Chinese rosewood antique bench – what is it’s value?

Recently we have installed a live-chat function, and we start to meet a lot of interesting people through that.

There was this man who possesses an antique bench from China, a masterpiece. He would like to know the value of it. Sounds like : “the antiques road show” on BBC television! (where people bring their ‘treasures’ to be estimated by an expert who then tell the good news that it’s worth a few thousand Pounds, or he hits it with a hammer, meaning it’s worthless)

So, this way is ‘safer’. In this blog I would like to open a discussion about the value of this piece. Give it a shot, what do you think the price in an antique boutique would be, or tell us what amount of money you’re prepared to pay for it.

Here’s a description (if you know more about it, please comment)

Heavy Rosewood, hand carved, maybe more than 150 years old.
It has foo dog legs and dragon arm rests. The arm rests have holes, as is ropes used to pass through them. (large silk ropes). It has birds carved on the back and elaborately on the top.

In the book next to it, it showed a set of them, one of each animal of the Chinese horoscope. It was located in a palace.

It is supposedly made in the 1800’s, and auctioned off in the 1930’s.

Along with this another discussion opened : “we’ve heard that Chinese are trying to buy back valuable artifacts. Too many were shipped out for some small cash, only now they realize the value of their history. Is this true?”