Yixing

[LeoFox]

What is the one next to it? A Wedgewood or some other antique european redware?

viewtopic.php?p=45338#p45338

[.m.]

@LeoFox Thanks! I've forgotten about this post.

[WhisperingFrog192]

What is the one next to it? A Wedgewood or some other antique european redware?

It might be Myott, but it really could be any other post-Elers brothers English dry bodied stoneware pottery. There were a lot of producers, none of them really left marks in most cases beyond occasional Yixing-copy chop marks. I'd like to get more, but surviving examples tend to go in the $1k+ range.

[Bok]

What is the one next to it? A Wedgewood or some other antique european redware?

Oh yes that was a nice one

[WhisperingFrog192]

Modern Yixing for a change. Red jiangponi?

Got a few more pictures of its lid/construction now that it's dry, if anybody's interested!

[enjoi]

Got a new/old teapot - could be a F1 Gezui (Pigeon Beak) with ~160ml from the late 70s/80s (Green Label) ? Hope some of the experts can give me some feedback or a confirmation. Thank you!

PS: I read on TeaChat that "the 18-hole version usually remained to be so for the early 70s. towards mid to late 70s, 14 holes became more common."?

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[steanze]

Got a new/old teapot - could be a F1 Gezui (Pigeon Beak) with ~160ml from the late 70s/80s (Green Label) ? Hope some of the experts can give me some feedback or a confirmation. Thank you!

PS: I read on TeaChat that "the 18-hole version usually remained to be so for the early 70s. towards mid to late 70s, 14 holes became more common."?

Nice one. In my opinion, based on the clay texture this one should be mid-late 70s

[WhisperingFrog192]

A couple of Culture Resolution pots.

A companion?

[Bok]

Looks a bit like a replica. Not as crisp as the other.

[.m.]

@WhisperingFrog192 Nice!

I've just read this theory that some of the more crude Cultural Revolution products were made outside of F1. Personally, this doesn't make sense, i think more likely there was quite a bit of of variation in terms of quality: maybe less skilled workers, tiredness at the end of shift and rush to meet a quota...

http://www.zhongguociwang.com/show.aspx?id=15039&cid=87

Although the purple sand craft factory fell into a sluggish production state due to social and political reasons in the early stage of the Cultural Revolution, and the product quality dropped greatly, but the state-owned factory has its basic quality inspection requirements and process specifications after all, so some of the crudely made purple sand during the Cultural Revolution period we came into contact with The teapot is not a commercial pot produced in the factory, but a so-called "country billet", that is, a purple sand teapot made by non-factory workers. Just as some older workers of the Zisha factory said: Even during the Cultural Revolution, the No. 1 factory did not completely relax its product quality.

[Baiyun]

I am wondering what everyone's take on the source of the exterior patina is.

This pot is pretty young and confirmed my suspicion that it's probably just sebum from handling that produces a shine after a bit of use, quickly on dense clays, more slowly on more porous clays. Certainly not tea, as I do not pour tea over my pots, and they get rinsed with boiling water and externally dried with a soft cloth before I place them to dry out on the inside. That is not to say that routinely pouring tea over the pot won't evenly stain it with tea oils, it will, but that I have no practical interest in artificially cultivating the look of pots.

While my other pots have a homologous surface, the pronounced lid seat protrusion on this pot creates a crevice which does not come into contact with skin throughout handling, and it is still relatively dull (like a new pot is all over), whereas the rest of the pot has taken up some shine. You can see it pretty well in this image, as a dull stripe just under the lid seat shadow:

pt.jpg (217.17 KiB) Viewed 6256 times

Intentionally rubbing around on this dull stripe doesn't impact it, so it must be a longer term process.

It sometimes reads like people assume that a lot of tea going through a pot slowly saturates it from the inside out, or frequent heat cycles have anything to do with it, but I can't really see how that could have a more pronounced effect than sebaceous gland secretions saturating the external clay pores. Perhaps it's not as romantic?

Any insights on this?

[Baisao]

I am wondering what everyone's take on the source of the exterior patina is.

This pot is pretty young and confirmed my suspicion that it's probably just sebum from handling that produces a shine after a bit of use, quickly on dense clays, more slowly on more porous clays. Certainly not tea, as I do not pour tea over my pots, and they get rinsed with boiling water and externally dried with a soft cloth before I place them to dry out on the inside. That is not to say that routinely pouring tea over the pot won't evenly stain it with tea oils, it will, but that I have no practical interest in artificially cultivating the look of pots.

While my other pots have a homologous surface, the pronounced lid seat protrusion on this pot creates a crevice which does not come into contact with skin throughout handling, and it is still relatively dull (like a new pot is all over), whereas the rest of the pot has taken up some shine. You can see it pretty well in this image, as a dull stripe just under the lid seat shadow:



Intentionally rubbing around on this dull stripe doesn't impact it, so it must be a longer term process.

It sometimes reads like people assume that a lot of tea going through a pot slowly saturates it from the inside out, or frequent heat cycles have anything to do with it, but I can't really see how that could have a more pronounced effect than sebaceous gland secretions saturating the external clay pores. Perhaps it's not as romantic?

Any insights on this?

Even if you are not trying to cultivate patina, some tea will spill out here and there and cover the surface so it will happen even with pots that are not wicking tea through the interior to exterior. I am inclined to believe it is sebum. One of the ways we add patina to suiseki is by rubbing them frequently with our hands. The oils on our hands transfers to the stone and over time gives it a lustrous patina.

Edit: I am only speaking about this teapot.

[teatray]

No insights as I'm a yixing noob, but if it's from sebum from direct skin contact / some spread by the drying cloth, would the shiny area really form that way, with such a clear line at the lip but even coverage elsewhere, even though there are probably some other areas you rarely touch the pot in? Probably user-specific, but these might include the spout & below it & the lid (apart from knob and rim) & some others. Whatever your no-touch areas are, are they shiny as well? If they are, I'd be inclined to think the shiny & non-shiny parts were treated differently in production. Maybe the shiny area was waxed? Or it's naturally glossy clay from the kiln, but the lip was ground and refired or finished differently in some other way?

[Bok]

I've just read this theory that some of the more crude Cultural Revolution products were made outside of F1. Personally, this doesn't make sense, i think more likely there was quite a bit of of variation in terms of quality: maybe less skilled workers, tiredness at the end of shift and rush to meet a quota...

Seems that quality control in F1 was still a few notches above the other factories. In regards to workmanship and also clay processing/base material. I have not seen too many confirmed F1 pots with really terrible craftsmanship...

[Andrew S]

Regarding the patina discussion; I don't have enough experience or knowledge to say anything useful, but I thought (or assumed) that it is likely to be a combination of things: heating and contracting, tea oil, the effect of rubbing or just handling the pot (whether by hand or by towel), and the consequences of the pot being polished during its production (which may lead to easily-accessible areas looking different to harder-to-reach areas next to a rim or under a handle).

The reason why I don't think it is limited to the effect of handling the clay or anything similar is that patina is usually even, and applies to the lid as much as to the body. Where part of the pot doesn't get a nice shine, it seems to be related more to processing and firing than to handling.

For example, I have handled my QSN guava pot a lot over almost one and a half decades, it's seen plenty of tea spills, etc, but it only seems somewhat shiny when it's hot (and I don't really let it accumulate tea stains). It's certainly shinier than when it was unused, but it isn't as clearly shiny as something like this viewtopic.php?p=45076#p45076) which developed an even and natural shiny almost immediately and without any 'seasoning'. The QSN guava pot also has a little spot near the handle which has remained very dull, almost as if that bit retained its pre-usage dullness and never took on any oils or shine.

I look forward to hearing other people's views as well.

Andrew