Rival to Gold

It has been many years that historic Chinese porcelain has been claimed to be “RIVAL TO GOLD” and its subtitle is “Historic Chinese ceramics may be good bet to invest”, Hong Kong news found in The Malay Mail dated October 12^th 1979 and this article also tell us that it is impossible to make copies otherwise how can it be rival to gold.

I have not found any good collectors in antique Chinese porcelain because experts like William Willetts, Peter Clague, His Honour the Learned Magistrate Che Mokhtar Bin Che Ali, Mr. Mohammad, an Indonesian dealer, Hong Kong freelance dealer, a Chinese dealer at a shopping complex in Kuala Lumpur wants a piece of cake from the late Mr. Ng Ting Kau. I instigated my late father to fight on and now I am instigating collectors to fight with vendors or sellers if the items are not right or properly explained to satisfy doubts. This instigation was made up by experts and at that time when the experts told the collectors that their items are genuine are also problems to the collectors because they did not get the way how the experts got the conclusions. His Honour Che Mokhtar Bin Che Ali was a good expert in this field when he wrote the grounds of judgement.  The rest are dealers who want to make themselves popular by pointing their fingers at Ng Ting Kau for selling fake antiques and ended that they were brought down at public places.

There are two men I met recently one at a coffee shop and another at a society. 1) The one I met at the society is a Chinese calligrapher who wants to start an event at the society and seated beside him was a friend who said that you need to grind the Chinese ink, I then said that if the ink is viscous, it will be difficult to drag the brush and if it is too thin it will smear which made them staring at this English educated man. I then told them that I have two sets of Sung dynasty 960A.D. to 1279A.D. calligraphy set which I kept for my family. They were so excited and wanted to see, I told them to get the ink stick and we will make use of it. 2) The one I met at the coffee shop is a manager of a company and he reads Chinese and English, I show him some of my pieces and he is a knowledgeable person in Chinese culture. He told me that the group of artists who boarded the missing plane was at the gallery for seminar near the coffee shop that we met. We have enjoyable moment sharing knowledge because I can produce the piece and he was able to shed some light like I brought a painting, he then told me that the silk for clothes are different from for Chinese paintings.

There are two visitors. 1) Visitor from Malaysia searching for cost of antique nyonya “chai” in Penang. What is the item or items are not stated. Pricing can only be done with the items in front of you and not by just guessing. 2) Visitor from Singapore searching for “antique store in kuala lumpur” will have a good time searching for it. All the best and look for safe deals. There is an e-mail asking what I sell, I used to sell a lot of antiques like furniture , old embroidery, old Kelantan silver ware, coins, pocket watches, Dutch cast iron hanging kerosene lamps, old copper batik chops, porcelain wares of different dynasties, cut glass ware and whatever I come across that is of interest to customers. In my private collection, I have antique Chinese porcelain of different dynasties, old fountain pens which I bought at a clearance sale and there are not many collectors at that time and an old cut glass tantalus.

There is a Chinese lady who knows my late father and also known to many people, she was angry with me for criticizing William Willetts and from then on she has been fishing for information on antique Chinese porcelain. There was an exhibition and most of the items are from sunken vessel, she brought two items to show to a man who took part in the salvage of the sunken vessel. She said that it is from her ancestors, I then seek her permission to take a look at the base of one of the item which is a blue and white mei ping vase drawn with a stork. I then said it is a common drawing of the Yuan dynasty but did not say whether it is genuine or fake and she said it is older than that, I then said that it is Tang dynasty which I am making a fool out of her. I know that she is a student of William Willetts and she is a spy for Willetts and criticizing my late father and now she has distance herself from me. I felt it is much better instead of wasting time.

Another case was at the Chinese tea exhibition last year, one man  and his son operate a stall knows my friend, this man has always ignored me and in front of his stall with his friends, I brought out tea pots problems and further said wealth never passed one generation if we buy the wrong thing. One of his friends brought out his hand phone from his bag and asked me to look at the items that he has. I told him that I do not authenticate for collectors because genuine or fake are none of my business.

I have been playing the fool with foreign speakers and I enjoyed it because the fact that they handle artefacts less than me. I challenge them by my experience and they are out. I look forward to challenge experts otherwise antique business is a sunset business. Chinese educated experts are not worth trusting.