Western facing F1 vendors list

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Bok
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Wed Nov 06, 2019 7:35 pm

Chadrinkincat wrote:
Wed Nov 06, 2019 11:24 am
I get the impression that everyone that wants a 60-70ml pot already owns one or isn't willing to spend much for it. I’ve had people interesting in the mid 70’s 60-70ml I have but a number of people want to pay late 80’s prices.
I think in general there is a tendency in Western tea circles to want the best clay possible, but not for a price. Tea drinkers are totally different from collectors in the West it seems to me. In Asia, people are willing to spend a lot on both. In the West the limit for what people are willing to pay for a good tool to brew tea is a lot lower than in the East. All the while buying dozens of 100$-ish subpar pots, when they could just skip 4-5 and acquire something really good and worthy of collecting... :roll:
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Wed Nov 06, 2019 11:13 pm

Bok wrote:
Wed Nov 06, 2019 7:35 pm
Chadrinkincat wrote:
Wed Nov 06, 2019 11:24 am
I get the impression that everyone that wants a 60-70ml pot already owns one or isn't willing to spend much for it. I’ve had people interesting in the mid 70’s 60-70ml I have but a number of people want to pay late 80’s prices.
I think in general there is a tendency in Western tea circles to want the best clay possible, but not for a price. Tea drinkers are totally different from collectors in the West it seems to me. In Asia, people are willing to spend a lot on both. In the West the limit for what people are willing to pay for a good tool to brew tea is a lot lower than in the East. All the while buying dozens of 100$-ish subpar pots, when they could just skip 4-5 and acquire something really good and worthy of collecting... :roll:
Very true. It always boils down to quality vs. quantity.

I think the other aspect of it is the fear of getting an expensive fake. It’s a totally legit fear but it’s also been largely overblown by people with limited or only bad experience with vintage pots. The loudest voices are often the people that have made very unwise purchases. Purchasing from trustworthy vendor is a given for newbies but even vendors can make honest mistakes so you shouldn’t rely solely on a their word. This is why I always suggest that researching eras and designs is a wise first move prior to making any serious purchase.
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Brent D
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Thu Nov 07, 2019 7:31 pm

I think the lack of hard price info makes people shy away. When it comes to qing/early f1, its kind of a cloak and dagger subject. I think westerners would be willing to pony up the money, if there was more certainty the price was fair.
Is $400 a good price for a 120ml late 60s shuiping?
Well of course it is! The problem is that a westerner may come across a pot like that once in a lifetime, even at 3 times that price.
There are no markets. There are no shops. All there is to see is a high price with very little to compare it to. Even a place like zag, which sells the best pots ive ever seen, the nice stuff doesnt have prices.
So in the end, what is that 120ml 60s shuiping worth? I still have no idea...
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Bok
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Thu Nov 07, 2019 8:43 pm

Brent D wrote:
Thu Nov 07, 2019 7:31 pm
So in the end, what is that 120ml 60s shuiping worth? I still have no idea...
For myself, I decided the following: it is worth, what I am willing to pay without feeling bad about it.
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Brent D
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Thu Nov 07, 2019 9:04 pm

While that is a fair answer, i feel it is an oversimplification. Knowledge of fair market value is the missing variable. It is difficult to justify spending a 4 digit number on something when you cant see a precedent of price.
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Bok
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Thu Nov 07, 2019 9:50 pm

Brent D wrote:
Thu Nov 07, 2019 9:04 pm
While that is a fair answer, i feel it is an oversimplification. Knowledge of fair market value is the missing variable. It is difficult to justify spending a 4 digit number on something when you cant see a precedent of price.
The easy way if one doesn't know is to simply ask the ones who do, if a price on offer seems fair or not. For example that The Chinese Teashop is on the overpriced end, one could argue that Emmet's offers on the other end are often almost too cheap :P

Looking more and buying less, observing prices will slowly teach you over time and give you a feeling of what things are worth. But it will never be an exact science as buying an iPhone :mrgreen: 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.

All the while a certain style of 60s Hongni can cost more than antiques in Taiwan, which makes no sense to me anymore, so perceived worth of an object can be a funny thing...
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Thu Nov 07, 2019 10:04 pm

@Brent D

Pricing is definitely a hard thing to gauge but I don’t think that is a huge deciding factor for people. Most people just don’t want to spend $300+ on a single teapot which rules out most pre-77 stuff that isn’t damaged. Lack of ones own abilities to authenticate a 60-70’s pot also deters people from buying. $300-700 is a large sum of money to risk if your relying solely on a vendors word.

@Bok

Green label is good for making tea but demand would be much lower if we had the same access to older pots as Asia does.
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Bok
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Thu Nov 07, 2019 10:12 pm

Chadrinkincat wrote:
Thu Nov 07, 2019 10:04 pm
Pricing is definitely a hard thing to gauge but I don’t think that is a huge deciding factor for people. Most people just don’t want to spend $300+ on a single teapot which rules out most pre-77 stuff that isn’t damaged. Lack of ones own abilities to authenticate a 60-70’s pot also deters people from buying. $300-700 is a large sum of money to risk if your relying solely on a vendors word.
That is true, it all comes down to trust. I mean people have no quarrels to throw out 1000$ for a phone (which doesn't last more than a couple of years), so money itself should not be the issue.

I have been discussing this with an Asian collector friend, who was wondering if people in the West did not really appreciate and value tea ware the same as some in Asia do? I think there might some truth in that as well. But accessibility and lack of knowledge is definitely the largest factor in my opinion.
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Brent D
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Thu Nov 07, 2019 11:44 pm

I definitely think that if the accessibility was there, the knowledge and money would follow. Theres only so much you can learn from books and the internet. I think westerners work up to the bigger spending. (Or at least i do) i have several hobbies that i spend some pretty big bucks on. I never start out with spending a mortgage payment. I work up to it.
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pedant
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Thu Nov 07, 2019 11:45 pm

Bok wrote:
Thu Nov 07, 2019 10:12 pm
I have been discussing this with an Asian collector friend, who was wondering if people in the West did not really appreciate and value tea ware the same as some in Asia do? I think there might some truth in that as well. But accessibility and lack of knowledge is definitely the largest factor in my opinion.
i think the collector population in the west is smaller, but do we value teaware less? i wonder.

a given pot is going to be at least as expensive in the west as in the east, right? often considerably more?
westerners' willingness to pay that premium suggests strong appreciation, no?

and for every fledgling tea drinker in the west unsure about spending big bucks on an objet d'art that does little to objectively enhance tea drinking, how many easterners buy some slipcast shuiping in a shop window to show off to their friends? idk
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Bok
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Thu Nov 07, 2019 11:49 pm

Brent D wrote:
Thu Nov 07, 2019 11:44 pm
I never start out with spending a mortgage payment. I work up to it.
That is a wise thing to do! Same for me. The critical thing to build up is knowledge. Only buy what you know and check with people who know more until you are confident to swim on your own. That avoids costly mistakes.
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Bok
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Thu Nov 07, 2019 11:56 pm

pedant wrote:
Thu Nov 07, 2019 11:45 pm
i think the collector population in the west is smaller, but do we value teaware less? i wonder.

a given pot is going to be at least as expensive in the west as in the east, right? often considerably more?
westerners' willingness to pay that premium suggests strong appreciation, no?
I am not sure about this either.

From what I observe, in the West collectors and tea drinkers are separate characters. You see some collectors spend a lot of money on antiques, but usually they don't drink tea. The tea guys have a lower price tolerance for teaware. In Asia those two are more closely intertwined.

What you say about prices is mostly true for the vintage department(Factory-modern). In the West you pay at least double for what is paid in Asia.
For antiques, I would say the prices do converge more to a similar price level. Just that antiques are barely available in the West at all.
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pedant
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Thu Nov 07, 2019 11:59 pm

Bok wrote:
Thu Nov 07, 2019 11:56 pm
You see some collectors spend a lot of money on antiques, but usually they don't drink tea.
interesting. i've never heard of these teaware collectors that don't drink tea. i think they're missing out!
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Bok
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Fri Nov 08, 2019 12:07 am

pedant wrote:
Thu Nov 07, 2019 11:59 pm

interesting. i've never heard of these teaware collectors that don't drink tea. i think they're missing out!
They definitely do! But no wonder we don’t meet them, they don’t frequent tea forums :)
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Fri Nov 08, 2019 5:54 am

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.
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