Chinese Ge Dagger Axe

[kronckew]

Originally Posted by Philip

...

He performed a simple test to an area of patina and bingo! he found it to be as kosher as a ham sandwich.

...

It would be useful to know what the simple test is, so we could use it.

p.s. - mine was really cheap, tho it could indeed be (and probably is) an antique in it's own right as a 'ceremonial' copy from the 19c Qing or earlier. China prohibits the export of real antiques, but I'd bet they still get smuggled thru. Money talks.

[fernando]

Wayne Kröncke,
Look at this pair of Palstave axes. This is an actual challenge to test authenticity. Even a certain expert, judging by the pictures, told me they were good. It took me a zillion demarches (museums and all) to end up finding out they were a fake. When one day i showed them to a well known local collector, he recognized them and told me they were the result of an attempt by some skillful guy in that, he bet he was able to reproduce his axes originals, so well that such wouldn't be noticeable.
In vain i tried to sell them with no profit;then i tried to return them to the local original seller ... with success. Mind you, he never tried to deceive me; he just sold me something he assumed not knowing what it was.


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[Philip]

Originally Posted by kronckew

It would be useful to know what the simple test is, so we could use it.

p.s. - mine was really cheap

China prohibits the export of real antiques, but I'd bet they still get smuggled thru. Money talks.

Yes, and it speaks loud and clear to the right people. The notion of what a "real antique" is often determined by the guy wearing the badge. In the 1990s, a colleague who used to do buying trips to China with his parents to buy 19th cent Qing vernacular furniture for their design gallery was hassled at the airport for a early 20th cent. blue/white porclain lady's pillow shaped like a recumbent pussycat. "That's a Song Dynasty piece!!" declared the inspector, who promptly impounded it and subjected my friend to a thorough search and grilling. [FYI the Song was a medieval dynasty preceding the Mongol era].

In the meantime, buyers were being gulled into paying hefty prices for those Tang [preceding the Song] Dynasty tricolor-glaze figurines and animals in the Beijing marketplace. They had signed and sealed test certificates from labs certifying the age of the material. Plus an export permit! A Chinese dealer whom I got to know well explained how this worked. The pieces were all newly made, expertly aged and patinaed, by craftsmen who knew the originals forwards and backwards. Part of the object (bottom of statue or foot of camel) was made from original ground up clay from an authentic fragment, and incorporated into the body in a seamless manner. The lab was tipped off as to where to take the test sample from.

There was a time, a couple of decades ago, that it was possible for an arms collector to find worthwhile stuff (helmets, swords, etc) in China and find ways to get it out. The fakes were easier to detect, and those who really studied the material could tell a good 17th-18th cent. blade from touristic or Boxer Rebellion junk. There were a few collectors in the US who built nice collections that way, using a chain of trusted "pickers" including a couple of European expats living over there. Those Wild West days are over. The faking is out of control. The last guy I had who rootled out blades for me in provincial towns, had to give up because shipping out of China became more and more problematic. The last thing he found, a rare 16th cent. falchion blade with chiseled archaistic dragons on the forte, took 3 attempts to ship -- eventually it had to go to Hong Kong and from there via post to the US. Too risky.

There were time that even pieces of some significance were given the government OK for export. A dealer in London once offered an 18th cent. Chinese saber blade of multi-row twist core pattern weld steel, further inlaid with Tibetan symbols and an inscription linking it to a monastery. I managed to buy it and on the scabbard was still affixed the official wax export seal that the government was using at the time (it later switched to an adhesive seal).

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Philip

Part of the object (bottom of statue or foot of camel) was made from original ground up clay from an authentic fragment, and incorporated into the body in a seamless manner ...

Amazing;a trick similar to the one used by Amadou to circumvent TL tests, and the Kuhn ram bought at a famous auctioneer for $275 000.


...Amadou explained that he digs "holes into the clay where I can bury fragments of authentic terra cotta found at the [looted] sites ...

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[kronckew]

A socketed bronze form of the Ge dagger-axe, which were used later that the tanged ones just sold on a famous online e-site for a few hundred pounds UK.

Another similar one just sold on a UK Auction house real time online auction for around 12% of that
.
I'll have an easier time mounting it on a pole than the earlier one I posted.
(Yes, I bought the cheaper one)

No provenance on this one, real or not. I'll assume it is fake tho after all the above...

At least the Auction house knew what it was.