Featured Fans!

If selling, both tortoiseshell and ivory are a problem, even though they are antique.
I did notice that the registration process (to sell an antique ivory etc item) is much less cumbersome in the UK than in the EU.

 

I’d assumed I couldn’t sell?
Realistically I haven’t got the room to keep and conserve them and they should go to someone who is a collector but I won’t break the law and I’d rather keep them off the market unless it can be done legally.
There are some on eBay as ‘faux’ tortoiseshell which are clearly the real thing like the photo below, surely that’s the real thing? Sold for £770!
Tbh I haven’t even looked at Tortoiseshell regulations, I’d assumed sale was illegal too

 

Thankyou, great information

 

Thankyou

 

Funny that I thought it was the other way round!

I like the sound of unintentionally auspicious bats

 

"Genuine" and "faux". That sends a clear message!

Debora

 

Tortoise and ivory are both now illegal to sell, at least on the open market where they can catch you. I wouldn't ship it either. Where I live no ivory can be sold at all, but it can certainly be gifted and they don't seem to care about antique stores. An auction... that would be begging for it. Tortoise in the USA is under a Federal protection. You can own it but can't sell it.

Ambergris is the same way. Contacted Fish and Wildlife once. You can't sell it since it comes from a whale, but if you have a piece they don't want to know about it. It's not like the whale would want it back!

 

Interestingly there are tortoiseshell fans for auction on the sale room.com……
Also an ivory fan which has an exemption number in the listing.

 

There are no exception numbers here, unless you're selling to a museum or something similar. The antique tortoise pieces are being ignored, best guess, or no one's complaining about a piece of an animal that's been dead for 150 years.

 

I had no idea this was restricted. Not that I have owned or have even seen ambergris!

 

It's not pretty and feels waxy. I got a piece as a freebie once and then gave it away to someone else. He thought it was cool, which it was. You can still sell it in the Middle East, or could the last I looked. It was used as a perfume ingredient. I forget if it's whale poop or whale snot. Either way, the whale wanted it gone.

 

Fans go for quite good money, particularly Chinese fans. Your best bet is to turn off international shipping and not mention the materials at all. There are very dedicated fan collectors that scour all the listings and they will find good ones and pay good money for them.

If they don’t have to go through customs anywhere you’ll likely be fine.

 

For what it's worth, I've purchased antiques online which, when they arrived at my door, turned out to be ivory, and this was done through eBay, internationally. Not sure what you make of that, but it can happen.

 

So whale vomit is protected?
Ambergris washes up on the shore, but I guess they were also killed for it, so it makes sense in a way.

 

The difference in price isn't in Chinese v. European, it is in the quality and collectability.
For instance in this case the Chantilly fan is much more valuable and collectible, because it is a higher quality and not mass produced.
Some antique Chinese fans are a dime a dozen, simply because production was so high. Others, with an almost equally high production, are valuable because of the amazing carving.

Surprisingly, or maybe not, antique Dutch fans are very valuable, much more so than Chinese fans. The rarity and high quality makes them very collectible. Dutch ivory etc carving was of the same quality as Dieppe carving, but production wasn't as high.

 

Quality obviously is the most important factor in nearly any form of collectible. That said if two fans of comparable high quality were placed on eBay at the same exact time with the same exact starting price I would put my money on the Chinese fan getting more attention, at a faster rate. Just my experience but certainly I’d defer to your expertise in most areas. Good European fans definitely go for good money and have a strong collector base. Fans in general have been a profitable niche for me. The Chinese certainly produced them at a very impressive rate!

edit: I looked on terrapeak at the last three years of eBay sales records. Of the top ten most expensive fans sold on eBay in that time frame five were Chinese, and five were European. Even split. Although the most expensive Chinese fan was $2,500 more than the most expensive European fan. That was using “antique hand fan” as the search term. It’s a bit tricky because different people use different keywords. A search of just “fan” will get you industrial and home electric fans mostly.

 

It doesn’t surprise me at all that you have. The risk is not worth the reward from my perspective though.

 

Meanwhile, I had a cow bone necklace yanked for not specifying the species of cow. Should have called it simulated bone.(rolleyes)

 

I had a mahjong set yanked because I said it was "bone and bamboo" (which a lot of vintage sets were, and still are).

eBay: "What kind of bone!? HUH! HUH!!!???"

"COW bone"

Oh...okay!..uhh...carry on..."

Relisted it, and was never bothered again.

I've seen some sellers get around this by saying that the set is "bamboo & bovine".