Featured An Interesting $$$ Find...

From Kovels
A pandemic-closure-inspired garage cleaning was life-changing for a 51-year-old semi-retired construction worker in Britain. He is now about to receive nearly a half million dollars — $497,723 — for what he thought was a 6-inch-high, yellow teapot he found in a box in his garage that he remembered having been displayed in his mother’s china cabinet. It is actually an 18th-century, Beijing-enameled imperial Chinese wine ewer from the Qianlong period (1735-99). The owner originally had planned to donate all the garage boxes to charity, but he had time on his hands because of the pandemic and started going through them instead. Two almost identical teapots, both with Qianlong reign marks, are in the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan, and the Palace Museum in Beijing, China. “We believe it was brought back to England by my grandfather who was stationed in the Far East during the Second World War,” said the owner. Instead, he can now fully retire. “We’ll be going for a drink tonight and toasting grandad. I might even buy that metal detector I’ve always wanted,” he said after the Sept. 24 sale. The sale attracted bidders from around the world, including China and America. It was bought by a London buyer.

 

We all should be so lucky!

 

Lucky guy! He wants to buy a metal detector. He never would have found this with a metal detector.

 

It's Beautiful !!!!! ... Joy.

 

WOW!!!!! AMAZING!!!!

 

Sure he would have, it's metal under that enamel!

 

Very nice - but way overpriced, it's just a teapot after all - a nice teapot, but so what!

 

So if somebody offered me half a mil for it, I'd take it!

 

We had something a little similar happen at the auction house I worked for a few years ago. One of my consignors was a picker. She came in with a cute little Chinese porcelain wall pocket. No one thought to much of it. The stamp was Qianlong Nian Zhi mark. Could not decipher the 'poem'. I estimated it $400 - $600 and the consignor was quite happy. Picked it up at an estate sale of a few bucks. I ended up phone bidding with Beijing for this piece. The consignor was sitting in the audience and she had to get up and leave the room when it hit $10,000. It closed at $50,000. A couple flew in from China and were live bidding - paid in cash and left that day with it. It turned out to from Royalty. The Chinese gov't was (still is) paying good money for things to be brought back to their country. Of course after that, everyone was hunting for Chinese porcelain wall pockets LOL!!!

 

OTOH, most nouveau-riche Chinese nationals don't know s*it about stuff and bid way over the value as they have plenty more money -plus- are easily duped when it comes to "old" porcelains. Very often these super overpriced bids don't get picked up and bidders disappear on a whim.