WOW !
Again apologies to All for being off-line for so long.
I have been on a long quest for private matters that do not need to bother this Forum
But this amazing hair-crystal bottle prompts me to rise to the surface again
A couple of years ago Song Yiming came to my home in HK and showed me two totally amazing hair crystal bottles - I hope the pics attach OK
The "wolf + moon" bottle was "out of this world"
I dared to ask SYM the price but he said it was "not for sale" and when I pressed him further he kind of hinted at a price something above RMB 60K. If I was rich enough I would have bought the bottle on the spot.
This reminds me of two epic adventures in my little history of VMIPB collecting with a poor-man's budget
1. My epic purchase of what was - and still I believe is - Fu Guoshun's lifetime masterpiece.
That's the bottle I use as my icon on the Forum. I cannot imagine a more beautiful bottle and when I finally persuaded Master Fu to sell it to me that was the most I ever paid for any VMIPB in all my life.
But it was worth it !
Please don't even ask what I paid and what that bottle is now worth today.
2. Going back to hair crystals and SYM is my prime bottle P159
Joey has seen this truly amazing bottle and he will surely attest to both its elegant beauty, simplicity, extreme detail .... and just WOW !
I am now ashamed that I bargained this bottle down to the pitiful price I finally paid after a period of almost 2 years negotiation, month by month, while it was on open display at a VMIPB shop in the hotel shopping arcade next to our contract hotel in BJ (the Landmark Hotel, opposite the Great Wall Hotel)
I cannot even begin to think how I left this pure "Jewel" there for almost 2 years, awaiting a more clever and astute purchaser than me.
But I indeed was so foolish at the time , and "thank heaven" that I finally scooped up the scoop of a lifetime in my pre-collecting naivety
I count this totally amazing bottle as my single ever greatest "find". If SYM had painted that bottle today in such a beautiful a hair crystal bottle (and it really
is hair crystal although my catalog photo does not show it clearly) it would sell for RMB 200,000 or even more - maybe US$100 K to a determined buyer of such top quality work.
No need to speculate !
That bottle will never go on sale until long after my death, and perhaps not even then if my son has the good sense to treasure it for a generation and until when Song Yiming is written in the all-time VMIPB Hall of Fame
Such is the wonder of collecting
Cheers
Peter