Selling to the customer / Furniture Retailing | The specialists guide to Chinese antiques

Guide to buying Chinese Antiques on eBay

The Brutal Truth about Buying Chinese Antiques on eBay

This is a great little guide from an ebay seller who goes by the screen name of loveshackbaybee. Its fairly comprehensive and worth a reprint here. Well written, very candid and overall good advice for the masses looking to pick up that “authentic Qing Dynasty vase at a great price!” I added some screen shots as well of some so called “authentic Asian antiques” which are currently on offer on ebay.

As long time collectors of Asian art, we have purchased many authentic and truly remarkable Chinese antiques on eBay. You can too. But fair warning – you need to really understand how this fraud riddled business works – or you will most certainly be ripped off.

Here is a summary of years of hard learned experience.FACT # 1 – EXPORTATION OF GENUINE ANTIQUES FROM CHINA IS TIGHTLY CONTROLLED.

It is highly illegal for sellers based in the Peoples Republic of China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan Republic of China, to export very old Chinese antiques out of their respective countries. These countries have enacted strict Cultural Preservation laws designed to keep their national heritage at home.

In the Peoples Republic of China, exporting anything earlier than 1796 (the end of the reign of Emperor Qianlong) is strictly forbidden. Items dating from 1797 to 1949 must be inspected for approval, and most often Imperial or other culturally important pieces are prohibited from exportation. In Taiwan, anything 100 years or older cannot be exported. In the Peoples Republic of China, the penalties for smuggling “Cultural Relics” are severe. Lengthy imprisonment, and even in serious cases execution. The Government of the Peoples Republic of China doesn’t fool around -they execute grave robbers. This is well documented – look it up on the internet.

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Comparing apples to oranges – more on determining quality in Chinese antique furniture

Photos of these two cabinets have been floating around on our file server for quite a while and I have been meaning to put them up here as another excellent example of differences in quality between Chinese antique workshops and restoration as well as in Chinese Country Antique Furniture in general. These are both essentially the same piece but restored in a different manner by two different factories. They are both restored antiques, both a once fairly common Mongolian style antique cabinets and even the dimensions are approximately the same. Piece A (bright red one) comes from a smaller workshop owned/operated by George, a gentleman who has worked with Chinese antiques for more then 20 years. He services mostly foreign customers and says he offers “good quality.” The other piece (Deep burgundy red) was purchased from Raymond, a larger volume based, Beijing wholesaler who claims to offer “good quality product.” Lets examine the differences to see which factory really does offer “quality” and which one is simply inexpensive.

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Do you know what you are selling? Because your customer might not.

I am noticing a trend where just about “everyone and anyone” is now selling so called “Chinese antique furniture” (or some variation of this) and misrepresenting it as any number of different things. Items made just yesterday (antique reproductions) are falsely labeled as genuine antiques and the real antiques are often completely misclassified. I recently saw an antique Tibetan sideboard cabinet labeled as coming from Mongolia. Sometimes, this is just the result of the importer not having access to good product history and background information (and thus the purpose of this specialists blog). But in other instances its pure marketing and the low-end/mass-produced is being promoted as high end/hand-made. There is an interesting article in the New York Times about this entitled “Look-Alikes Draw Lawyers’ Stares” and one quote from this article seems to really sum it up in a nutshell:

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The problem of “Chaobuduo” (and how it effects reproduction furnitures)

Chinese workers love to use the phrase ¨cha bu duo¨ (pronounced “Cha Boo Daul) which directly translates to ¨not very far off (meaning approximately or roughly)¨ Unfortunately, in almost all case it usually works out to be not even close, in otherwords, ”cha tai duo” (meaning way too far off). Workers see no need for exact matches and approximations are always seen as “close enough.”

In fact, at times it almost seems like Chinese workers pride themselves on their ability to do things as ”cha ba duo” as humanly possible – as if there is some secret, unspoken competition to see just how far you can go while still getting away with it. Will they accept 80% correct? 70%? What about close but not exact?

Some real world effects of “Chaobuduo” on our industry:

The stool, bench or chair, which does will not balance evenly on the floor (probably when you were pointing this out at the factory, you were told “don’t worry, its not the chairs feet but the rough floor of the factory which is uneven.)

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Low Cost vs. Low Quality?

A simple comparison

Comparison price shopping is common, in order to locate the best deal. A particular television model may be priced at $200 dollars at one store but found on elsewhere on sale for $180 (a full $20 less) by the savvy shopper. Sure, pre and post sales service may differ slightly per retailer, but the actual quality of the product will remain relatively the same – regardless of the store from which it was purchased. Even when purchasing a completely different model or brand as long as the item remains within the same price range this rule holds true. Certain assumptions can be made concerning quality and it is rare, for even the most inexpensive item to fall apart after just a single use. This is because all items are quality controlled to meet certain basic standards.

In the west, lying is considered unethical. In China, it is an accepted business practice necessary to maximize profit. Which is why vendors will literally promise anything. It it’s something they’ve never done before, they’ll wing it. If it’s a custom request at no extra charge, they’ll cut corners elsewhere to recoup the cost. And, of course, every ‘antique’ they sell is from the Ming or Qing dynasty. In the end, the container of incredible product that one can buy at bargain prices will likely be filled with what is paid for – low quality merchandise. Not necessarily a bad thing, unless you were expecting/paying for something better.

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