What Most Chinese Antique Collectors Never Learn.

I want you to imagine that you have two antique jars both made around the same time about 2000 years ago both with the same decoration the same sort of proportions the same sort of sizing the same sort of materials yet one of those antique jars is infinitely more valuable and more important than the other and I'm not talking just in monetary value either so how could that be possible Subtitles by the Amara.org community well stick with me for a minute and I'll explain Recently, I had a conversation with a collector friend of mine. I was showing him this Warring States jar that I had bought that I really liked. It was perfectly proportioned. It was very delicate. It had some impressed textile patterns in it, and it was just wonderful. I was showing this to my friend, and he wasn't impressed with it at all. And he said, oh, well, I have two of these. So he showed them to me, and yes, he did have two of them. One of them was kind of wonky. The proportions were off. It really wasn't that nice. Okay, so forget about that one. But the second one was quite similar. It's about the same size, same shape, definitely same period, probably made in the same region. I wouldn't call it identical, but it was pretty darn close. I kind of walked away from that conversation feeling something wasn't quite right. They didn't feel like they were the same piece to me, even though they were the same piece. They were somehow different. I couldn't quite place what it was at the time. Fast forward a while later, I don't know, weeks, a month, a few months, and I acquired this Southern Song Dynasty lacquer tray. Now this piece is really beautiful. Song lacquerware is rare. Southern Song lacquerware is also rare. And I was quite pleased with myself. This is really beautiful. This is wow. And I had two thoughts actually when I looked at it. I thought If I don't keep it and I do sell it, It needs to go to somebody who's going to be able to appreciate what it actually is. Somebody who understands what it is. It can't be sold to somebody who just is going to collect yet another object. I also was looking at the box that it came in that was made for it and the original owner I had chiseled in a very fine groove in which to inlay a little hardwood frame around the name of what the piece was, thus further kind of taking the box up to the next level. Inside is a piece of paper, the original piece of paper from when it was bought that explains what it is. And even the soft padding inside had some explanation of what it is. And then it hit me. Then it dawned on me. And I knew what it was. I remembered my little Warring States jar and the light just went off in my head. Do you know what I'm talking about yet? A little while later, a week or two, I was looking at the auction of an early 20th century Chinese collector, a very well-known scholar collector by the name, if I remember correctly, Xue Hanchuan, I believe is his name. And they described him as a first-tier collector. And I thought, what does that mean? And then they went on to explain that a first-tier collector has a really impeccable eye. They know how to pick the really good pieces, the right pieces. But it's more than just picking the right pieces. A first-tier collector not only has a good eye and picks the right pieces, but he knows the how and the why of his collection. He knows how good it actually is. He knows how good those pieces are, but he knows why they're really good. He has taken the time to really study, to really learn about the piece, to really go for a deep dive. Now, a second-tier collector knows the how, but not the why. You see, you can acquire really good pieces through the eyes of another. In fact, that's the job of a very good dealer. is to have a very good eye and help you acquire very good pieces using their eye. But the second tier collector doesn't really do that deep study of what the piece is, what makes it so special, how it was made, where it came from. They don't do that. Then you have the third tier collector. The third tier collector doesn't know the how and he doesn't know the why. He simply collects because others collect and I had a conversation with somebody about this maybe a year ago and they described it as pattern recognition. And I thought that was a great way to describe it. They recognize patterns. Somebody collects kanji, they recognize what kanji is, they collect kanji. But it's really not the same thing. Do you know what I'm talking about now? I'm talking about scholarship. I'm talking about stewardship. I'm talking about connoisseurship. The original owner of this particular little Warring States jar took the time to have a box custom made for it to protect it. Then they took it a step further than that and they went to great pain and care to find a silversmith who could make a lid that fits it almost perfectly. Now by doing this, this was a very clever thing to do because it turns it into an incense burner. Now in Japan the incense ceremony and burning of incense was very very important. And so by associating this object with that, he elevated it even further. This collector was probably a connoisseur. Now, my friend's piece, he wasn't doing anything wrong. He's just trying to assemble his collection on a budget. He probably bought it at a cheap auction somewhere, or maybe found it on eBay by somebody who didn't know what they have. And that's fine. He didn't do anything wrong. And in fact, I'm also not worried about that particular friend because he is well on his way to becoming a connoisseur. But those two pieces, for these reasons, are not the same. One will remain in a collection. The other is likely to take its place within the great collections of the connoisseurs. You see, you often look at the top auction houses and you will see pieces with a Japanese box, which signifies that the piece came from Japan. That essentially embodies the mentality of the Japanese collector who does all the things that I previously talked about. In many ways, that box is a brand. It says this piece came from a connoisseur. So it begs the question, are you a collector or are you a connoisseur? Let me know what you think in the comments below. Oh, and one last thing. For people who watch my channel, I can hear a few of few of you in the back of my head saying, you went and you saw Robert Chua's collection. What is he then? Now, if you haven't seen that video, stop, watch it. Wow, you will be mind blown. That is just amazing. If you have seen the video though, you'll know what I'm talking about. He has collected tens of thousands of items, large items, small items, cheap items, expensive items, mid-range, high-ends. Not kidding when I say tens of thousands of items. So what is he? To which my answer would be none of the above. Robert is on a planet of his own. I don't consider him a collector. When I first met him, that was the very first thing I realized. This person is something so far outside the realm of all of us that collector is the wrong word. Connoisseur is the wrong word. Maybe he's an archivist. Anyway, if you like the video, let me know. I'll see you next time.