finding the Best aged Bargains of All Can Be So Surprising!
As a accumulator of ancient Japanese netsuke, inro, lacquer boxes, as well as Chinese snuff bottles and Jade carvings (particularly pendants) like all other collectors I have all the time been finding out for the chance to buy a bargain!
Values
One has to be able to value the value to be able to recognise a bargain. A comparative value as applied to skills of craftsmanship is something I use when considering buying. There are some limitations to this however. For example one could not value paintings this way, otherwise a few lines by Picasso would never by comparison being worth so much more than pictures with more intricate applications of paint. So artistic merit has to be someone else leading factor.
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It is valuable to appreciate that all prices are dictated only by the market place. If ask is great prices go up, if not, they go down. This applies to antiques in just the same way as to all other commodities. however having had many years' contact as a accumulator I have never seen prices fall in our singular fields of interest as long as one bought good quality.
What has happened on the few occasions when I thought that prices had reached the highest point possible (in other words ridiculously high!) was that the following year such records were broken! Only the larger Jade carvings have not proved quite so successful, this is the only area of our collecting that has been affected by less demand, and de facto what seems to have happened is that prices have remained static for a long time.
Craftsmanship and Fashion
There is an element of fashion in collecting, and at the moment, as has been the case for quite a long time now, small is beautiful! So the smaller items, like most of the antiques we collect, are in very big demand. There is more to it than that however; all the antiques we gather relate such fabulous craftsmanship, the like of which is de facto never likely to be produced again. With so many keen collectors, now established all over the world, searching for the very minute supply of these fine pieces, I am convinced that this is unlikely to be subject to any turn of fashion for a very long time. Although the larger Chinese Jade pieces do not sell so easily, there are inescapable exceptions: very valuable pieces that petition to the Chinese taste do sell well in the Hong Kong sales, but the European market is rather poor. This is something that could suddenly change, and I believe it will, particularly as these larger carvings appear better and better value for money.
Bargain Hunting
So many collectors begin with the view that they will only buy if they are satisfied that they have found a 'bargain'. Whilst this was possible many years ago, when believe it or not, Japanese netsuke and Chinese snuff bottles were sold in lots, which consisted of six or more at a time, but those days have long gone by and today it is far more difficult.
However finding back, with the advantage of hindsight, over so many years of collecting I have come to realise that surprisingly, our very best bargains (we had a few) were not the ones we had thought of as good bargains - the real bargains have turned out to be more often than not, our most expensive purchases. These were the superior pieces, that we just had to have, even though at the time the prices often seemed quite outrageous.
I remember being worried about having paid too much, on any occasions, for quite a long time afterwards. But although I reminded myself that these were exceptional, very rare, superb examples, I confess I still worried! I would de facto never have thought of these as being bargains, or even possible bargains, at the time!
I am not sure if there is any part to be learned from all this. Yet I can now record that it is these that are now the treasures that have proved to be the most fabulous bargains of all!
finding the Best aged Bargains of All Can Be So Surprising!
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