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Chinese Snuff Bottle Discussion Forum 中國鼻煙壺討論論壇
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What is it about these stained looking bottles

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Author Topic: What is it about these stained looking bottles  (Read 3758 times)
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Peter Bentley 彭达理
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« on: April 10, 2011, 11:52:10 pm »

Hi All.  This  has  got me  thinking .... Roll Eyes

We  know that   snuffbottles were  primiraily  used for  SNUFF, just like  mobile  phones these  days  are   used     to  talk to each  other.  I use  just the   cheapest  Nokia,  several  years  out of date. But my  PA  only   buys the  latest  iPhone ! When  we give  gifts  to our  customers  in China  we use  the  latest  iPhones and  iPads   It  was  only    when   snuff bottles developed  in to   19th  C  business  gifts that    ther  arose  a  generation of    true   artists  whose  bottles  were never  used  for  snuff,  but  just  for  display. " Hey   ! -  my  i-ZLY  is  a later and  better  version  than  your  i-MSX"
So alongside the   few   acknowldeged   "greats"  there must  have been   a  whole  cottage  industry  turning out    commercial grade  bottles   with some minimal  decoration   for   real  snuff use. ( Pat  tells  me  he  has  bottles  which actualy do contain  residual   snuff  particles !    QED)   As usual  with commercial grade  stuff, it's never  valued  at the   time  do finally very  examples   finally  survive . Thus the   3   - rail  Hornby  00  gauge  toy  train  set  I   palyed  with  as a kid   50 years   ago  is  now  very rare and sells  for  several  hundred  USD  on ebay. Very  hard  to fake that  !
So doubtless there  are  many   genuine   commercial grade bottles 100 years  old,  unsigned  but    very  beautiful, and therefore a  collector's genre in their  own  right.   The  only  problem is the   Chinese  innate ability to copy  ( did  you know  that    there  even fake  chicken EGGs  for sale  !!!!!  )   so   as soon as    antique   commercial  grade  bottles   become popular  there will  surely be a  factory  turning out  copies  which  are  ( almost) as good as the  original.  I don't know  how the experts   differentiate  between a  fake and real  ZLY  or  MSX,  but they can  do so  ( but also  provenance   surely  counts  heavily, especially when     these bottles    change hands  for  USD  tens  of  thousands )  . But equally, there   is a   group of  collectors  who   collect the    genuine  antique    commercial  grade  bottles  as  an art form in its  own right, and rightly  so , because they are collector's  items  and often  very  beautiful, as  well as   comparatively  rare.   
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