The World Antique Market

I. M. Chait –

As the population on planet Earth grows, the world seems to be getting smaller and smaller. A few short decades ago, it would have been unheard of or not believed that antique dealers and collectors from around the world could travel with such ease and regularity to all the various cities throughout the world that held auctions of Chinese antiques.

There are several factors to what has changed regarding the World Antique Market. As important as the discovery of fire and the invention of the wheel, so too has been, in our time, the Internet and the ability for nearly anyone to use the World Wide Web in communication and in seeking out, as well as marketing, antiques. Of course, there are and have been various rules and regulations which slowed down activity in some countries. Of course, there have been unscrupulous individuals using this method of communication unethically, but what stands out as the most significant factor of the 20th and 21st Centuries is that the Internet provides a freedom of motion and activity that has never before been available.

Economies grow, and economies fail, but what has now become obvious to the entire world is that China is once again prepared and moving into a position of power in a vast number of areas, but importantly to us, also in the area of antiques. Chinese antiques have been collected in the Eastern World, as well as created, for two millennia. In the Western World, this collecting interest saw a great rise approximately 500 years ago, and it has steadily increased over the last 200 years. What no one could foresee was the geometric growth of interest and activity, especially in the last decade.

Not a day goes by, not an antique show occurs, not an auction takes place, items are not posted on the Internet but that Chinese people (collectors and dealers), whether living in Asia or living overseas, are not in some way involved.

Whether it’s the Qianlong Falancai enameled porcelain vase selling in a small Southeast United States auction for a million dollars that was estimated for a fraction of that or the underglaze red Hongwu platter selling in a San Francisco auction for millions of dollars, that had previously been used to serve crab to the owner’s family; there are no more hidden treasures—not even undiscovered treasures.

Experts and beginners alike can debate endlessly whether or not this is a good thing or a bad thing. What is not open for debate is that this is the new way of life. With billions of people living in China and even with only a microscopic increase in interest from new collectors, fueled by the increasing value of the Yuan, every day thousands more have the leisure time and finances to be interested in antiques. Now, if only a few of those thousands have computers and if only a few of those have been to any cities to see the phenomenal and high tech museum displays of which China is so proud, this changes the market, forever.

In days of old, if one wanted to see the finest early Ming blue and white, there were few choices. One could travel to Istanbul, Turkey, and look in the Topkapi where the pieces were poorly lit, dusty, and platters were stacked one on top of the other because there was no space. One could also go to London and look at the Percival David Collection, also poorly displayed and most pieces not in plain view. Today, one can simply go to the Forbidden City to see the Palace Collection, to the Capital Museum in Beijing, or to the wonderfully laid out Shanghai Museum. Even the English now have taken the David Collection and more properly displayed it in new installations within the British Museum. Let’s also not discount the dozens and dozens of provincial museums in China, the Palace Museum in Taipei, as well as an equally-abundant number of museums in America and Europe that understand that they must now feature Chinese antiques for visiting tourists and for local populations on whom they depend for membership and donations.

What an amazing world we live in today that on almost a daily basis or a weekly basis, there are auctions or fairs around the world with Chinese antiques to look at and buy. Also amazingly, nearly all of these can be previewed sitting at home or in an Internet café with a cup of tea and your laptop computer.

There are still some out there whom we might call “naysayers” who say it’s just a fluke or oddity that a piece of Chinese furniture might bring a million dollars, or porcelain tens of millions of dollars, or a bronze millions of dollars. There is no “oddity”. The market is international. The interest level has sky-rocketed. The number of people looking is endless, and the amount of money available to buy seems to have no end in sight.

This, of course, would explain why every major auction house and every dealer in Chinese antiques is looking to clients, to whom they sold things five, or ten, or even twenty years ago—hoping to get back those things and make a profit for both themselves and the clients. What truer test of value is there, where a piece that sold for two million Hong Kong dollars ten years ago now sells for ten or twenty million? The World Market is here and now, and anywhere you turn, you will see evidence of its growth and stability.

Here is the lesson to be learned: “The biggest mistake is not to buy.”