A Porcelain Collectors Discussion Board

When the Gotheborg Discussion Board was started back in June 1999 it was with several purposes in mind. I felt that we as collectors lacked a meeting place that the professional dealers had in their regular trade fairs, where they could tell each other about upcoming events and exchange trade gossip. I felt that the newly invented Internet opened a completely new way of creating a meeting place where we collectors could make friends and meet other collectors with similar interests, from all over the world. It would be a place where we could help each other to learn more about our own collections and, not the least important - help each other to avoid buying fakes.

In the late 1990s the Internet was gaining general acceptance and at rink side stood an export hungry Chinese ceramics industry, ready to fill a brisk demand for newly made "antiques", facilitated by a newborn Internet auction company all too happy to sell anything, under the creed 'We are only a venue'.

Fallen in disrepute due to their high prices - when compared with the fakes - were the old brick-and-mortar antique dealers, carrier of generations of knowledge and always ready to face-to-face explain what separated 'rose medallion' from 'famille rose'; Why Chinese porcelain could have 'Imari' decoration; why you could not have a Ming for a Song and; that 'Made in China' was not a dynasty.

Museum Director and Honorary 'Dragon' at the Gotheborg.com Discussion board, Leif Petzäll
shows a group of interested board members items from the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities in Ulricehamn during a 2006 visit.

Then among scholars and collectors there had always been a tradition to pick up a student with whom you could share your knowledge and to train to follow in your footsteps, and to keep all this practical, hands on, knowledge alive. Also according to the traditions it does take decades of effort to become reasonable knowledgeable in Asian ceramics.

If there ever were a shortcut, that would be this discussion board.

I am personally greatly indebted to Professor Bo Gyllensvärd, among other things the curator of our late King, HRH Gustav VI Adolf's Chinese porcelain collection, and a number of other highly respected porcelain scholars and dealers from all over the world, who all have had a lot of patience with me.

The Gotheborg.com Discussion Board is thus my way of saying thank you, to pass the legacy on, to continue the tradition and to create an archive where this information can be stored for many years to come. So far this joint effort has been very successful.

Now after more than a decade on-line our Discussion Board has grown into a large and friendly Research and Discussion community for Chinese and Japanese Porcelain Collectors. Here you will find some 300,000 pictures, questions and answers in permanent storage and growing daily.

If you feel you would like to be a part of this, we only ask for some help towards covering the costs of the server this list and archive resides on. A 'Western Flowery Gate' membership is $29 USD for a full year counting from the day you sign up, equaling a modest c. $2.50 per month. If you are the slightest interested in collecting Asian ceramics you will make this back in an instant on the first better ceramic piece you buy.

Then again, you will soon notice that this is not about money, but about enjoying your collecting interest, making friends and having a good time.

Most welcome to the Gotheborg.com Discussion Board