Most of the collectors in Chinese Antiques have this in
their mind that what they have are genuine and valuable. The items or artefacts
sold at the shop are fakes and not valuable. To prove this fact wrong 1) I have
with me some old beautiful furniture which is thrown away as garbage in Penang
and now it is consider recycle furniture. 2) I bought two fountain pens from
two different people and when I show them to the dealers they were willing to
pay me a good price for them because such items are not easily found. 3) At a
car park, I found a piece of raw turquoise stone (unpolished) and this has zero
cost on me. My aim is to look for things that are hard to get whether at shops
or roadside is not important but not many people having the same thing as I have.
The items that are old and can be seen in many places are not my interest.
A visitor from New Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, is searching
for “antique shops in Malaysia”. There are no good record of shops selling
antiques in Malaysia because the experts named led the collectors to know what
to collect and most of the shops in Malaysia closed because the items sold are
no good for collection and further that the experts did not make things clear
what are good to collect and what are not to dealers. Antique business is
different from other business because dealers have to keep stock whenever they
come across any good items and not a kind of business that you place an order
and wait for delivery whereas antique collectors only browse around to see if
anything suits them.
There are three visitors, one from Ampang searching for
“nyonya ware sales”, second from Kuala Lumpur searching for “+nyonya porcelain
wall paintings”, the third from
Singapore searching for “BUY AUTHENTIC NYONYA WARES” and the fourth visitor from
Kuala Lumpur W.P. searching for
“antique famille rose nyonya ware for
sale”. I am sorry that I am unable to furnish you all with the “lousy ware”
information. I am not interested in nyonya ware. Ng Ting Kau used to have
dinner sets and even a piece from a French lady Madame Lopez was said to be
fake or copy from Bandung that make me to give up talking about nyonya ware
items. The brochure for the mail order for nyonya ware will be posted in this
blog. Situation like this will make your blood pressure high because artefacts
kept for a long time and a good hobby for making money turned out to be fakes
and can be ordered from factories. My late father was good at cutting losses by
throwing them away.
A visitor from 1)Puchong Selangor searching for “peranakan
ware”. 2) A visitor from Singapore is searching
for “how do you know if peranakan bowls are real antiques?” and 3) A visitor
from Singapore is searching for “how to check authentic peranakan bowls or not.
This word “peranakan ware” is a new word and is new to me and I do not
understand “peranakan ware”
Another visitor from Kajang Selangor is searching for
“antique authentication Singapore”. There are a number of experts in Singapore
and one is an advisor to “Ku Tong Wong” in Ipoh.
1)A visitor from Penang , Pulau Pinang searching for http://ngtingkauantiques.blogspot.com
and 2) A visitor from Kajang Selangor searching for http://ngtingkauantiques.blogspot.com
which I do not know what he or she wants and has made me to guess what is
wanted.
In the world of antique trade, dealers and collectors who
are not knowledgeable usually practice 1) rumour buy, rumour sell. 2) guessing
buy, guessing sell and to get involved in this confusion will make life
miserable and these misery is sought by collectors who is fond of chasing after
rainbows. Experts claim themselves to be good at authenticating antiques and
their best answer given will be “imitations can be made exactly the same as
originals” which made me lost out to experts and collectors. This problem is
forwarded to all experts and collectors not to keep something that is “no
genuine, no fake”.
This recent weekend, I met a dealer in antique and
collectible items from Penang and I told him of my good time searching for
antiques that I had in Malacca and Penang. I even told him that Mr. Bah Chong
Seang, a Thai national who rented a room at 58, Lorong Selamat, Penang searched
antiques for my father to sell and anything that involve large sum of money, my
father will go with me to Penang. My good chance in a lifetime was to see a
twenty two katies (Malayan weight measurement used in the earlier days) silver
vase in a special case with mahogany wood frame and also three bronze items a
bull, a lady and a bear which Mr. Bah took us to see. He told us that he has
customer interested in cast iron eagle which was removed from gate pillars of
bungalow houses. We do not have customers for the items shown to us but have a
chance to see and know that such items exist.
Mr. Bah knows what my father saleable items 1) from Penang
Furniture, nyonya porcelain ware and from Thailand, bronze Buddha, wood
musician figurine set for wall decoration, Angkor Wat sandstone items, old swankhalok
and sukhothai items. Mr. Bah also deals in other things, while in Penang, he
extracted a lot of intan (diamond chips) from nyonya gold kerosang (nyonya brooches)
and take it to Thailand and to be refacet and sold there, the gold is sold as
scrap and from Thailand he brings in silver brooches, brass forks and spoon
with cow horn handle, Angkor Wat panels, bronze Buddha, gem stones. I remember
this man very well because he and his son attended my wedding dinner in 1983 and
he has given me a beautiful embroidery banner with Eight Fairies ushering good
luck and my name written in gold paint on the side. Mr. Bah also taught us how
to test silver and gold because we also deal in silverware like pillow ends,
mosquito nets’ hooks and English hall mark silver with a lion. I am having
three solid silver propelling pencils. There is a dictionary for the place and
date of manufacture.
In web site shows an irregular reign mark of a Ming dynasty
and this irregular reign mark was found on a piece in a world famous
collector’s collection. I do not depend on reign mark to tell whether the piece
or artefact is old or important.
These are my experiences which I can share 1) This Chinese
customer of my father passed my shop many times and I invited him and he
refused. The second time I invited him to have a cup of coffee and he refused.
Now that I have this blog to deliver my message, he wants to invite me a cup of
coffee. 2) Another is a friend who kept his distance many times trying to get a
better relation after reading my blogs which I have no time for gathering. 3) I
receive threats to the extent “no need to prove and you have to admit that you
are selling fakes.”
Now that I leave this matter on genuine or fake to
collectors and experts because after I caught collectors and experts
celebrating my father’s death and I also celebrate “all artefacts are fakes
until and unless proven genuine”. If you have any good result to share with me
that the artefacts are genuine I can be found at Sun Kee coffee shop opposite
Pearl Point International where I have my lunch and dinner at Taman Desa food
court.
