Yixing

[.m.]

Wow, another amazing pot @Bok I like how "soft" the clay looks.

[Andrew S]

The 60s pot looks a bit jealous next to the new one.

Do you have a tea in mind for this one? It'll be fun comparing the before and after photos.

Andrew

[Bok]

Thanks lady and gentlemen! It’s been a long hunt to finally get one of these...

The clay looks soft and a bit milky actually, compared to my already well seasoned 60s pot. Apparently they experimented a short while with a different kind of clay processing, lent from porcelain. But I don’t have the specifics of it, just the resulting Hongni looks different. Will be interesting to see how it’s brewing properties are.

Hongni should be a good all round clay normally, so I’ll probably not have to pick a tea in particular. Will let the pot decide.

[.m.]

@Bok It's one of those rare slip casted pots from that period with a very finely ground clay, right?
https://www.teachat.com/viewtopic.php?t ... 60#p276305

[Bok]

@Bok It's one of those rare slip casted pots from that period with a very finely ground clay, right?
https://www.teachat.com/viewtopic.php?t ... 60#p276305

Yep, that’s the ones. But I’m not sure about the exact way and if above linked information is correct.

[.m.]

@Bok Very interesting. May you give us a sneak peek of the inside, what does the joint of the base look like?

[Bok]

Bok Very interesting. May you give us a sneak peek of the inside, what does the joint of the base look like?

[.m.]

@Bok Nice. Thanks!

[TeaTotaling]

TeaTotaling Zhuni textures as I mentioned above, are diverse... no one fits all answers.

Do you have any specific markers you look for when determining if a Zhuni is of good quality?

[mbanu]

“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

With antiques, the most important thing is to study "provenance". This is not as glamorous as being able to spot something by eye (gathering provenance is usually tedious and irritating to everybody), but it helps a lot with older things and things that have been through turbulent periods. Houde was connected to the Wushing Books crowd, who in theory should know a thing or two about Yixing teapots, but with something like a Republic of China pot, now you have to answer certain questions like, "Why was it not smashed during the Cultural Revolution?" If the answer is, "It was not in China back then" or "It did not attract attention so was spared", or whatever the reason, now we have a clear goal, "OK, let's work backwards to show that this is true." While it is possible to create a false history for an item, it is harder to do thoroughly than it sounds. Items leak history, even just sitting on a shelf -- they become the backdrop to birthday photographs or sources of argument after someone dies.

[Bok]

TeaTotaling Zhuni textures as I mentioned above, are diverse... no one fits all answers.

Do you have any specific markers you look for when determining if a Zhuni is of good quality?

With antiques it’s almost impossible to know until you try the pot, due to the large variety of blends and differences in periods.

The only bad sign is usually when the colour is too light and indicates a possible low firing.

[Bok]

@mbanu from experience I can tell you that with antique Yixing provenance is next to impossible to verify. It usually stops with the person you get it from. So the best way of action is to work with craftsmanship, clay and other things that are discernible on the object itself. Provenance is just another story...

And the large publications have their known issues with published fakes as well... they might know better but it doesn’t mean that they always share.

The traps are many fold in the Yixing market.

[Chadrinkincat]

@Andrew S
I think Houde is an honest vendor that had far to much trust in his suppliers.

This link has photos of a similar shape pot w/ these seals. Down at the bottom of page. Source is from a book. I found it by searching for 程寿福 which is Chinese characters from that EBay pot w/ same seals.

http://blog.udn.com/mobile/cty43115/16207535

@Bok
+1

[Bok]

Yes! That looks much more like it. Fuji wouldn’t have a spout like the one in question...

There are a lot of crooks among the teapot merchants. At least the price paid wasn’t what a real Fuji would go for, that would be much more painful.

[mbanu]

mbanu from experience I can tell you that with antique Yixing provenance is next to impossible to verify. It usually stops with the person you get it from. So the best way of action is to work with craftsmanship, clay and other things that are discernible on the object itself. Provenance is just another story...

And the large publications have their known issues with published fakes as well... they might know better but it doesn’t mean that they always share.

The traps are many fold in the Yixing market.

That's very interesting! How can it stop, though? Do they just refuse to say anything? With rare items this seems so strange to me -- if they bought this from someone selling their grandparents' teaware, it's not like you can go to that person and buy another pot. The main reason I could imagine would be if they were re-selling something from another dealer who might have another teapot by the same potter (or collection of teapots from the same era). Is there something else going on?