Old?? Chinese Pots On EBay

Bart Thomas(deceased)

There are a lot of pots claiming to be old chinese (50-100 yrs) being offered on eBay.

I purchased one of the first of these last summer, and whether it's old or not, I am delighted with it, as it's beautifully made.

A very similar pot can be seen at:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...agename=rvi:1:3

The fact that I have seen as many as 3 substantially identical pots offered at the same time would seem to undermine the age claims, unless there was a large stash of them hidden during the great bonsai pot smashing of the cultural revolution.

I contacted Craig Coussins regarding the pots that I bought, and learned that they were probably chrysanthemum pots, and that there was a lot of faking going on.

It certainly is a major case of caveat emptor , but, as I said, I'm happy with the pots I got, even if they are not old.

What the heck! I'm 50-100 years old and don't look that nice!

Attached Images

pot.jpg (16.2 KB, 193 views)

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BonsaiMon

oooh ... nice pot Bart, even it is fake(?) Looks like a bonsai pot to me .. with a hole in the bottom and all.

__________________
peace,
tom stoute

http://bonsaiinsights.spaces.live.com/

Bart Thomas(deceased)

If you look hard in the photo I posted, you will see 3 small holes near the bottom of the right hand face. These are on every other face, and, yes, there's also a proper bonsai hole in the bottom, along with a nice chop.

Shipping is fairly expensive on these pots ($25-50, depending if the slow boat from China is an option), so the combination of the authenticity problem and that make eBay sales pretty slow.

I bought mine by waiting until the end of the auction was near and eMailing the seller, making a more affordable offer. The two pots I bought cost $225, including shipping. With the increased competition, I think I could do better now.

But, as I said before, I'm happy.

Jerry Meislik

Bart,
I too am fascinated by all these old pots.
I guess your approach is a good one. Buy it if you like the pot and the price seems reasonable. Don't worry about whether it is actually old.
Just to be complete, I asked a friend in Singapore, who is an old pot specialist to look at the Ebay offerings about two months ago. He told me the pots were not old.
Jerry Meislik
Whitefish Montana USA
Zone 4-5
http://www.bonsaihunk.8m.com/

__________________
Jerry Meislik
Whitefish Montana USA
Zone 4-5
http://www.bonsaihunk.us/

Bart Thomas(deceased)

Thanks, Jerry.

I took the pots to a workshop at Chase's and the consensus was that, even if not old, they were beautiful pots.

I think this would reinforce my thinking that the way to buy them is to eMail an offer (including shipping), but to ignore any claims regarding age.

This has worked well for me in other fields of art and antiques. After all, I'm looking for a pot, not a museum piece.

rockm

The three holes on the sides of the pot indicate that this isn't a bonsai pot, but an orchid pot. Orchids have been grown in China for quite some time and tall pots with drainage and air holes at the bottom have been around for some time--well over a century--anyway. The claim of 50-100 years old may be true--or a slight exaggeration.

The fact that its an orchid pot doesn't make it unsuitable for bonsai, though, as both require good drainage and root aeration.

I've been seeing a few pots offered by this seller on ebay and the quality of what he's selling seems to be very high--although the majority of pots he offers as "bonsai" pots are in fact, made for other purposes--orchids being the primary one.

Jonny D

Bart regardless of age or original purpose, you have a nice pot there!.

Cheers jonny.