Antique for a song

The other day while in a shop selling second-hand things, a small flat bowl caught my attention. It looked pretty refine and well made. This bowl was used as a device for scholars to wash their brushes while doing their calligraphy work.

I looked at the base of the bowl, there were some Chinese characters, not those that showed made during the reign of some emperors (liked made in Qian Long Era, etc). Instead, the characters showed it was made by a shop (Zing Wei Tang).

When I looked at the price tag, it was only $6.80. I could not believe that such an elegant bowl was sold for only $6.80. Looking at the glaze, I knew it was an old bowl, definitely more than 100 years old. A fake one would not be so fine in quality and its glaze would look pretty new. Immediately I went to the cashier and paid for the bowl.

A flat bowl for washing brushes

When I showed it to a friend, he agreed with me that this was an old porcelain bowl, easily more than a hundred years old. We were puzzled as to why this bowl was in a second-hand shop selling for such a low price.

Later when I browsed through a book on Qing dynasty porcelains, I found out that there were some porcelain wares bearing the marks of some famous shops at the base of the ware. There were many of such shops and their marks were used from Kang Xi period to Qian Long period. Then I discovered that the shop named Zing Wei Tang was actually used during the Yong Zhen and Qian Long period. This means that the bowl could be dated back to the Yong Zhen and Qian Long era,  a distant 400 years ago. In fact, I got myself an antique for an extremely low price.

There are still valuable things out there selling at very low price. The question is whether you are able to spot them at the right time, right place and for the right price.