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A carved amber bottle from Joey's collection?

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Author Topic: A carved amber bottle from Joey's collection?  (Read 655 times)
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Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司
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« on: August 07, 2015, 07:47:33 am »

Dear Tom,
 
    At 4:00am, when I've been up 19 hours, they are 'spearheads'! After 7 hrs. of good sleep, yes, they are ruyi heads.   Wink Grin
Thanks, I'll correct it.  Roll Eyes

Dear YT,

    That's funny!
    From 1992 till 2006 when I bought this Amber bottle, I'd not looked at anything but my chosen types: Underglazed B & Ws; IPSBs both antique and modern; and Nephrite Jades. First of all, at an auction with possibly 30 to 40 or more just of those three categories, I had enough on my plate to view the ones I wanted to bid on. I assumed the bottle was worth US$2,500-3,000, so I figured it was a little cheaper, but I did not know at the time that it was 'less than half its money', as the great David Dickenson in the UK would say.

    Although, I would expect a bottle with J & J provenance to go for much more than a similar bottle with the BS statement, "It's from an old [un-named] French collection"! Though it may well be. There was a mad attraction to all things Chinese and Japanese in 19th and 20th C. Europe, and especially France and the UK.  But 'J & J' is a provenance one can take to the bank!

    That's the 'problem' with not collecting outside my 3 chosen categories for the last 23 years; I am probably not aware of the prices things are fetching. And from the experience of collecting 45 1/2 years (in another week), I remember when CAD$95 got you a superbly carved  Baltic Amber  or 'Angelskin Pink' Coral snuff bottle. My, how times have changed!  Wink

Please reread my description in a few minutes after I've changed the 'arrowheads' to 'stylized ruyi heads' and 'Amber' to 'Baltic Amber'.

    Oh, and I received 10 boxes X 10 spaces for snuffbottles each (ie., they can hold 100 bottles in total) , from Jill, 3 weeks ago. I'd ordered the type which have foam padding flush to the sides of the compartments, rather than those with cotton batting under the lining. Big mistake. the bottles move around in the compartments, stoppers come out, and spoons could get broken. Or a stopper in a harder material could knock a bottle and cause damage. Jill has had made and sent to me little filler 'pillows', 90 in black like the interior, and 30 in white, filled with cotton batting, to make the bottles not shift in their individual compartments. And I only realised the problem on Tuesday, and by Friday, the fillers have already been sent via EMS. I'm hoping to have them in less than a week.

    The reason the interior is black, is to set off the mainly white nephrite jades; the reason I ordered 30 white 'fillers', in addition to the black 'fillers',  is because I have at least 10 bottles in black jade, spinach green jade, or dark skin jade, and the white will set them off better.  Anyone buying boxes to hold their bottles [and I personally recommend it because it is the traditional Scholarly Chinese (Literati) way to keep snuff bottles, and also more secure, and one has to make the effort to take the bottles out and view them, and is rewarded for his effort thereby (very Confucian!)], is strongly recommended to buy the type with the cotton batting already inside, where the bottle 'nestle' inside the cloth covering the batting; unless you might also want to use these boxes for larger objects, and in that case order the same type as I did, but with the additional 'fillers' as well, to make them safer for bottles and other small objects.

Best,
Shabbat Shalom,
Joey

Dear Joey and Steven,

Wonderful bottle, and a great story, as usual.
But I'm a little confused by the 'spearheads'. Are they not stylized ruyi?

Tom
« Last Edit: August 07, 2015, 08:31:01 am by Joey » Report Spam   Logged

Joey Silver (Si Zhouyi 義周司), collecting snuff bottles since Feb.1970

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