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Subject:Even fakes are getting worse!
Posted By: Bill Tue, Jan 08, 2008
It is of particular intereset to me to see these pieces sold by this particular dealer.
Of course everything said by Anita about them is absolutely correct.
The interesting parts are:
(1) Just a few years back, all these fakes sold by him were actually much better. Some jade turtles and cicadas actually look quite good and were made of real jade. Now they do look like they come from the "garbage can". It must be inflation.
(2) Interestingly enough, although everything sold by him earlier are apparently fakes, but 80% of the stuff were actually made of jade, believe or not.
Actually these two ugly pieces here may be made of nephrite jade, especially the brownish one. I believe both of them can pass the scratch test.
But they are just so very bad..........
Therefore just a piece is made of jade doesn't mean anything, it has to be beautiful and quality jade.
(3) One thing that tells you that all his stuffs are fakes is that there are too many duplicates of the same design in his site and their prices are too low.
Interestingly, while almost most of his Liangzhu items (especially the greenish-yellow and white one) are absolutely fakes and not jades, a few of his Liangzhu jade beads (elongated one)and discs that sold by him much earlier were actually made of some very unique and hard yellowish-green nephrite jades (beads) that were rarely seen and of reddish-green nephrite (discs). I was very surprised to find out after I had tested them.
He must have a jade factory some where in China from where he could obtain such a large supply of fakes and they must be mass produced. In the very beginning, I believe he actually might have a few good jade pieces. My friend, B, when he first started collecting from eBay a while ago, he bought a lot of pieces from this dealer. I ended up getting some from him too or from direct purchases. I also returned half of my stuff to this dealer and he got upset and banned me from bidding again. Some of his pieces are actually very educational and are good study items. I actually detect "old" tool marks made with Tu on a few of them. Therefore, seeing the poor quality of his recent items plus the fact that this is not only happening to him but happening to other dealers, I believe good jade carvings even fake one are fast running out in China. Many eBay jade dealers who are located in China are:
(1) Going out of business because they can no longer find good jade items to sell at reasonable prices;
(2) Many of the remaining dealers are starting to sell large fake items made of fake materials (fake turquoise, fake coral, etc.)at very high prices. There are many large Liangzhu items made of this fade jade (green stone with artificial brownish weathering) (not jade) all over eBay.
It is very interesting to see once many real nephrite items were being sold for very affordable prices not too long ago and now all the fake items are selling at much higher prices. That should tell you something.
I have a jade friend who resides in Hong Kong and who travels a lot to different parts of China. He was fortunate enough to be able to acquire some very good jade carvings there. But they are not cheap. They will range from RMB 50 to 1,000.
Of course, in general they are in better quality than those eBay items. He also found several archaic neolithic jade slits.
Therefore if anybody has a chance in traveling to China, do look around, you never know what you may find. However, you better know something about jades.
Bill
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- Sandy - Jan 02, 2008 (05:04 PM) 
