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Chinese Snuff Bottle Discussion Forum 中國鼻煙壺討論論壇
March 29, 2024, 01:39:22 am
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Another red lacquer bottle

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Brad
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« on: July 24, 2014, 02:25:38 am »

This one is on eBay now.  It does not appear to have any air bubbles (though very small ones might not be visible in the pictures), it has cork in the top (as opposed to the sponge like material in the fake one I have), and the spoon appears to be bamboo wood (as opposed to white plastic in the fake one).

The design looks nice.  The other side has two birds.

Could this be actual cinnabar lacquer, or plastic again?

Brad


* Dragonfly bottle 1.jpg (205.63 KB, 547x591 - viewed 42 times.)

* Dragonfly bottle 2.jpg (130.75 KB, 600x446 - viewed 22 times.)

* Dragonfly bottle 3.jpg (107.16 KB, 600x291 - viewed 14 times.)
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Wattana
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« Reply #1 on: July 24, 2014, 03:12:00 am »

Hi Brad,

Sorry to disappoint, but this bottle is 95% resin (the other 5% is the copper disc at the mouth  Wink ).

At least you are only LOOKING at it, and asking the right people. When I started collecting in the 1970s I bought a very similar bottle from a flea market in England. Having just read Lilla Perry's book I was sure it was genuine cinnabar lacquer. Most of us have made similar mistakes in our early collecting days.

Internet, chat forums, easy access to other collectors, and plentiful books didn't exist 40 years ago. Luckily, there is plenty more information available today.

Tom
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« Reply #2 on: July 24, 2014, 03:31:56 am »

Yes indeed.  This 'theme' is a popular mould for the resin bottles.  In fact, if my memory serves me right this was a 'giveaway' by one of the make-up/perfume brands. There is a thread on this somewhere on the Forum. They come in other colors (white, beige, yellow) too.
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« Reply #3 on: July 24, 2014, 03:39:12 am »


They come in other colors (white, beige, yellow) too.


Hi Pat,

I'm looking for a rainbow colored one to round off my resin bottles collection. If you ever see one, be sure to let me know.  Wink

Tom
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« Reply #4 on: July 24, 2014, 03:41:26 am »

Tom

Just follow the yellow brick road to Ebay-land and i am sure one will pop up somewhere.    Grin Cheesy Wink

Brad

This is all part of the learning curve.  Hang in there... we are here to help....
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« Reply #5 on: July 24, 2014, 05:17:15 am »

Dear Tom,
    That is exactly the same thing I did in 1971/1972!
    I received a copy of Mrs. Perry's book as a Bar Mitzva present from my mom's best friend, who couldn't afford to give me a snuff bottle for my Bar Mitzva. 
    I started actually collecting in mid-Feb., just 2 weeks before my Hebrew 13th birthday, after first seeing snuff bottles in late Nov.1969 for sale at an Art & Antiques sale in our Synagogue for charity. I'd spent the 2 1/2+ months before, studying snuff bottles, to be sure I was going to be serious, on orders from my parents.
   When asked what I'd like as a gift, I said snuff bottles! Then my parents said that it was not fair to say that, and have people possibly go and spend $100 or more (at the time, in 1970 in Toronto in our circle, gifts tended to be in the $30-50 range, and that was a very nice gift). My mom said I should go to the three shops I knew of at the time, make a list of 5 bottles in each place which were in the $30-50 range, and give anyone who wanted to buy me one as a gift, the list with the addresses of the shops etc. That way, my request wouldn't 'break the bank'.
   'Aunt' Jean and her husband could not afford the  $30-50 range, so she bought me the Lilla Perry book for about $16.  I still have that copy of the book, a meter from where I'm sat typing; the bottles I received as gifts are gone since Nov.1980, when I weeded out the bottom third of my collection at the time (36 out of 102).
   I bought a genuine resin 'cinnabar lacquer' snuff bottle with a Qianlong mark for $22! I then got another one in the same price range.
  My first genuine cinnabar lacquer, a very nice 19th C. example, I bought from Bernie & Fran Wald of NYC in 1981. Then, in  the period 1985-1991, I acquired a few 18th C. Imperial Palace Workshops originals, 2 with cinnabar red on teadust green lacquer, and one with cinnabar red, the background cut back therough the lacquer to the copper base bottle, and the copper surface incised and gilt. I still have one of them.

Best,
 Joey



Hi Brad,

Sorry to disappoint, but this bottle is 95% resin (the other 5% is the copper disc at the mouth  Wink ).

At least you are only LOOKING at it, and asking the right people. When I started collecting in the 1970s I bought a very similar bottle from a flea market in England. Having just read Lilla Perry's book I was sure it was genuine cinnabar lacquer. Most of us have made similar mistakes in our early collecting days.

Internet, chat forums, easy access to other collectors, and plentiful books didn't exist 40 years ago. Luckily, there is plenty more information available today.

Tom
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« Reply #6 on: July 24, 2014, 05:51:36 am »


    That is exactly the same thing I did in 1971/1972!



Dear Joey,

We both stumbled at the same pothole when we were newbies.  Cheesy

Tom
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« Reply #7 on: July 24, 2014, 06:06:27 am »

Dear Tom,
    EVERY new collector does! The only one I know who didn't, was Elizabeth Jarvis. She started by researching for 6 months, became a groupie of Hugh Moss', and is still his groupie, 35 years+ later...
Joey



    That is exactly the same thing I did in 1971/1972!



Dear Joey,

We both stumbled at the same pothole when we were newbies.  Cheesy

Tom
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« Reply #8 on: July 24, 2014, 10:07:13 am »

Dear Tom and Joey (but especially addressed to Brad),
this that happened to you (and to me and to all the newbie) it happened for one reason, and always the same: lack of knowledge. To make clear what I mean I always take as a clear example the mushrooms. I do not know if any of you have ever gone to pick wild mushrooms in the woods. If you don’t know them, you start by buying a book and look at the pictures and descriptions. Then you pick up one mushroom. Some of them are clearly identifiable, but with the majority of them you find a picture in the book and you say: “here it is, I have spotted it”. Then you turn the page and see the picture of another species, and it looks even more similar than the previous one. At the end, you have 5 or 10 mushrooms that COULD be the right one and you is not able to spot the right one. At that point, if you are lucky and know a knowledgeable person he will tell you which is the right one. Well, thereafter if you find the same species of mushroom, being it small, big, bent, deformed, young or old, you have no more doubt, you identify it at a glance because you know it!
I wrote all this rigmarole to evidence how important is to view the good things in flesh, being them at Auction houses, Museums, exhibitions, reputable dealers.
I have only two lacquer snuff bottles, but I can tell you that before them I was in the same situation: at every supposed lacquer bottle seen on ebay I was struggling to understand if it were good or not.
Now I determine suddenly that it is not.
But I must also add that there is an easiest way to spot fake lacquer bottles: if they are on sale on ebay, they are fake! Grin Grin
Kind regards
Giovanni
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« Reply #9 on: July 24, 2014, 10:22:51 am »

Well said Giovanni!!
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« Reply #10 on: July 24, 2014, 01:19:46 pm »

All,

Another 'rule of thumb', if it looks good it may be good, if looks bad it is bad!

Charll
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Charll K Stoneman, Eureka, California USA, Collector Since 1979.

Brad
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« Reply #11 on: July 24, 2014, 02:45:02 pm »

I would agree that most of the lacquer bottles I've looked at on eBay don't look right.

Here are some more pictures.  The first bottle is on eBay now for $825 and stated to be 19th century.  The second is listed at $2500 and also said to be antique.  These seem like pretty big prices.  Are these bottles any different than the others we know are fakes?

The third picture is my great grandmother's lacquer pin.  It dates at least from the 1920s, since I know it has been in my family at least since then.  It has sharp edges on the carving, is very shiny (as opposed to the dullness of the fake snuff bottle), and is marked "China" on the metal back.  The whitish material in the recesses is dust.

Going just by the pictures, the lacquer on the mother of pearl bottle looks more like that in the pin than any other I have seen.  Of course, it helps that I have actually handled the pin.

Brad


* Cinnabar bottle 4.JPG (165.15 KB, 532x600 - viewed 33 times.)

* Cinnabar bottle 5.jpg (109.8 KB, 326x600 - viewed 32 times.)

* Cinnbar pin.JPG (275.14 KB, 600x538 - viewed 29 times.)
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« Reply #12 on: July 24, 2014, 08:32:40 pm »

Dear Brad,
    Of the three pieces, I vote for your grandmother's brooch !  Wink   Cheesy
Joey
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Brad
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« Reply #13 on: July 24, 2014, 08:46:05 pm »

Well, we know that one is real because we know the approximate age.

So are the other two fakes?  If they are, they're way overpriced.

Brad
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« Reply #14 on: July 24, 2014, 09:35:28 pm »

Hi Brad,

As has often been said on this forum before, eBay prices can be unpredictable and totally crazy. Never use eBay prices as a benchmark for ANY snuff bottle, ever. Who knows why some bottles, which are clearly fakes, sell for exorbitant prices. It may be ignorant buyers with deep pockets, ignorant sellers setting high reserves, or shill bidding to push the price up for a resale.

Obviously your grandmother's pin is the real thing. The small panel set in the mother-of-pearl bottle may be too. I cannot tell from the photo. The first bottle definitely isn't.

Tom
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« Reply #15 on: July 24, 2014, 09:41:03 pm »

Dear Giovanni,

I loved your analogy with the mushrooms. There is one aspect of mushroom collecting that you did NOT mention. You either learn quickly to identify the good ones, or you die. There is no room for "lack of knowledge" for mushroom pickers!  Grin

Tom
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« Reply #16 on: July 25, 2014, 06:29:02 am »

A friend from Russia, who was used to supplementing the family's winter food supply by collecting mushrooms in the Autumn, had a joke:
   A certain woman had been widowed three times by accidentally giving each husband bad mushrooms. Her fourth husband fell down stairs to his death. She was asked how it happened. Her reply: "He didn't like mushrooms."  Wink
Shabbat Shalom,
Joey


Dear Giovanni,

I loved your analogy with the mushrooms. There is one aspect of mushroom collecting that you did NOT mention. You either learn quickly to identify the good ones, or you die. There is no room for "lack of knowledge" for mushroom pickers!  Grin

Tom
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« Reply #17 on: July 25, 2014, 10:42:22 am »

Brad,

Trying to get back to questions on the bottles you posted.  As indicated the brooch appears to be a legitimate red cinnabar piece that has been carved and should be used as a benchmark for future comparisons.  The 2nd bottle with the mother-of-pearl is typical of bottles coming out of Hong Kong in the 1960’s and 70’s and sold for a $100 or so.  The 1st bottle just looks bad with no definition as to being carved and appears to one of the early attempts to simulate cinnabar.   No real idea on the age of the 1st bottle, but likely 20th century also.
 
Now I have to quantify my comments, for I do not particularly care for cinnabar bottles and do not collect them.  I have, however, seen some wonder bottles in this material and do appreciate carved lacquer bottles of Japanese origin.   The Japanese tend to have more simplistic and elegant designs in their lacquer work.

Charll
 
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« Reply #18 on: July 26, 2014, 01:41:22 am »

Dear Tom and Joey,
I enjoyed your posts Grin
Giovanni
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« Reply #19 on: July 26, 2014, 04:09:54 am »

Dear Giovanni,
    Thank you.
 
Dear Brad,
    I do love Chinese Cinnabar Lacquer bottles, though I agree with Charll that Japanese ones can be superb. I would use your grandmother's piece as a benchmark, as Charll said. That works when you can carry it around and compare an object before you buy. How it would work with the Internet, I don't know. I would think that you would search hard to find ANY genuine examples on the Net.
Best,
 Shabbat Shalom,
Joey
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