“That’s the one, officer!”
I didn’t want to refer to the vendor unless it was a clear fake or replica, and that seems to be the consensus at the moment. Thanks
@Bok and
@Chadrinkincat for the feedback. Anyone else’s comments are welcome.
I should probably clarify that when I said that “I don't trust the price that I got it for”, I meant that I had initially assumed that US$850 was a fair (perhaps low) ‘Western internet price’ for an ROC zhu ni pot, until I found out that this particular workshop seems to have a reputation which would put a real version of this pot a few times about what this one was selling for. There’s one on eBay, but it’s not mine, and I have no idea of its authenticity, so I won’t link to it. Initially, I was hoping that it might be a zhu ni reference pot for me, but after I discovered its history, I was hoping that this was at least one of those Taiwanese fake / replica pots from the 90s or 2000s. Obviously, US$850 is a bit much for a modern fake / replica …
Does anyone have a photo of an authentic example of a pot from this workshop, or know someone who might? As I understand it, the genuine one was an ROC export pot to Japan, but others around here would know better than me.
If it is a fake, then it’s a sad day for the Western teapot community to learn that we can’t even safely assume that something on Hou De is what it purports to be. Of course, in saying all of this, I’m not suggesting that Guang knew it to be a fake or that he was anything other than honest but mistaken (again, assuming it to be a fake).
My mistake is probably a good reminder that the question of whether you ‘trust’ a vendor is only the beginning of the inquiry. You can ‘trust’ that someone is not dishonest without necessarily trusting their skill in detecting fakes, just like how I ‘trust’ some vendors to sell good quality authentic wu long without trusting their ability to sell a genuine old pu er.
And it’s probably a reminder that every pot out there could be a tuition pot unless proven otherwise, regardless of the vendor’s reputation. We learn from talking, studying and, most of all, playing with teapots, but the difficulty for people outside Asia is that it's hard to get a genuine old pot that we can start playing with and learning about.
Now… can anyone offer some pointers to the rest of us about what stands out here as being clearly irregular? I’d guess that the inner handle joint looks like an ‘over the top’ imitation of the real thing, while the hole for the spout looks a little too clean, and that the craftsmanship is a little too precise. Any thoughts?
Maybe I'll post a comparison of this clay next to the ZAG zhu ni pot.
Andrew