I was a snuff bottle dealer, collector, and had a shop. Sharing some photos here

[guest537]

Here are photos of my shop, it was closed about 10 years ago.

[George]

Do you happen to still have a few pics from the factory you could share ?

I remember it being very difficult, but finally talked you into sending a couple to me back then.

[guest537]

As a dealer, I sent out photos everywhere back in the day. Even back in the mid-90s.
The gem bottles, nobody would want to pay for them anymore, the price on these gems is way up now. Like Charoite, mined out.

[George]

I merged your last two threads/topics together.. As this is just an introduction part of the forum..

[guest537]

I actually took over 2 million photos. I spend some hours looking though all kinds of photos. There was photos of my friends factory, in fact I supported him for 10 years while he was struggling to survive making bottles. I have many photos from Indonesia. I cannot say if I have the photos your request. One hard drive it locked up, I would need an old Mac to put by backup into that computer.

The photos of my shop in fact, I have not seen for years, just last night.

I do have photos of bottles that people could not dream up. The gems  themselves are hard to find in AAA quality. I would like to reach my 50 posts so I can offer several bottles directly for sale. I may have more as next year I plan to visit my friends in China, and the bottle factories, and the antique shops as I used to do.


Merging the post together is good. I thought it was interesting to note the kinds of bottles I sold for very little bad in the day. Today, you could not do the silver work for $50, maybe not even $100. But I would not sell items that I would loose money on today.

But I can offer items that never really existed in quality, the same as I do today. Look at the Tiffany bottles in the photo. This is a decent grade Tiffany, which in fact is not expensive to get the rough. The problem with Tiffany was cutting it. I would like to show you two unbelievable Tiffany Kwan Yin statues.

[George]

I would like to reach my 50 posts so I can offer several bottles directly for sale. I may have more as next year I plan to visit my friends in China, and the bottle factories, and the antique shops as I used to do.

I think we all get that you are a seller as well as collector.  Hitting your fifty posts is one thing, but a continued participation within snuff bottle collecting forum, letting others get to know you a bit, can sometimes result in someone here buying something.  We rarely discuss values much on forum, and if someone sees something someone else posts and they want to contact them privately, that is best.

[guest537]

The bottles in the photos are not for sale. I provided those photos for entertainment only. The bottles are already on Ebay along with other things. I don't really need the money. Its just pocket change to travel or spend nights out with my friend. I can appraise real antique bottles, but I don't usually do that from photos. I am also an expert in DZI beads.  I have seen 100s of them over the past 20 years. Here is an example of real ones. Not many people have seen real ones. This is probably my main area of specialty besides art. Bottles was something I loved back in the 90s. There is a story about that, my first one I thought was a perfume bottle, it was a gift for my girlfriend. I brought it back to California from Bangkok. This was the start of numerous trips to Asia.

[George]

The bottles in the photos are not for sale. I provided those photos for entertainment only. The bottles are already on Ebay along with other things. I don't really need the money. Its just pocket change to travel or spend nights out with my friend. I can appraise real antique bottles, but I don't usually do that from photos. I am also an expert in DZI beads.  I have seen 100s of them over the past 20 years. Here is an example of real ones. Not many people have seen real ones. This is probably my main area of specialty besides art. Bottles was something I loved back in the 90s. There is a story about that, my first one I thought was a perfume bottle, it was a gift for my girlfriend. I brought it back to California from Bangkok. This was the start of numerous trips to Asia.

Understood, and we really do like seeing bottle pics as often as possible !  If the forum goes more than a few days without us seeing a new addition, we go through withdrawals !

Your beads are really interesting ..  I see these all the time for sale, but have no idea if they were real. I just have no idea..   It is nice to see yours.. Really nice !

One thing that would be nice is if you picked one or two at a time and posted them individually in the right part of the forum ( you will find yourself posting within the gemstone boards ), so we can really have a good look.. Many of us enjoy gemstone bottles very much and talk a lot of the different minerals.   

[guest537]

Most people have never seen a real DZI bead. You can find some at shows like the big one in Arizona. If you find the bottles interesting. I will post more. I did not know if would be really interesting to anybody. Just for your own knowledge, a real 9 eye DZI bead is $250,000. Years ago, I was selling them, some guy that saw mine on Ebay came from Russia to see it. It was $32,000. He told me he knew all the beads that came out of Katmandu, why did he know know this one? After 8 hours, he was still not sure it was real. My friend traded it for $16,000 in good and it later sold for $60,000 to a well known USA dealer. The guy contacted me and begged me to buy it for $32,000. Well, it was gone and sold for double that in the USA. Beads, there is a lot of intrigue around them. I see people buying fakes all the time. The dealers are now pushing to see new beads for $600 - $1000 and claim they are 20 years old and made in Taiwan. Its all hogwash. There are some very good new beads, but it was never common to get much money for them. Same with snuff bottles. Now modern bottles are coming into their own. Like in Shanghi or Bejing. The Chinese now are looking for very nice stuff. This the best bottle makers are now getting their due. But be prepared to spend over $500, maybe over $1500. Real Jadeite is frightfully expensive in China now. You have to let the past go. Looking for antiques on Ebay is foolish. Why? Because nobody have to put the finest items on Ebay with such a market in China the way it is. Same with DZI beads. We have been selling them to Hong Kong and Singapore dealers for years. If you look up the word Qing Dynasty on Ebay it appears there are affordable antiques. There have been Chinese agents traveling everywhere trying to pick up old things that was smuggled out of the country. They have been trying to put back the land for years. I knew a contractor that made $1000s doing that.