travel to Inner Mongolia, they would sell you an authetnic piece of Hongshan jade item? Do you not know that it is illegal to bring out such a piece? Can you really trust those dealer in China?

If I have a lot of moeny and have nowhere to put them, I would rather buy genuine QianLong jade carvings with provenance. I would establish a mutual funds in buying up all known and quality QianLong jade pieces because with the growing Chinese economy and the emergence of wealthy Chinese jade collectors, the prices of them will have no way to go but up. I would also acquire all the nice Hetian jade carvings I can get my hands on because very soon Hetian jade will be extinct and they would be worth a fortune. I would not wast my money in buying any neolithic jades.

It is amazing that you yourself had obtained some of your "genuine" Hongshan jade carvings from eBay and yet you do not believe you can ever find any authentic pieces from eBay. Is that not a little bit ironic?

I have never claimed any pieces I obtained are truly authentic because I simply cannot prove it with my current expertise. However, when I started learning more and more about jade materials, tool marks and carvings, I no longer believe all of these jade carvings found on eBay and from other sources are made modernly. Some of them are OLD! Can you not accept such fact? Did you not see the Shang dynasy jade disk Kevin got and was authenticated by Gu Fang as genuine? There are a few Lianghzu pieces out there on eBay, although they are not genuine Liangzhu but they were indeed OLD. I can stell by the carvings of their holes, taoties, etc.

The time one spent in any hobbies has nothing to do with the expertise one may develope on the hobby. A person without any formal medical training may have studied medicine on his own for over 40 years, but will that make him a physician? In some countries, it only takes five years for one who graduates from high school to become a physician. In U.S., it took at least 8 years after high school. Therefore does the type or length of training will necessarily determine who will be a better doctor?

It is strange that so many jade collectors believe their jades are the best and their knowledge regarding jades are absolute and unchallengable. May I ask how many of the jade collectors who frequently participate in this forum are museum curators, jade professionals who work for major auction houses, professiona jade appraisers or known jade scholars?

Thanks.

Bill

I agree with Bill,
how can you sell jade carving for less then the stone is worth? My guess is massive illegal digging. Can you find authentic Neolithic jade on ebay? Yes, if your willing to spend hours sifting through junk and in the end be willing to take a chance on something thats been poorly photographed.
To prove my point I would be happy to email detailed photos, and if you know an expert who lives in the Washington DC area pleases let me know, (maybe I'm a fool)
Shop on ebay now because authentic ones are getting harder to find and the Chinese are getting better a faking them.

Roland

Bill & Roland,

A few months back we went down this same road if I remember correctly? Then someone posted pictures of a quarry with discarded material that anyone could pick up. These pieces may contain substandard workable material but the cost of cutting them down to check is not really cost effective for the quarry operator. But a scavenger would be willing to take the time to break up pieces to find something.
Just a thought!

Jim

Jim:

Which quarry of discarded material are you talking about and who could pick it up? I hope you would be more specific.

If you are talking about the pictures of those BC jade boulders posted in this forum by a member, then those jades are not discarded but are private properties of the jade mine or jade company whichever own them and not to be given away to anybody. Furthermore, the member did not give any pricing info for them, therefore all it shows is that large quantity of BC jades are indeed available today but at what prices?

If you mean the picture of a pile of serpentine rocks sitting outside a jade factory in China, then they were not nephrite rocks any way. But even they are serpentine rocks, it does not mean the factory is going to give them away free.

It puzzles me that you seem to have the idea that one can just go into a jade mine or jade factory and there would be large pile of discarded nephrite roughs waiting for him to pick and choose and carry home free. What gives you such an idea?

It is true that one can still find occasional nephrite rocks in the Big Sur Beach in California, U.S.A., but do you have any idea how hard it would be to find a 2 kg nephrite rock that is at least 12 inches long on one side to carve a 10 inch-long carving that weigh at least 1 kg? Have you ever tried to buy a 2 kg nephrite rock or rough anywhere? (I had) I advise you should at least do some studies regarding the prices of genuine nephrite before you would put forward non-substantiated statement. It is very sad that some members had mislead members of this forum into believing that:

(1) Genuine nephrite roughs are cheap;
(2) It is easy and cheap to buy large sized (2 kg or more) nephrite roughs in China.
(3) Therefore all these large nephrite jade carvings must be all modernly made even though they are selling below their material costs.

Please do not get brain-washed by people's unsupported statement without any researches or studies. Please allow yourself to think for yourself. Thanks.

Bill

Dear Pipane

CORRECTION:

They even have PROVENANCE as "excavated pieces".

----------------
Sorry for wrong spelling.

----------------

If you search alibaba hard enough....."Open Sesame!"....There you are!

Have fun
Anita Mui

Well Anita,

It seems that you are kidding. You cannot compare these "Toys" above from bjtrade, made of Xiu Yan jade, to the authentic artifacts on the website. This just shows another time your ignorance in the reseach about chinese neolithic jade artifacts.

Diasai

Dear Roland

That's why the world have rich people and poor people.

I'll tell you some tips.

The wholesale price of a bottle of shampoo is USD 1.00 (can not be lower than this), and that shampoo is put on every supermarkets shelves with USD 1.20 retail price tag.

However, one suppermarket can sell only USD 0.85 a bottle for retail price, but that supermarket can still have profits (lot of profits)..why?????

Pls think about it and let me know the answer.


----------------------------------

Dear Pipane

That innermongolia ninja website sent me email to terminate my registration, you have to register it yourself.

By the way, Sotheby, Christies', Boham is easy to view, but this kind of website have to waste your time to register and then being terminated.....I have no idea why?

**************
your User account on the innaja.org website has been suspended due to the following reason:

- it has been monitored that you have openly published your user-account and password on the AAF forum site. This is not in accordance with the INNAJA terms and conditions.

If you enjoy the innaja.org website, you can register again, creating a new user-account and password, but keeping your Login information privatly. Anyhow, if you do not like the site and if you project to continue spreading defaming and malign articles about the site, as recently on the AAF forum, then we would like to suggest you to not register again.

USERNAME AND PASSWORD FOR THE INNAJA WEBSITE IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY AND SHOULD, BY NO MEANS, BE WIDESPREAD IN ANY DIGITAL FORM VIA THE INTERNET AND BY EMAIL.

Best regards
Diasai Levine

-- Psssst! Schon vom neuen GMX MultiMessenger geh�rt? Der kann`s mit allen: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/multimessenger

*********

Have fun
Anita Mui

Anita:

While I do believe you know about jade, especially dynasty jades, probably more than most members here (except a few), however I do not believe you know as much about people as about jade. I do not believe you should publish your user name and password for everybody here to use to enter a web site no matter how much distaste you may have for the other person's collection. To do such a thing is to show total disrespect for that person. That may be why you are no longer welcome in some of the jade forums. You seem to show a total disregard for other people's feeling. Without such respect for others, you will never truly understand jades because jades are all about people or spirit of them. Therefore, I do believe you do owe Diasai an apology.

You seem to believe only items in your own jade collection are authentic and therefore the best (you did call them the best jade collection). The strange thing is I have yet seen you disclose your web site publicly so that members in this forum can openly admire them.

It also bothers me very much that you once said you never make mistakes regarding jades and you carry yourself as an expert in every aspect of jades including jade material and neolithic jades. Yet I was equally unimpressed with some of the chicken-bone white Hongshan jade carvings you once show me. You also made many unsubstantiated statements such as:

Nephrite can be bought for $4 a kg in China.
Beautiful nephrite pig dragon can be bought for $1 in Hong Kong or China.

Now you are using shampoo as an example. Of course any supermarkets can advertise a few items as "loss leaders" and sell them below wholesale prices in order to attract customers to come and buy other more profitable items. Anybody who has gone to school will understand this concept. However, the problem is if a jade dealer is only selling jades as his/her primary product and he/she is consistently selling them below not only the wholesale prices but below their material costs, what would that tell you?

How do you explain a dealer who can sell a small carving made of genuine nephrite that weighs 50-100 gram, at $1.20 a piece with $ 1.80 for postage. The actual postage is actually $2.40 for the piece. That means he will only get 60 cents back before he has to deduct Paypal fee and eBay fee. Now how much will it cost to make such a piece? How much will the wholesale cost for such pieces be? You live in Hong Kong and you should know that nothing is cheap there any more. Many modern carvings made of non-jade materail are selling at least US$10 a piece in Hong Kong. Have you forgotten about the other costs: labor cost, rents, utility, etc.? Why would anybody try to lose money?

I wish you would stop making unsubstantiated statements in this forum and will be willing to swallow a dose of humble pill, have as much respect for people as for jade, it is all right to admit that may be there are something you may not know about jade. That will make you more human and respectable. There is a Chinese saying: "There is always another mountain that is higher than the supposedly highest mountain."

Thanks.

Bill

Dear Bill

I do not owe anybody any apology. I was once asked from someone to find those fake Hongshan that look like published genuince European collection. And I have no idea that the person who asked me already has hidden website registered since 2005-07-12, and I have no idea that those person will fool the public by buying fake things from Chico, Skylink, and dealers from eBay. And then oiled the fake items, took better pictures, retouched them and posted on the web as "POSSIBLE HONGSHAN CULTURE", and for education only (educate who?). If I know that fraud intention from the beginning I will not forward any emails to educate his/her about jade as well as trying to find Hongshan items as he/she asked me. I help those person to find nice Hongshan pieces in the hope that he/she will admire the beauty of a nice replica, not in the intention to fool the public as "genuience" pieces.

And his/her had done the same to skylink, Does he/she owe apology to that dissapeared website?
---------------------------
You said:-

Nephrite can be bought for $4 a kg in China.
Beautiful nephrite pig dragon can be bought for $1 in Hong Kong or China.

Now you are using shampoo as an example. Of course any supermarkets can advertise a few items as "loss leaders" and sell them below wholesale prices in order to attract customers to come and buy other more profitable items. Anybody who has gone to school will understand this concept. However, the problem is if a jade dealer is only selling jades as his/her primary product and he/she is consistently selling them below not only the wholesale prices but below their material costs, what would that tell you?

My reply:-

You are correct at some point to attract the customers but, I am talking about commitment, time and creditbility. You get the fast cash from the retail, but you ask 2-3 month credit from the supplier, then you spend that 2-3 months time to earn profit from the fast cash in hand by investing in the stock market...etc. It's all about circulation of cash flow which you may not understand.

How Chinese run their business is not a trade secret. Those Hongshan things are not offcourse grade "A" stone. Why street hawkers in HK can sell bad Hongshan craving (just like you have) with true nephrite for HKS 10 a piece? how much for the cost they bought? and how much for the cost at the factories in China? ..think! Bill think!
------------------

You said:-

How do you explain a dealer who can sell a small carving made of genuine nephrite that weighs 50-100 gram, at $1.20 a piece with $ 1.80 for postage. The actual postage is actually $2.40 for the piece. That means he will only get 60 cents back before he has to deduct Paypal fee and eBay fee. Now how much will it cost to make such a piece? How much will the wholesale cost for such pieces be? You live in Hong Kong and you should know that nothing is cheap there any more. Many modern carvings made of non-jade materail are selling at least US$10 a piece in Hong Kong. Have you forgotten about the other costs: labor cost, rents, utility, etc.? Why would anybody try to lose money?

My reply:-
You mean that HKjade, a dealer from eBay that you bought from the begining of your collection recommended by your friend? That HKjade ships to you by sea vessel, it take 1-2 months, the cost is very cheap for non jade junks. It is HK$ -3 a piece for wholesale and the shipping is HKS 10.- a kilo. If you cross boarder to Shenzhen and use service of China post, you can have HK$ 6.00 for shipping via sea. And those sellers will send you emails to show more items and tell you that "why don't you buy more to ship at the sametime to save cost?" this is about customers list, and customers base...think!..Bill..think!
----------------------

You said:-
I wish you would stop making unsubstantiated statements in this forum and will be willing to swallow a dose of humble pill, have as much respect for people as for jade, it is all right to admit that may be there are something you may not know about jade. That will make you more human and respectable. There is a Chinese saying: "There is always another mountain that is higher than the supposedly highest mountain."

My reply:-

Over my dead body!

I like circus freaks, just enjoy poking at them but not being one.


----------------------

Have fun
Anita Mui

Hi, Anita:

It seems there may be a lot going on regarding the web site that I may not be privileged to know and therefore may have made some haste responses in regard to your harsh remarks toward the person and his web site. It is possible that you might have felt like you were being used and therefore felt that your harsh remarks are justifiable. Therefore I would like to apologize for not knowing what were really going on with you and the other person before I commented on your harsh remarks. However, I still believe you should just tune it down a little bit no matter how righteous you believe you may be. That is only my sincere advice from a friend to another friend. Nothing more and nothing less.

No, I am not talking about HKJADE. He is definitely a crook and I once returned almost twenty pieces of jades to him and he banned me from bidding on his items permanently. It is really easy to tell that all his items are fakes because they all look alike. I knew right away even when I was a jade novice. Now when I have a chance to observe some of his items again, I learned a lot by just observing the carving tehcnique and modern tool marks shown on them. Therefore they serve as a reference not only to my ignorance as a beginner but serving as good examples of how modern jade carving should look like. Therefore they are real worth of their money especially those that were made of genuine nephrite.

At least he is cheap, that is, his items are cheap and therefore the damages done to any new collectors may not be excessive. On the other hand, many of these more knowledgeable jade dealers such as TJR who sold high priced and better looking fake archaic jade items to the unaware public are simply inexcusable. He made his living from selling these fakes and lives comfortably in California.

When you see more than one dealer who can consistently sell large genuine nephrite jade carvings at below their material costs you will know that there are simply no manfacturing costs for their items. No jade factory can continually turn out jade fakes made of genuine nephrite at below their material costs. Nodbody can, not even the Chinese since they do not produce nephrite inside China.

If you care to order one or two of the better items from them (it is almost not possible now) and carefully examine their carving techniques and tool marks (or lack of tool marks), you will know that they were simply not being made modern.

Last night I was studying the large Hongshan style fish I had and was surprised to find that it might not be a fish at all but a tetrapod that might once live in ancient China. Judged it by the carving techniques and its jade material, I do not believe it can be made modern.

Too often we rushed to make haste conclusion regarding the age and authenticity of a jade carving without the benefit of examining it closely and only found out later we were incorrect. Can you honestly say that you have never made mistakes in judging a jade carving based on low-resolution pictures alone?

If the answer is negative, then you may be indeed the best jade expert in the whole world and I am indeed lucky to get to know you.

Thanks.

Bill

Hi, Anita:

You did it again. That is, you exaggerated again by saying " Why street hawkers in HK can sell bad Hongshan craving (just like you have) with true nephrite for HKS 10 a piece?"

I do not know what type of "bad" Hongshan carvings you are talking about. Do you mean the big one or the small one? Do you mean they were made of genuine nephrite? You know very well that such a statement is incorrect and totally irrresponsible if these "bad" Hongshan jade carving were indeed made of genuine nephrite jades because that is simply not possible. I once challenged you to find me all the Hongshan pig dragons (made of genuine nephrite) resemble the one I have (with agate in its mouth) because you said you could find similar one at US$1 a piece in Hong Kong. You never really could back up your claim.

No, please do not exaggerate and mislead all the forum members any more, they are not naive. You cannot buy genuine nephrite jade carvings in Hong Kong for HK$10 a piece. May be once a blue moon but not consistently as you insinuate. If you go to the Yei Ma Dei jade market, all they are modern carvings that were not made of nephrite and even those would cost you HK$100 a piece. There are no jade factory in China where they can produce large quantity of any genuine nephrite jade carvings for HK$3 a piece. If you can find such pieces, please let me know because we can get into business together and make a lot of money.

Furthermore, not too many of these dealers in Hong Kong or China will send their items by sea mail, most dealers in China send their items by EMS and it is very very expensive (even if they give you a 50% discount, it will still be US$20 for the first kilogram and then about US$10 for each additional kg and they will add the weight for the packaging materials). Dealer from Hong Kong will send items by air mail. I recently bought 3 genuine nephrite jade carvings at $1.20 a piece with $ 1.80 for postage (each). Air mail cost alone for the 3 pieces (for airmail from HK to US) was about US$ 7.20. (by the amount of actual stampls found on the package) The dealer only charged me for $5.40 postage, he lost $ 1.80 He only made $ 1.80 ($3.60-1.80)from the transaction and that is before he has still to pay for eBay and Paypal fees.

Yes, Chinese business men were known to do funny things in order to beat the competitions, but they would not be stupid enough to continue in selling stuff lower than what would cost them. Therefore please be ready to back up your claims because I would call you bluff.

Bill

I believe Anita's message is referring to the site: http://www.innaja.org and not to be confused with the message posted by me.

I did have doubts about many of the pieces posted on that site but because of the difficulty in examining them closely I cannot say for sure how good or how bad those Hongshan items are.

I believe it would be very naive to believe any of us in this forum can tell for sure how old, how good or how bad any jade pieces are based on low-resolution pictures alone. Even with high-solution pictures, it would be hard to date them. Sometimes even one can personally examine a jade piece, it would still be difficult to accurately attribute the piece.

It would be much easier to attribute a Hetian jade carving, if the material is good and the carving is good, whether it was made in Tang, Sung, Ming or Qing dynasty, we would know it would be a very worthy piece. Almost nobody can differentiate hetian jade pieces made during late Qing dynasty from those that were made in early Republic.

However, for archaic (Han or before) and neolithic jade items, that would be a total different story. There are simply no acceptable and agreeable ways to accurately attribute such pieces. Every jade expert or collector seems to use different sets of standards in their attributions. That may be why there is such a wide price range for authentic archaic and neolithic jade items.

It is much easier to fake smaller jade items especially if the jade material can still be found today. It is also very lucrative to make small jade fakes because the labor spent on it may not be as much as that spent on large one but if such small fake jades can be sold for thousands of dollars then there would be a large incentive.

To fake large jade fakes are much more difficult due to the difficulty of finding such large and/or unique material. Even one would like to fake a large jade carving with BC jade, but in order to fake a 1 kg jade carving, one would almost require to obtain a 2 kg jade rough for such task. To fake a jade carving that is at least 10 inches long, that would increase the cost of such jade rough tremendously. It is just like buying diamonds, the magical number is 1 carat, 2 carat,etc; the prices will suddenly jump at each carat level. A 1 carat diamond will cost a lot more than a 0.98 carat. When it reaches 2 carat, the price is no longer proportional because even a very low grade and yellow 2-carat diamond will cost a fortune. Same applies to Maine lobsters, the lobster may cost only $11 a pound but when you try to buy a 5-pound lobster you will see their prices jump non-proportionally and cost much more per pound. Why? It is because of demand and supply. There are simply not that many diamonds (due to manipulation of diamond companies) or lobster (due to over-catch of lobsters) around. Equally, it is both difficult and costly in acquiring large and sometimes unique jade roughs. Many of the large lapis lazurite carvings that were once so abundant on eBay, if their materials are indeed genuine lapis, then the material alone will be worth more than their selling price. I know because I had to pay a lot for a piece of decent size of lapis rough. That means those genuine lapis carvings cannot be made today but were probably made in the 70s or early.

The selling prices of some of these genuine nephrite carvings (big or small)are almost absurd. One dealer is selling small nephrite jade carving with a minimum bid of $ 1.20 with a postage of $ 1.80. Strangely, the postage actually cost him $2.40 for each piece. Therefore his only gain is about 60 cents and that is before paying for Paypal fee and eBay fee. How did he do it? Please do not tell me everything in China is cheap.

Many members in this forum must be thinking I am naive in believeing that one would be able to find any decent jade carvings on eBay. Generally, I would agree with most of them because now 95% of the jade carvings listed on eBay are no longer jade and most of them are fakes. However, if you are lucky enough to obtain some of the jade items a few years early, then out of all those junks, I believe you would be able to find a few decent one if you know how to look for them.

I have recently obtained two "Liangzhu" pieces. They look very bad on their pictures and look like junks. I was very surprised to find out both of them were made of genuine nephrite (hard to find; because most of the fake Liangzhu were made of other hard stones). Upon close examinations of both of them, they were not genuine Liangzhu but they were not made modern either. Their carvings are just too good to be made modern. Their holes speak out loud and clear that they were made with older manaul carving tools. Therefore I no longer base my conclusions on just my naive belief but based on my study of each individual piece to make such a conclusion.

I am grateful to Roland's agreement but I must warn him to be very very careful and do not be cheated by some of these jade dealers out there because of our desire to find that one great jade piece. Sometimes too good to be true is too good to be true. Use common sense, trust your instinct but keep on studying and learning about jades. When in doubt, do not buy and do not hesitate in asking other people who may know more than you, but be careful whom you can trust especially if the person who give you advice is also the person you bought from. Know the person first before you buy anything from him. A good dealer will talk you out of buying some of the jades from him/her if his/her motive is to help you instead of making a quick profit.

Thanks for sharing.

Bill

Bill,
On the topic of studying, can you recommend any books on Neolithic China?
Is "The Neolithic of southeast China" by Tianlong Jiao worth the $99 price?

Roland

Hi, Roland:

Do you just want to learn about Neolithic China (neolithic cultures) in general or do you want to learn about neolithic jades? Are the books limited to English only? Thanks.

Bill

Bill,
thank you for your thoughts on the Book.To answer your question, both
My daughter was born in Nanjing and it has always fascinated me that here you have a civilization whose people (for the most part) Have lived in one area for thousands of years.
I think the history of the Neolithic is what draws me the most, how did they live and what do we know about the art they left behind?
One of my "Neolithic" jades that has me truly puzzled me seem to be a mix of pig dragon with lung dragon type horns and a human face (yes it could be fake) but that aside, do we have any idea what part these carving played in peoples lives and can we trace the origin of a carving by the style of the carving?

Thank you for your thoughts,

Roland

Hi, Roland:

Check these out:

The Archaeology of Northeast China By Sarah M. Nelson

http://books.google.com/books?id=KDtgLQfEGBsC&pg=PA31&lpg=PA31&dq=hongshan+fish&source=web&ots=HEU5LrAi-k&sig=He-Dwx0X_FzZfW2NeChCYwqwCNY&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPA33,M1

The author has worked with the Hongshan guru Guo Dashun in collaboration:

http://74.125.45.104/search?q=cache:lF5B70TqjUwJ:https://portfolio.du.edu/portfolio/getportfoliofile%3Fuid%3D38863+The+Archaeology+of+Northeast+China+By+Sarah+M.+Nelson&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=10&gl=us

There is a copy for sales at Amazon.com for $150:

http://www.amazon.com/Archaeology-Northeast-China-Beyond-Great/dp/0415117550

Encyclopeida of Prehistory:

http://books.google.com/books?id=Vc1ssEM083gC&pg=PA81&dq=guo+dashun&lr=&sig=ACfU3U3qhXMUcjcUfMeH3Jv0gNV9dIbMsg#PPR14,M1

Bill

Dear Diasai

You said:-

"The same applies to Anita which is concerned with neolithic jade since about 2 years. I am shure Bill, that if you look on your jade artifacts that you have posted here after 20 more years of collecting you will SEE and KNOW why these artifacts are completly worthless in terms of art."

My reply:-

You have actually never been to China, but Bill lived in HK for years.

With your once upon a time of experience, researching and collecting..you still never know the WORLD MOST ADMIRABLE ARCHEOLOGIST WHO EXCAVATED "NIUHELIANG" SITE, Prof.Guo Dashun..who wrote books, and excavation reports about Niuheliang and then his works were translated to many languages since Deng Xiaoping was still alive!! (do you know Deng Xiaoping, right?) And Deng allowed Huaxia bank use the "C" dragon as Bank trademark.

You collect fake HS jades inlaid with multicolor plastic all dated as "POSSIBLE HONGSHAN PERIOD", turqouise dust polymer, and laboratory grown crystal rocks. I doubt your expertise.

Pls smash your tooth pendant with a hammer,see if it is white inside, or heat up an iron needle, then poke at your turqouise pendant..it will melt.

The products down there look familiar to you? and in term of art?. Factory made can not be called an "art", not even close.


Have fun
Anita Mui

P.S. Anderson wants his Hongshan plastic tube back.

Hello Anita,

I am confused about your interest, I suppose you are simply jealous and you cannot hide it.

Do you remember, not too long ago you have send us an e-mail with photographs, of your first Hongshan collection items you have purchased in Shanghai 2 years ago. It has been a total of 9 or 10 items and, maybe you should show them here in the forum so that the audience can see your conception and understanding of how an authentic hongshan artifact should look like.

Moreover you have announced publishing a website about jade. I am looking forward to this. Do you already know the publication date?

Concerning the ebay items you have posted above, I am really convinced that at least one of them is authentic.

All the rest of your posting above is mere conjecture.

Diasai

Dear Diasai

Woow! you are completely blind. You really pick up dirt from rubish bin and clean them up to sell as "treasure".

Yes, I'm so jealous that I do not have time and energy to do what you did. I am not a comedian.

Thank you for entertaining, "We" laughed a lot!


Have fun
Anita Mui

P.S. Can I drag your copyright pictures to compare with the authentic pieces here? pls..it's for "educational purpose only".

Anita:

It is strange that on one hand you chided people for "pick(ing) up dirt from rubish bin and clean them up to sell as "treasure"" and on the other hand you were always busy traveling between China and Hong Kong in hunting "precious" jades and in finding quite a few of them. Were you really that lucky or you really believed you were that good?

It is easy to criticise than to be criticised, may be it is time for you to put your money where your mouth is, and either post some of your "authentic" jades or your jade web site here for all of us to admire. After all, you did call your collection the "best jade collection".

Cheer.

Bill

Hi, Roland:

About your book:

The Neolithic of Southeast China: Cultural Transformation and Regional Interaction on the Coast
By: Tianlong Jiao
Review:
http://www.bookfinder4u.com/detail/1934043168.html

"Product Description
Winner of the 2007 Philip and Eugenia Cho Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Asian Studies! In this book, leading archaeologist Tianlong Jiao takes us on an archaeological investigation into the patterns and processes involved in the cultural changes on the coast of Southeast China during the Neolithic period. The Neolithic of Southeast China began with a full array of pottery, polished stone tools and bone tools around 6500 B.P., and ended with the appearance of bronzes around 3500 B.P. This book takes us through the three periods: early (ca, 6500-5000 B.P.), middle (ca. 5000-4300 B.P.), and late (ca. 4300-3500 B.P.), detailing the transformation of subsistence patterns and the development of regional interaction spheres The Neolithic people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait were proto-Austronesians. They first expanded to Taiwan around 6500-5000 B.P., and maintained regular contacts with the mainland until 3500 B.P. Their expansions were possibly motivated by multiple factors such as trade and new immigrant pressure. Given the increasing international attention of the search for the homeland of Austronesian speakers, this book is especially timely since it addresses the implications of the Neolithic cultural changes of Southeast China and adds to our understanding of the early expansion of the proto-Austronesians. The foreword to this groundbreaking study is by world renowned archaeologist and scholar, Professor Ofer Bar-Yosef of Harvard University."

Cheapest price: Barnes & Noble $79.95 for member, free shipping.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?r=1&EAN=9781934043165

I am not sure if it is worth the price because the topic is so specific.

This is a good link for Neolithic China:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Neolithic_cultures_of_China

Bill

Hello Anita

I checked for you the website you told me. Www.innaja.org

General overview:

-Very nice presentation and bibliography (even if I haven't checked it in detail) witch I should do. I bought once in Beijing a book that was full of fakes, when I discussed about this book with dealer friends they told me the author had even organized an exhibition in Beijing antique city (BJ curio city), every antique dealer of the place went to see it...they are still smiling about it...I'll post here soon the reference of this book...

-Address in .org should be only for non-profit website...

-They claim they sell collector's jade but there is no link for collectors pieces appraisal, I suspect one person "collection"...

-Also I doubt there is much HS jade collector out of China, Taiwan, HK and Japan....


-At first I couldn't accede the exhibition having pipane as name (strange no?) I had a friend signing up for me...

-when it come to the exhibition, yes it is definitely repro, and you're right some shows evidence of chemical treatment "withering" for exemple catalogue 5 item/ 1, 8,9, 10�or "red colouration" ex. item/ 13 of the same catalogue
(or Item 4 and 5 and the last item of the first catalogue).

-Presentation page exhibits (like many fakes on internet) large HS deity made of lapis lazuli (from Afghanistan) witch I never seen in any HS reference book...then they have more then 10 of them in catalogue 3 (!)

-there is more deity in exhibition here than in reference books and museums (!) we're talking about mass production here.

- Catalogue 3: Antique turquoise aren't blue, it turns green and brown....I even suspect it to be taint turquoise and not real one...I can tell from the white part on the comb...I know it because in Beijing panjiayuan market 99% of the turquoise beads are fake and look like this...once you wear it the blue colour goes away (by the way same thing for cheap coral beads...tainted). (I'd be happy to post a pic if you like and explain in detail all methods people use to fake turquoise, aggregated turquoise dust, plastic, tainted stones...but this is another subject)

Catalogue 4: surprise! The dark color axe (item 12) could be authentic antique. Would need further examination...

Catalogue 6: skulls are phony of course but the last two rings could be authentic antique...but certainly not Ming Dynasty...

For the rest I am not an expert in these fields, Liangzhu jades looks fakes at first glaze, but Tibetan catalogue looks OK, except the Dzi bead witch is a recent copy.


Regards,

Pipane

URL Title :Pipane Asian Art Gallery

Dear Pipane

Pls se my reply ** below:-


-Very nice presentation and bibliography (even if I haven't checked it in detail) witch I should do. I bought once in Beijing a book that was full of fakes, when I discussed about this book with dealer friends they told me the author had even organized an exhibition in Beijing antique city (BJ curio city), every antique dealer of the place went to see it...they are still smiling about it...I'll post here soon the reference of this book...

** The bibliography just copy the intro of book of The Complete Collection of Jades Unearthed in China-Vol.1-15 posted in the Beijing Science books website that selling the books.

Yes, if you have time,money and fake jades you can publish any books in China about jades to push your fraud expertise. The experts would be laughing about those kind of stuffs, but the naive, unaware, and dump collectors will be fallen to the trap.**

Link for books description that innermongolia ninja copied them.

http://www.hceis.com/book.asp?id=3879

--------------------------------
-Address in .org should be only for non-profit website...

**Yes, it is, it doesn't make any sense.Those things are "POSSIBLY" for sale, too.**

--------------------------------

-They claim they sell collector's jade but there is no link for collectors pieces appraisal, I suspect one person "collection"...

**The objects showing there do not show variety of taste...All from the same taste, only one concept "things with horns." It's a one man band, but that guy said "they are from European and Chinese collectors." Chinese in Germany?**
------------------------------------

-Also I doubt there is much HS jade collector out of China, Taiwan, HK and Japan....

**They are fakes. Farmers in Inner Mongolia, in case they dug up the wells or toilets in their backyard, and accidently found HS jades, they can go to convenience stores around their places to trade a small Chulong with 20" Skyworth color TV right away.

Do you think they will waste their time to go to net cafe, then find university student to translate Chinese to English, applied credit card for paypal payments, take photos, input in eBay sale format, and wait for US$ 1.00 bidding?????? The cost of living in China is now higher than ever, a pack of 5 kg rice is USD 6.00**
-------------------------------------

-At first I couldn't accede the exhibition having pipane as name (strange no?) I had a friend signing up for me...

**I have no idea about that.**
-----------------------------------

-when it come to the exhibition, yes it is definitely repro, and you're right some shows evidence of chemical treatment "withering" for exemple catalogue 5 item/ 1, 8,9, 10 or "red colouration" ex. item/ 13 of the same catalogue
(or Item 4 and 5 and the last item of the first catalogue).

** Yes, you are absolutely right, but I do not bother to go there to look at them again, they make me sick.**
----------------------------------

-Presentation page exhibits (like many fakes on internet) large HS deity made of lapis lazuli (from Afghanistan) witch I never seen in any HS reference book...then they have more then 10 of them in catalogue 3 (!)

** Possibly Afkan lapis and dyed howlite. Afkan jade (serpentine) is imported to China to dyed as yellow jade like the one that inlaid with multi color plastic flakes. lapis can be made in the laboratory as immitation years ago.**
-----------------------------------

-there is more deity in exhibition here than in reference books and museums (!) we're talking about mass production here.

**They came out of one factory + Skylink + Chico + eBay.**
-----------------------------------

- Catalogue 3: Antique turquoise aren't blue, it turns green and brown....I even suspect it to be taint turquoise and not real one...I can tell from the white part on the comb...I know it because in Beijing panjiayuan market 99% of the turquoise beads are fake and look like this...once you wear it the blue colour goes away (by the way same thing for cheap coral beads...tainted). (I'd be happy to post a pic if you like and explain in detail all methods people use to fake turquoise, aggregated turquoise dust, plastic, tainted stones...but this is another subject)

**Yes, you will see the color inside of the piece is "white" which means that it is a plastic polymer that were dyed from the outside. That website's distributor have no knowledge of "how to separate real from sciencetific immitation" and zero to none of knowledge of Mineralogy .**

You may pls start new topic about fake turqouise. I want to educate myself, too. Thanks.
---------------------------------

Catalogue 4: surprise! The dark color axe (item 12) could be authentic antique. Would need further examination...

**It's a fake, they are from dealers who sell fakes!**
-------------------------------------

Catalogue 6: skulls are phony of course but the last two rings could be authentic antique...but certainly not Ming Dynasty...

**It's not a crystal rock, it's a kind of laboratory glass, flooding everywhere in HK streets. Those 2 crystal rings are agate from Brazil. they come with many color.**
-------------------------------------

For the rest I am not an expert in these fields, Liangzhu jades looks fakes at first glaze, but Tibetan catalogue looks OK, except the Dzi bead witch is a recent copy.

**Yes, you are right!**

-------------------------------

Thank you and have fun
Anita Mui

Dear Pipane,

thank you very much for your review. I should clarify again two thing's about the website.

- It is a Non Commercial and Non-For-Profit site. All the objects are just on display and not for sale, please don't worry. All artifacts has been photographed for the purpose of this exhibition. The exhibition is evergrowing, and artifacts from other collections are still to be added. If future brings, that some of the artifacts on dispaly will reveal themselves, definitely, as non authentic, they will be removed from display. At the moment there is no evidence to believe that they are not genuine only because you, or some other forum member object, dissent and believe so. We have enough evidence to form our opinion contrary to the preformed.

- All of the artifacts on display are from European and Chinese private collections. They has been photographed within the last years, myself is the coordinator of the site. None of the items on display are from Japanese or Taiwanese collections.

- The exhibition is open to everybody everytime without any restrictions. If you couldn't login, it is because you have missed to confirm your membership by clicking on the Link provided to you in the registration confirmation email. Please take a look in this e-mail, there is nothing strange about this. It is the same confirmation process that you have will underwent if you register on the website of our forums host, there is nothing unusual about it. I disagree strongly with you about Catalogue 5, Item 1, to my expertise, is a unique, authentic hongshan masterpiece, made of exceptional rare and high quality nephrite.

- You are right about the DZI, but as you see it is indeed from the 20th century as it is labled beside. It is from arround 1972. Maybe It should have been written late 20th century instead of 20th century. As soon as we receive the photographs it will be replaced with a rare and authentic antique 9-eyed Tibetan dzi-bead.

Pipane, you are always welcome to visit the exhibition as well as everybody else interested and curious.

Diasai

Bill,

Thank you for your comments...knowing your level of absurdity and expertise...I take it for a compliment.

Quote Bill ��It is not my intention to say that any large Hongshan style jade carvings I posted in this thread are authentic Hongshan jade carvings. I do not believe they are. I believe many can be modern copies that were made within the last twenty years (but not within the last 10 years) however a few cannot be modern copies and can be at least a few hundred years or older. These are simply my personal opinions based on my study of jade material and tool marks. ��

Sure Bill, but why are you posting them here then? This Forum is dedicated to ASIAN ANTIQUES (I would suggest you find another place to post your findings and you reflexion...even if you bring us lots of fun with your "theories" and "large expertise").

Question: why didn't you stick to you favorite Chicochai forum? That was a perfect place...

No, in fact, please Bill, stay here, we (I) would miss you if you leave, if only you could refrain from posting stupid fakes like those with three pages of phony comments...because it is pointless. I repeat this forum is about ANTIQUES, and antique means OLD, REAL, GENUINE...

Anyway thank you for all the fun you bring in here.

Kind regards,

Pipane

Dear Pipane

Thank you for your comment of those Hongshan candy. You opinion worths millions. Your expertise have no doubt to me now.

To those who are confused, fooled and blind with vaseline petroleum jelly and nice small pictures with grey background. You see what I see?

Recycling is the best way to treat earth environment, but not for antiquity...those things are laughable stuffs.

Dear Bill

Can you do what you post shorter? I mean every forums you have posted. Life is too short to be depressed.

Have fun
Anita Mui

Anita:

It is almost Halloween. Do you know what it is? I believe they actually started celebrating it in Hong Kong. May be you can have a Halloween party, inviting Pipane to come and he would wear the mask of Professor Guo Dashun and you will wear that of Mr. Boda Yan, then you can both have some fun at least for a night.

Anybody believe they know how to authenticate a genuine Hongshan piece and can easily acquire two "new" Hongshan pieces must either have a Hongshan tomb or wild mushroom in their backyards. Let us be real here, the only difference is how much you would pay for them.

Bill

P.S. May be you should let Pipane authenticate your Hongshan pieces.

Pipane:

Do you know what vulgar mean?

I despise people who would not and cannot even use their real names but have to hide behind their pseduonyms and disguises in presenting themselves. I despise one who can only depend on attacking others with vulgar jokes or crude comments.

I despise the so called jade experts who are so quick to attack other jade collectors and label others's jade collections as "fakes" without the benefit of examining them in person. I despise those experts who do not bother to study but believe they know everything about jades because of their so called expertises and/or experineces. I despise the "jade experts" who are supposedly knowledgeable in jades and yet knowingly sell off high-priced jade fakes to others as genuine articles because of their greed. Such people simply lack integrity and therefore any opinions expressed by them, even some of them may be correct, are totally worthless to me.

Pipane, why don't you have your own jade forum in your web site so you can share with those who may worhsip you? Why are you trying so hard to convince everybody that only pieces for sales in your web site are authentic and all others are junks? What exactly are your credentials and where are your published papers since you have been promoting yourself as such a great jade expert?

Like you said, if this forum is indeed for posting antiques, then why did you keep posting all these new Hongshan pieces that were made of deplorable materials in this forum? I believe some of my pieces would be more "antique" than those posted by you. By the way, do you even know what "antique" mean?

Bill

Hello to all Forum members,

We would like to express our personal opinions regarding our ability to �authenticate� Hongshan jades. We believe most of us are not in a position to expertly verify their authenticity. Let us share with this forum what we know to be true.

In 1995, a well known and respected Chinese jade expert (whom we shall call Mr. Z) in Beijing identified and certified one large batch of jades to be genuine Hongshan inTaiwan and he published an article/catalogue with photographs which appear to have Hongshan flavours. Later on the owners/collectors exhibited them in Beijing. Then the most pre-eminent jade expert in Beijing (probably the world) invited a group of Hongshan specialists* who had spent their entire lives on nothing but Hongshan culture in general and Hongshan jades in particular. This group of Hongshan specialists* unanimously rejected the entire batch as fakes. Needless to say Mr. Z fell from grace.

We believe the reasons for Honshan jades to be so easily copied are:
1 simplicity of the carvings
2 after the cuts are made they were rubbed and polished to smoothen the cut lines
which can no longer be seen clearly (as per technique of Han 8-cut)
3 style and shape are pretty simple
4 the original material is called �siu yen� jade (not Hetian jade) which is now easily
available.

As recent as 7 to 8 years ago, the number of known Hongshan pieces in China was just over 300. About 100 pieces have records from official excavations. Another about 100 pieces were purchased from locals and authenticated by the Hongshan experts*. The last 100 odd pieces are in Taiwan Museum.

As far as we are concerned, the chances of encountering genuine Hongshan jades are so slim that we feel it is not advisable to consider any that we come across to be genuine.

In short we are not in a position to �authenticate� Hongshan jades, especially just by viewing photos unless we have actually participated and spent enough time in the excavations.

With best wishes,

Bobby

Dear Bobby

Bravo!...That's what I said to those "B&D" every day. They never listen!

The only way we can do now is to collect nice copy with true jade, and not dare to say "it is authentic!".

Hongshan tribe had time only to find food, and they have no technology to preserve fresh food for longer period. They are not jade manufacturers. How come few hundred families living in huts and around bond fire produced millions of jade in today market? a small pendant would take months to make it.

Have fun
Anita Mui

Anita:

How long exactly is Hongshan culture? When did it really start and when it ends? Why did it end and what happened to all its people? Did they all perish at the same time? What was the population of the Hongshan culture and how big an area did they inhibit? How many of them were jade carvers and how many of them were farmers? Why did they carve jades? Are many different tribes are in the Hongshan culture and how many different periods are there (early, middle, late, etc.)?

Until you can satisfactorily answer all these qustions with academic evidence and reference, I am afraid all you would say about Hongshan culuture or its jade pieces will simply be your personal opinion and not that of a Hongshan scholar.

Please remember the Shang dynasty was limited in a very small area, much smaller than that of Hongshan and yet there seemed to be quite a lot of jade carvings made during that dynasty.

Are you so sure that the Hongshan are Nomadiac people and therefore they had to spend their time in looking for food daily? Was there not a dramatic climatic change for the Hongshan area which might once be a large plain with mild climate that could support abundance of animals for food but was later turned into desert like environment?

By the way, how many pieces of authentic Hongshan jade carvings do you believe exist? What would you call those Hongshan jades with chicken-bone white colors you bought two years ago?

Bill

Badly need your help. If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk?
I am from San and also now am reading in English, give true I wrote the following sentence: "If the score formula is inspired to tap theoretically, that could trade to 80 brewer positions, and 10 conviction each in both information and business rates, explosive stock picks."

Thank you very much :). Kazuo.



URL Title :Stock pick list

Dear Bobby:

Thank you for interjecting some fresh air into this often stagnant forum topic regarding Hongshan jades. I agree whole-heartedly with your statement "we believe most of us are not in a position to expertly verify their (Hongshan jade pieces) authenticity."

It is interesting that quite a few jade "experts" who often participated in this forum are dealers themselves. It is also interesting that that a few of them are promoting and selling "genuine and authentic" Hongshan or archaic jades. It may not be coincident that they were also the one who would attack many jade carvings being posted in this forum as "modern fakes" based on only low-resolution pictures of such jade carvings and without the benefit of examining any of them in person. Most of them have a lot of confidence in their so-called experiences and expertise in jades. In general, they do indeed know more about jades and do have keener eyes than the general public in judging the quality of jade carvings especially the truly gruesome one. Unfortunately this overconfidence and/or arrogance often blind them into believing they are infallible and therefore only their jades or jades approved by them can be authentic and genuine. They have very low tolerance for other collectors'jades or any jades that were not approved by them. Strangely, such behavior is actually quite common, especially among "jade experts" inside China. Many of the respected jade experts in China were always at odds with each other regarding the authenticity of jade carvings. Very often, they could not agree with each other in the authenticity or age of a jade carving and would insist they were right and other experts were wrong. Many of them have huge egos that will inevitably cause their downfalls. No wonder there are Chinese auction houses in China who had sold very good Hongshan jade fakes as authentic Hongshan jades and the National Palaces Museum in Taiwan had exhibited "phony" Hongshan jade pieces as authentic. It is because most of these "jade experts" are so arrogant that they no longer listen to other jade collectors whom they believe are "beneath" them and/or to common senses.

Availability of Genuine Hongshan jades

I have heard the story about some rich Taiwan businessmen/jade investors who had attempted in buying up ALL the "genuine" Hongshan jades in China (so they can corner the market?) and only to find out later that most of them were fakes. It would be interested to revisit an interview given by one of the Hongshan jade gurus, Mr. Sun Shiu-do (who passed away about two years ago before his second Hongshan jade book was published) in 2005:

http://www.chicochai.com/jadeforum/read.php?forum=1&id=22628#22679 (translated interview)

http://www.cangnet.com/html/200509/2005092013405935.html (original interview in Chinese)

These are what he said about Hongshan jades available in the Chinese jade market (in 2005) in general:

"Almost all the Hongshan jades available in the current (Chinese) market are fakes. There are just no other ways around it. Every dealer in the market claims their jades are authentic. You try to teach them how to distinguish the real things from the fakes. They turn around and learn how to fake them better. Therefore, the fake one becomes real and the real one actually becomes fakes."

However, he believed authentic Hongshan jades could still be found and he believed the actual numbers of authentic Hongshan jades were much higher than the official number of 100+ (what he originally believed were authentic):

"There are still real Hongshan jades in the market. For example, in the Pan Jia Yuan in Beijing(an antique flea market) I have a friend gone there all the time to search for real Hongshan jades and he found five to six authentic pieces. Some are even very good. The varieties and styles of some of these authentic Hongshan jades have never been seen before."

"Yes, I believe there will be 10 to 19 more pieces of archaic jades entering the market every year."

"Give you a personal example, I have viewed more than ten thousands of Hongshan pieces in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Sin Yan and I have very mixed feelings. Previously, there were many pieces of Hongshan jades in Hong Kong and Taiwan. A few years ago, those dealers came to China and bought fifty to sixty thousand pieces of Hongshan jades. Some they have to spend more than ten million dollars to purchase. According to my opinion, I do not believe there are so many authentic Hongshan jades. You are lucky if you can find more than 10 pieces. Therefore, even auction companies will not accept consignment of Hongshan pieces so readily. From all the Hongshan jades I have seen, plus what are available in the market and displayed in museums, I believe there are about 1000+ (below 2000) authentic Hongshan pieces."

Jade materials found in authentic Hongshan jades

What you said about "the original material (of authentic Hongshan jades) is called "siu yen" jade (not Hetian jade)is correct to a certain extent.

Even now, they are no consensus among Hongshan jade experts in China what the most authentic jade materials for authentic Hongshan jade carvings should be. There are no official studies or published papers (that I know of) that analyze the physical properties of the jade materials of currently documented authentic Hongshan jade carvings that were excavated from know Hongshan sites. On almost all official or unofficial jade books or articles for Hongshan jades, they only label the material as either jade or not jade and their colors. Since the Chinese definition of jade (any stones that are beautiful and possess the five virtues) is vastly different than that of the west (nephrite and jadeite), therefore we do not know exactly what the most authentic jade materials for genuine Hongshan jade carvings were. I believe the official sources might have also purposely withheld such information from being disclosed.

However, if we refer to the article, "The Authentication of Hongshan Jades: Real or Fake" published by the renown Chinese jade expert, Mr. Zhou Nan Quan,

http://art.people.com.cn/BIG5/41067/4089669.html (Chinese)

In this paper, he listed three types of authentic jade materials used in the carving of authentic Hongshan jades:

"The materials of Hongshan Culture jade carvings

The materials found in the carving of Hongshan culture jades, should be the number one question in the authentication of Hongshan jades, but were often neglected by appraisers in the past. There are three types of genuine Hongshan jade materials:

(1) Dark green nephrite jade that resembles the "Bi Yu" (Bi=bluish green; Yu= jade; bi yu can also mean the dark green jasper) found in MaNaSi in XinJiang. This type of dark green nephrite was always found using in the carving of authentic large Hongshan C-dragons. However, such material could not be found inside the Hongshan area and the jade experts could not pinpoint its original sources. However, because of the difficulty in readily acquiring such material, the author and other Hongshan experts believe Hongshan jade carvings that were made of this type of material could be trusted to be genuine Hongshan jades.

(2) "Lao Xiu Yu" (Old Xiu Yan jade)- this is a type of nephrite jade that consists mostly of tremolite and with a MOH hardness of about 6.0 It was known as "Lao Xiu Yu" or "Old Xiu Yu"(Old Xiu Yan jade). It was also called "Kuan Dian" jade because it was found in the Kuan Dian County of the Liaoning province, China. (See map of the Liaoning province to show the location of both the Kuan Dian county and the Xiu Yan County; both were indicated with two RED arrows.)

(3) Xiu Yan Yu (Xiu Yu or Xiu Yan jade)- this is a type of jade material with hardness around 5, mostly serpentine, mined mainly in the Xiu Yan county in the Liaoning province (see map).

It is important to point out that because of the fact that the last two materials ( (2) and (3)) were considered to be authentic Hongshan jade materials, their original sources are within the Hongshan areas, the ease in obtaining them and their affordable prices, therefore may jade fakes are using them to fake Hongshan culture jades.

The original colors of Hongshan culture jades are: white, celadon (pale green), bi (bluish green or elephant blue to the point almost appears to be black), black, greenish with yellow tint, white with yellow and brownish tints, classical yellow jades are very rare and a few are grayish white."

According to my personal experience and study, not all authentic Hongshan jade carvings were made of Xiu Yan jade (Xiu Yu) (serpentine). I do not know what percentage of authentic Hongshan jade carvings were made of serpentine and nephrite. Many of the authentic Hongshan jade carvings were made of this beautiful truly yellow jade with superb luster. I could not tell if such yellow jade is serpentine or nephrite but I can tell you that their hardness has to be at least 5 or higher (cannot be scratched) and their luster (due to superb polishing) are so superb that that they look like newly made gems. Modern polishing would not accomplish such feat (of such superb luster). Truly beautiful yellow jades, whether they are serpentine or nephrite are truly rare. Such material simply cannot be easily obtained. It is easier to obtain white Hetian nephrite jade than yellow Hetian nephrite jade. However, I have yet seen any authentic Hongshan jade carvings that were made of white Hetian-like nephrite jade although Diasai said he had seen them. Therefore, quite a few of the high-priced Hongshan jade fakes, in my opinions, were made of these white nephrite jades. I have seen authentic Hongshan jade carvings being made of yellow-greenish and celadon high-quality nephrite jade (resembles the quality of Hetian jades) with a S.G. of 2.96 and higher and a hardness of 6.0 and higher. Again, while it may be easier to obtain this type of material (not cheap though) it is very hard to fake the luster. (Modern polishing and/or waxing cannot create such luster). Bear in mind though, there are vast difference between the Xiu Yan jade (I like to call it New Xiu Yan jade) even being used today to make modern jade carvings and those that were used in the past. All the modern xiu yan jade are almost typical of pale green color and can be scratched; some higher grade yellow or pale green one that cannot be scratched are very transparent and look almost like agate and were made into high-priced jade bracelets. The older Xiu Yan jades are always very hard and cannot be scratched, some would like to call them bowenite (though there is no such term academically). The truly old one looks dark green, heavy, hard and looks like nephrite. Some are yellowish-green, brownish-yellow and all are in better quality than those that can be found today. In short, it has become more difficult in finding even truly good Xiu Yan jade material in making Hongshan jade fakes. There is actually another type of Xiu Yan jade that is a combination of both nephrite and serpentine jade, with a hardness of around 5 (some can be scratched and some cannot) and a S.G. of around 2.80 �C 2.86. It is too high to be serpentine but not high enough to be quality nephrite jade. They are greenish-yellow but sometimes with red coloring (stain) outside (due to cinnabar?).

Carving of Hongshan jades

While I surely cannot disagree with you that the forms and styles of most Hongshan jades (fakes or real) are indeed simple and therefore easier to fake. It may also be true that many of the tool marks would be polished off. However, if a faker would really take so much effort in making such a good Hongshan fake: selecting the most authentic and quality jade material, polish off all the tool marks to make it look authentic, you will almost assure that they would be high-priced fakes. Therefore, to me the higher the sales price of a Hongshan jade carving is the more risky it will become. I have seen Hongshan carvings that look very authentic (in both material and carving) to me, and were authenticated by Gu Fang, selling from $1,000 to $3,000. I had also heard that truly genuine Hongshan carving will start in the US $13,000 or more with the really good one in thousands of dollars. However, can you really believe in that the more you would pay for a Hongshan piece, the more authentic it would become? Further more, ther are certain carving techniques that could only be found on genuine Hongshan carvings and they were very difficult to fake. There were different carving charaterisitcs found on genuine Hongshan carvings that were known only to Hongshan jade experts but were not know to fakers. Therefore while the fakes could copy the forms and styles of Hongshan jades, they could not copy the carving techniques and spirits of genuine Hongshan jades. If they can, then their fakes would be worthy to be collected too.

Why are we still collecting Hongshan jades?

It is really true in what you said abot the chances of encountering genuine Hongshan jades are so slim and I once became very despondent and was ready to give up my study of Hongshan jades and for that fact in the attempt of ever finding any really authentic archaic jades. I simply do not have the resources or the know-how in doing so. However even while Mr. Sun readily admit that there are a lot of Hongshan fakes but he did not condemn all of them and suggested we had to be very careful in judging them:

"However, although there are so many fakes in the current market, I can not rule out the possibility in finding authentic one. The key is in how to discover the real jades from all these fake jades. This is our ultimate goal but it is also the biggest obstacle. Therefore when we look at the market of cultural arts (collectibles), we must expand our scope of searching. We need to allow the accumulation of all jades including the fake one, then takes time to eliminate the fakes from the real ones. We should consider all fakes as authentic in the beginning so that we will not miss anything. Even though there are fakes, we should allow their existence and should not destroy them. If for some reasons we mistaken the real things as fakes and destroy them, it will be very regrettable."

Furthermore, he believed some of the Hongshan copies, especially the one made in later dynasties or even modern one may have artistic and collector values:

"Reporter: What is your view on the current flood of Hongshan jades into the market?

Sun: There are lots of Hongshan jades out there and the market is complex. We need to focus on two things: First is to look at the original works and see if they are truly jades made during the Hongshan period; Secondly, we need to look at their ages, including when they were forged. With so many Hongshan pieces in the current market, it is not possible for all them belong to Hongshan period because there were imitation Hongshan pieces during different Chinese dynasties. However, I believe there are more new Hongshan fakes than old fakes. How should we look at the problem of new fakes? My personal view is that if old stuff disappear, then even the new stuff will become valuable. For example, in museum, they have quite a few forged items. One reason is they use them for displays and exhibitions; another reason is that real stuffs have become rare and they need to be protected. After a while, even reproduction pieces will justify their presences. Another type (of fakes) is the ��remake�� of Hongshan archaic jades. This is both an artistic phenomenon and a crafting arts phenomenon because the artists rejuvenate their artistic innovations. I believe this is a good sign. They inherit the superb tradition of Hongshan culture, yet conserve the Hongshan styles, but in the mean time they interject their bold imaginations and creativities into the new pieces. We should allow them to inherit, expand and create because only then we will have new innovations. There is a mystic force in the jades of Neolithic cultures, their intensity are so profound and are loved by many people. To limit their inheritance and development will be cruel. I don��t think that will be right. I believe what they are doing is a tribute to the Hongshan culture. However, this is totally different with some forgers who just imported some Indian gods to China and called them Hongshan culture or bring the little mermaid from Hans Christian Anderson��s fairly tales and call it Hongshan culture. These resulted in laughing matters to the whole hobby. They do not admit these pieces are made from their own subjective imaginations nor can they say what type of styles they are imitating, but they insist their final products are that of Hongshan. This is the kind of forgery that lacks culture and should not be valued. Therefore while we lament the fact that forgeries (of Hongshan jades) have become widespread, without any rules and patterns, sometimes even out of place and grotesque, at least it will improve our abilities and wisdom in the appraisals of such objects."

Therefore while it is absolutely true that the chance for an average collector in ever obtaining a genuine Hongshan jade carving is slim to none unless such a collector would have a deep pocket, a vast knowledge in Hongshan jades or jade experts whom they can trust in advising them. However, it is still possible for all of us in obtaining genuinely greatgood Hongshan copies that would have their places in the history of Chinese jade collecting. That is why I am so vehemently in challenging all these supposedly "jade experts" in the labeling of every single jade carving they do not like as modern fakes without taking the time in studying the materials and/or carving techniques in making such modern fakes and in the their ignoring of common senses in believing that jade fakers are out to lose money by selling jade fakes below their manufacturing costs. My motto regarding jades is:

"New is OLD, Old is NEW;

Cheap is not necessarily FAKE; Expensive is not necessarily REAL."

Thanks for sharing.

Bill

P.S. Anita should not read this message because it is indeed long and it will give her tons of headaches.

Hello Bill and Anita,

Thanks for your feedback.

We are of the opinion that it is OK to diagree because this is not an exact science. In our circle of collectors we often argue till we are blue in the face, but, never with malice and in anger.

Our main aim is to propogate the understanding of jade and improve our own knowledge with exchanges such as in this forum. To this end we hope to help/guide newphites so that they do not end up with drawers full of fakes like we did many, many moons ago.

Best wishes,

Bobby

Dear Bill,

It has taken me this long to reply properly to you because (1) I was away on holiday, (2) I am computer-challenged, and (3) I am Chinese educated and have to depend on my partner to draft this reply.

I have been very fortunate to count Mr. Zhou Nan Quan as one of my teachers and I owe him a very great debt in my pursuit of jade knowledge. He is a very patient scholar, gentleman and would explain in minute details the 5 W�s of jade. However, as knowledgeable as he is, he is not considered to be an Hongshan jade specialist like Mr. Sun Shiu-do. While Mr. Zhou�s article "The Authentication of Hongshan Jades: Real or Fake" contains most of the necessary information to help ID Hongshan jades, however, to be able to actually appraise an authentic specimen is a totally different exercise. Unfortunately, Mr. Zhou�s ability to appraise/authenticate Hongshan jades has been put into question. Books and articles are the number one source of information for most of us to enhance our knowledge, but, we can only learn so much from books; it can complement and reinforce our knowledge but can never replace hands-on experience. In fact, some older books and private dealers� catalogues are down right erroneous and dangerous (as in knowledge and wasting money on fakes) for neophytes!

I have also met Mr. Sun, who was a serious and scientific investigator, and participated in several of the yearly meetings of jade culture representatives from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan, until I immigrated to Canada in 1997.

Perhaps I am more fortunate than most, in that I am also acquainted with people who produce fake jades for a living. That�s why it is important for us to study and examine the really good forgeries as intently as the genuine pieces.

If we happen upon a Hongshan-style piece, as a rule we might pay for its quality of material and artistic value, not its possible historic, extrinsic value of being a true Hongshan because we just don�t trust ourselves enough to ascertain its provenance one way or the other.

Regards,

Bobby

Does any one know how these fakes are made? How do they "age" them?

Roland

Jades have been made to look �ancient� since at least the Song Dynasty. Each period has their own methodology. Also, different levels (in terms of expertise) command different ways to fake.

Let�s concentrate on the top notch fakers who would have to be pretty good carvers in their own right to begin with.

Aside from being a good to great carver, he would have to have a thorough understanding of the history and culture of that particular era he intends to copy. Then he would have to master the different techniques involved in the whole process such as drilling, carving, polishing, etc. (probably most of the true ancient methods are lost for good and the forgers have to improvise). While he may be able to copy the forms/shapes quite accurately, his biggest challenge is probably to capture the essence of the �spirit/vitality/liveliness� of the objects. This is where most forgers fail.

Then he has to find the appropriate materials prevalent of the era he is faking. Most importantly, he should have authentic samples to study first, and then copy later.

That�s why, in the case of Hongshan jades, because of their simple forms, �not-well-defined cuts� and the availability of similar materials, these can be more easily and accurately replicated.

The best fakes would be from authentic old jades which are recarved partially or completely. As for artificial aging, the usual methods involve heating, boiling and/or soaking in colourantsand resins, burying with various materials, acid treatment. Amber was one of the most popular colourants during Ming till mid Qing which could change the object into various shades of yellow/orange to dark brown. However, it appears this art of using amber is now lost.

The main reason for copying is of course for financial reward. However, some would presumably do it for the thrill of being able to fool even experts and be paid handsomely too!


Bobby
Oriental Treasures

Now I have a Song Dynasty "Chimera" or Bixie made from a translucent pale green jade with a lite frosting on it, also a large translucent green Bi that 3/4 of the Bi has turned cocky white.
I always though this was due to its age. Am I wrong?

Roland

You would have to post your pictures for members to comment.

Bobby

Dear Bill,
I hope you will get this message because it will blow you away. You talked about large nephrite jade carving from the hongshan or not. Well i have come across a collection of nephrite jade carving with realy huge pieces. see photo's. one statue of 40 kilo's with script and one axe of 35 kilo. now that is big.

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