Posted By: Bill H
Posted Date: Apr 23, 2010 (08:31 PM)
Hello Terry,
The forum has some contributors who are well versed in the things you want to sell. The message board would be the proper spot for posting photos if you're seeking an idea of value. I imagine you might get offers on some things you post here for comment, but I'd keep the auction houses in mind for second opinions. They don't cost anything but your time, and you're under no obligation to sell via them even if they like what you have to offer.
Eggshell porcelains were largely an innovation of the Qing dynasty's Yongzheng period (1723-35) and continued in production through modern times. However, there is a class of paper-thin porcelain that came along circa the end of the dynasty in 1911 and continues to be made primarily for the novelties market. Fine Chinese 18th century eggshell porcelains can be quite dear today, but as you can imagine the stuff don't take well to heavy-handed treatment and is hard to find in good shape.
Before 1949 China had 'priests' both of the foreign missionary type and in the form of monks who led the ritual services of indigenous religions. The missionaries would have been more likely to have possessed valuable porcelain, because it was common for their converted parishioners to make gifts of it in return for favors. Buddhist monks and perhaps those in other local religions as well were proscribed from amassing wealth or symbols of it.
The story of the rubies rings a bell with me. I acquired some myself in Burma around 1984 which are shown here. Not perfect stones, but at least as good as those I've heard of in the crown's of some maharajas, which often weren't cut and polished. I don't have a photo handy of the sapphire, which is a ruby-related corundum gem, but I also acquired a five-carat Ceylonese blue cushion-cut stone at the same time I picked up the rubies. Before I finally got it into the hands of a good US gemologist, I had a couple of opinions from jewelers that it was fake or cooked. The ultimate appraisal ran to five figures in the teens.
If your son has Photoshop or a similar program, he shouldn't have much of a problem sizing the images correctly for use here. No single image or group of images in a single uploading can exceed 99 kilobytes. But you can upload several so long as they accompany separate 'replies' to your original query. A single image of maximum size usually works out (for me on Photoshop) to an image of about 720 X 930 pixels at 72 dpi, with an image quality setting of 5 (which can be adjusted down a bit if need be)
I wish you luck and look forward to contributing as best I can to your queries here in the forum.
Best regards,
Bill H.
