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Meeting up with the Hong Kong "Fake master"

Every single piece on this picture is a hard to spot fake, except the Qingbai top right, which is ok but damaged and of low quality. These pieces were clearly manufactured as fakes in China. The dealer was quite open about it and was quite happy selling whatever he had. The prices were reasonable at US $50-100 before negotiations.

These pieces indicates that you have to be well read up on whatever you want to buy, since there were nothing in particular on these pieces which easily could tell they were fakes, besides they felt "wrong" in a very wide sense.

The paste were ok, the glaze was ok with imperfections and all. The painting was similar to what is should be but a bit off - maybe the easiest to see. The bases were crude and covered with mud in a way early Ming pieces really very seldom are - but they still looked reasonably ok.

One small clue though, was the weight of the pieces - this the fakers cant judge from pictures and shards but I realize this is hard to learn by us just visiting museums, so beware.


Text © Jan-Erik Nilsson, Gothenburg, Sweden 2001