At a Chinese Tea Exhibition

To some antique porcelain collectors, there may not be so much of fun but for me it was during the second week of December of 2014 that a tea exhibition organizer has invited a few collectors from overseas to authenticate porcelain items. I was there to hear the talk and to add their knowledge to my experiences. The talk is in Cantonese and the first day was the talk on Ming dynasty Cheng hua period. The second day was the Ming dynasty Yong Lo and Hsuan Te period (old spelling of emperors’ names found in books).

On the first day of the talk there was nothing very interesting because not many exhibits was shown but on the second day exhibits shown was a blue and white stem bowl drawn with dragon which I forgot whether is one dragon or two and another is a blue and white bowl with lotus pond in the bowl and gold flowers on the wall of the bowl and at the base there is a gold flower pattern like.

 I asked the experts on the iron rust spots because the blue and white bowl has iron rust spot and I was told that now a days these iron spots can be made and the difference between the new and old which is what I needed to know. Later I was taken to see the stem bowl and I was told to use a magnifier on it to see the difference for myself which make me to understand more in authentication before I retire from this field and provide the knowledge and what I had understood to my children. This is the fun I had.

There are four visitors 1) Visitor from Australia searching for ”Peranakan blackwood price”. For this you have to ask timber merchant for the price per ton. 2) Visitor from Shah Alam searching for “antique dealers Malaysia”. This search has been answered and no use addressing this issue over and over again which is a waste of time. 3) Visitor from Petaling Jaya Selangor searching for “Chinese furniture seller in Kuala Lumpur”. The Chinese furniture seller can be found in some shopping complex. 4) Visitor from Brunei searching for “peranakan porcelain ware” has been answered.  

Merry Christmas 2014 and Happy New Year

I am very happy for this visitor who knows that there is a “freelance carpenter old klang road’ which I have not heard of and I wish this visitor all the best. MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Collectors Need Knowledge

There are eight visitors to this blog 1) Visitor from Raub, Pahang searching for “fake Chinese Porcelain in K.L.”  This visitor’s search is not only found in K.L. It is also found in Melaka when I visited some years ago. 2) Visitor from Woodside New York searching for “fake yuan porcelain “ which is easy to find because I have seen many in Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya. Maybe New York is unlike Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya, there are local and foreign traders here. There are genuine Yuan items which came to Nanyang because at the time of the Yuan Dynasty A.D. 1279 to A.D. 1368 which is the short time rule over China that not many places of the Yuan dynasty items had deposited and the place known with Yuan dynasty items is Istanbul. I came to know the deposit of Yuan items because active trade has taken place during the Yuan dynasty. This active trade has made the Mongol government of the Yuan Dynasty richer and this high demand of porcelain will not leave potters bankrupt. Anybody can study the difference between the old and the new. 3) Visitor from Destelbergen , Oost-Vlaanderen, Belgium searching for “Joseon dynasty korea christie’s”. Being a collector, one must understand what to buy or good to keep.  The collectors in Chinese porcelain had already known what are “bandung copies”, Jing de zhen copies” and genuine ones without having to ask around. 4) Visitor from Singapore and 5) visitor from Kuala Lumpur searching for “shopping for peranakan porcelain in Malacca”. This search has been answered in this blog earlier and no use repeating. 6) Visitor from Cheras Selangor searching for “klang valley sells porcelain jar”. The answer is above. 7) Visitor from Penang, Pulau Pinang searching for “nyonya ware”. Star Newspaper has featured a shop with address that sells nyonya ware and not any other ware. I took this newspaper article to a flea market and a vendor from Penang asked me to make a photo copy for him and this copy will be delivered to him this Sunday. Another vendor uses his handphone camera to take a photo of this article. 8) Visitor from Indonesia searching for “Chinese antique furniture Kuala Lumpur”. Most of the antique furniture needs repair and the difficult to get restorers makes it not profitable for dealers. I remember my father’s friend bought a set of mahogany furniture from a rich and famous family in Ipoh and the set of furniture was left with a European lady married to a local Chinese in Kuala Lumpur. This set of furniture has a round frame chair back set with beautiful round Ching Dynasty polychrome porcelain piece. The common ones are set with round marble.

Some of the collectors cum experts do not authenticate artefacts according to characteristics which ended up being guessing. One Chinese collector showed photographs of his Yi-Hsing teapots which he believed to be good and when I asked whether water will seep through the wall of the teapots, he accuses me of being a trouble maker which I am still laughing at this accusation and not being accused of being an old redundant. Most of the collectors want to popularize themselves without knowledge but pointing fingers at others as being bad. They think that by being a collector is to buy and keep whatever they believe to be genuine and not knowing that they have to let others know how and what important or valuable the artefact. The knowledge makes the items important thus making them a good collector.