Hi everyone, I thought I`d write a few words on the subject of Chinese antiques & was partly inspired by Peter Combs otherwise excellent, common sense guide which starts with the sentence, "Any Porcelains being sold on Ebay USA and are located in China i.e. Hong Kong, Shanghai etc. purporting to be Imperial, Ming, Sung, Tang, Jin, Yuan or just older than 120 years has a 99.9 percent chance of being a total Fake, period."

Actually this is fair enough as a brief glance through listings from China will show you, heaps of reproductions offered by various "private museums" or pieces "collected from the countryside" but Hong Kong is actually a different story not being subject to the mainlands cultural relics laws & being a major centre for the trade in genuine Chinese antiques. Thats not to say that the practices highlighted in Peter`s guide are not practiced by unscrupulous sellers here, I could name you several but if a seller is located in Hong Kong, (as I am) it may still be worthwhile to see whats on offer.

Peter`s guide highlights the sharp practices used by some sellers & points out things that should raise a red flag for potential buyers, as he says there is no easy way for a novice in this field to tell the difference between the real & the phoney & there`s really no short cut to the only defence against fakery, knowledge.

My first advice to the novice collector would always be "slow down", it`s very easy when you`re sat at the computer & see all these wonderful looking things to press that "bid" button only to end up with a room full of reproductions or low quality pieces from the first half of the 20thC. As knowledge is your only defence you will need some books first, these you can never get enough of but here are a few of my favourite ones that I think you`ll find useful.

The number one book in my library & IMO the best general overview of Chinese pottery from the year dot is Margaret Medley`s "The Chinese Potter. A practical history of Chinese ceramics."  ISBN 0 7148 2593 X.

The next "must have" book is He Li`s "Chinese ceramics" The new standard guide. ISBN 0-500-28623-X. This book is great due to lavish illustrations & excellent notes for each.

These two books will probably do for the beginning but one more very good book covering the whole enormous field of Chinese ceramics is by Shelagh Vainker who is curator of Chinese art at the Ashmolean museum in Oxford, UK, the books title is "Chinese pottery & porcelain" ISBN 0-7141-2432-X

When you`ve read these books you`ll start to have an understanding of the various wares produced throughout Chinas long history & whilst you may now know what a "Jun Yao" censer or an Imperial Ming dynasty dish may look like you still can`t tell whether the piece is genuine or a recent copy so whats next?

Museums should be & I guess if you`re interested enough to get the books that you`re probably no stranger to museums. If you`re lucky enough to be close to a decent museum go often, don`t overload your brain by dashing around everything in an afternoon but concentrate on a few pieces at a time, if you get bored quickly maybe you`re not as interested as you thought you were.

Of course looking at pieces through museum glass can be frustrating & handling experience is very important for determining the authenticity of a piece so as well as museums you should visit the large auction houses prior to their sales as then you`ll be able to handle genuine pieces & have a really good close look at them. Many of these pieces will be way out of your price range but don`t worry just enjoy the experience & learn. Dealers in brick & morter establishments will also let you handle pieces although they might want you to pay for it if you drop it on the floor so be careful!

As mentioned in Peter`s guide think about joining a club, a local ceramic or oriental society. Your knowledge will start to increase by leaps & bounds once you start discussing your hobby with like minded people, to this end you may consider joining one of the on-line forums that discuss Chinese ceramics. Two that come to mind are "Asian arts forum" which is free to join but is loosely moderated & IMO the quality of some contributions could be higher. Nevertheless there are some knowledgable members & it can be helpful. The "gotheborg" website which is operated by JE Nielson as well as having a very good marks section & glossary also has a discussion board for collectors of Chinese & Japanese ceramics, this costs money to join & I think the cheapest membership is about $20.00, quite proactively moderated with a total ban on any comercial posts this is a good site with many knowledgable members & as a lot of them would have been through the same stages as you as a novice collector this site can be very helpful.

If you`re still into Chinese pottery at this stage you`re ready to spend some cash & you should have a fair idea of what sort of thing you want to collect. You still don`t have to spend too large amounts of cash & from the research you`ve done you`ll have an idea of which sellers to buy from. Don`t be scared to ask questions & request extra photo`s if you need them.  Buy damaged pieces for low cost so that you can get the feel of genuine paste & glaze etc as well as the different construction techniques used during the different periods of Chinese history.

To be continued,

BTW, if you find this interesting or helpful in any way please press the button below, many thanks.