pedant wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2019 11:59 pm
interesting. i've never heard of these teaware collectors that don't drink tea.
I have not met teaware collectors at all. But on a purely logical level, rich collectors that amass works of arts and are likely to have very big budgets would probably find the idea of drinking tea out of a 100k$+ teapot the equivalent of using a Picasso painting as a table mat. They would also probably collect antique plates they would not eat from, vases they would not put anything in, etc.
Sure, once in a while, for show, they may decide to make tea with a high-value teapot, just like some people will once in a while open up 75 year old wine bottles. I would expect that, aside from special cases, the higher the cost of the teapot, the smaller the use it is likely to see.
There will probably be a ceiling to how much of one's disposable income one will be willing to fork out for a teapot purely on tea drinking merits. When moving up the price ladder, the status symbol and investment aspects take over as factors to justify sky-high prices of high-value collectibles. I also assume that the quest for "status symbol" is one thing that is a much more powerful driver in Asia : in the West, few people can recognize the value of a teapot, so who are you going to impress? The investment aspect probably is less of a driver too, as it is likely harder to both get a collectible at a fair price in the West, and also harder to sell it later on at a fair price.
As a side note, a tea drinker has to contend with a higher risk of breaking a teapot, since it sees actual use : you could say a high-value teapot is worth less if the buyer expects to actually use it, as you need to discount the impact of this risk when evaluating how much you are willing to pay.
In Taiwan a green label is worth almost nothing, in the West where there isn't much, those suddenly become collectable... it all depends on so many factors. 
