Chief Writer: Xi Daoxian, Qilu Evening News reporter, senior media person, chief editor.
Consultant: Su Bin, worked in the Propaganda Department of Shandong Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, editor of the hospital newspaper, and member of the Provincial Book Association.
In Jinan, in the circle of playing with purple sand pots, if Chen Shibin is mentioned, no one knows. Among the contemporary national purple sand craft masters, no matter whose name you mention, Mr. Chen will say without hesitation: That is my good friend! Mr. Chen Lao is the former president of Shandong Purple Sand Association and has been playing with purple sand pots for nearly 50 years.
We arrived at Mr. Chen Shibin's house as promised, and as soon as we entered the door, we were attracted by the variety of purple sand pots. Living room, study, entrance, tea table, Bogu shelf A purple sand pot is arranged in an orderly and staggered manner, and the styles are different, really into the purple sand museum. Mr. Chen, who greeted us, had black hair, a spring breeze, and a cheerful laugh, unlike someone in his 70s. He poured us freshly brewed hot tea, and a smell of tea filled the tea room, and the entrance was even more mellow. Elder Chen said that this was his own "orchid fragrance". Those who play with the pot will be good at drinking, and indeed they will live up to everyone's name.
Mr. Chen talked to us about his family history, the old Xiguan Chen surname in Jinan, the ancestor was Chen Ying, the minister who sent three missions to the Western Regions during the Ming Yongle years, and was a descendant of Chen Yougong, the chief soldier of Fujian in the early Qing Dynasty, and the family fell during the Guangxu period. Mr. Chen jokingly called himself a "broken nobleman". When he was a child, his grandfather opened a "Chen Family Roll Shop" in Xiguan, which was a small merchant's house with no worries about food and clothing. Influenced by his family, he has developed the habit of drinking tea since he was a child, and there are still a few old pots in the family, which are practical but not valuable.
Chen Shibin has loved purple clay pots since he was a child, and the collection began in the 1970s. In 1973, he went to Yixing for the first time and wandered in the local purple sand pot market "Xi Shed", with a stall selling pots in front and a small workshop making pots in the back. At that time, the price of buying a pot was very cheap, and a pot of a contemporary purple sand craft master was only a few dollars. Since then, Mr. Chen has become a regular visitor to Yixing. On the way, he always had a pot in his backpack. The pot that has been brewed for a long time, even if sometimes the tea leaves on hand do not come together, brew a boiling water in the pot, you can also drink the melodious tea aroma, which is the magic of the purple sand pot. Mr. Chen has been immersed in the purple sand pot market for a long time, deeply into the purple sand workshop, and gradually knows its production process and market flow. Yixing purple sand pot began in the Northern Song Dynasty, flourished in the Ming and Qing dynasties, since its inception has been a pure handmade craft, family small workshop production, the craft is also a family inheritance, "each has its own heart, the secret is not passed on." Purple sand pot to practical functions, has a wide range of mass base, in its development and evolution, the craft is more and more specialized, gradually highlighting the function of appreciation collection, but also cultivated generations of purple sand masters, master works attract many players flock to flock, forming a certain atmosphere and circle. The flourishing period of China's purple sand pot market began around 2000, and the price of famous pots in the past generations was higher and higher, and a number of contemporary well-known craftsmen also appeared. However, under the prosperity, there will inevitably be a mixture of vain hype and fish, and some old artists in the 1980s and 1990s imitated famous pots from the Ming and Qing dynasties into the market. The so-called "high imitation pot" is actually a fake pot, but the master imitation can often be fake and real, which brings great difficulty to the appreciation of the purple sand pot. Players are mainly old pots, Chen Shibin collection of purple sand pots mainly from the antique market, most of them from the place of origin Yixing. In addition to the place of origin, the flow direction of the purple sand pot over the generations is also traceable. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the canal was the main waterway running through the north and south, and at that time, several canal commercial ports in Shandong, Jining, Liaocheng and Dezhou, had precipitated some famous pots from previous dynasties.
With the passage of time, Mr. Chen's collection has gradually enriched, and in the past 50 years, he has collected hundreds of purple sand pots, which not only enjoys himself, but also expands his influence in the circle. In 1999, Mr. Chen Shibin introduced Yixing's team of purple sand craftsmen to Shandong for the first time and held the first Shandong Purple Sand Expo. The Shandong Branch of the China Yixing Purple Sand Appreciation Professional Committee was established, and Chen Shibin was elected as the secretary general. Since then, Chen Shibin has participated in all the purple sand exhibitions and exchange events held in Shandong. Mr. Chen first told the legendary experience of pei Shimin, one of the "Seven Elders" of the Republic of China, who had a pot. In 2010, the National Purple Sand Association held the Ming and Qing Dynasty Purple Sand Pot Boutique Exhibition at the Weifang Kite Expo, when all the masters of the national purple sand industry were present. During the event, Chen Shibin walked out of the venue, through the middle passage of an off-site purple sand vendor's stall to run errands, suddenly found an old pot on the stall that made his eyes light up, he immediately squatted down to pick up the pot, asked the vendor price, opened his mouth to ask for 2,000 yuan, Chen Shibin suddenly felt his heart pounding. He carefully looked at the pot from the aspects of "mud, type, work, model, and work", determined that it was Pei Shimin's genuine product, bargained with the vendor, and finally sold it for 1600 yuan. When he took the pot to the venue and put it in front of the experts, it immediately caused a shock, which once again confirmed Mr. Chen's extraordinary eyesight, and the experts said that he picked up 400,000 leaks. In fact, the price of Pei Shimin's pot on the market is more than 1 million yuan, only because this pot is large, focusing on practicality and not a boutique, but it is indeed a rare treasure. At that time, many media reporters were present, and the next day weifang Daily published this news, causing a sensation in the collection circle. I asked Mr. Chen, didn't the vendor come to you the next day? He said no, because there are rules in the antique market. He talked about three rules of the antique market: First, the counter-offer must be bought. When you are optimistic about a thing, as long as you ask for a counter-offer after asking for a price, and the merchant accepts it, the thing will be bought. Second, shipments are not returned. As long as the buyer and seller deal, the things are taken away, and the things are found to be expensive or fake, they must not be returned, and they can only pay tuition fees willingly. Of course, if the vendor finds that something has been sold at a loss, there is no reason to recover it. Third, we must not pass the hand. It means that things cannot be passed in the hands of buyers and sellers or two buyers, and you can only wait for the other party to put things down before you can pick them up and look at them yourself, which of course prevents things from being lost in the transmission. It can be seen that if you want to play antiques, you really have to know some rules, otherwise you will laugh and be generous.
In fact, connoisseurs also have times to hit the eye. Mr. Chen Shibin also told a story of collecting fakes. In 2003, an antique dealer approached Mr. Chen and said that someone had hidden a famous pot to sell. When Mr. Chen heard the news, he rode a motorcycle for dozens of miles to the southern mountains, put down the motorcycle and walked for more than an hour to a small mountain bag with only a few families. The pot seller still did not want to take things out, so he had to go to his home to see it, which was very mysterious. When I arrived at the home of the pot seller, I saw the mysterious purple sand pot, which was indeed an old pot with a shape similar to that of a famous family, with a price of 100,000 yuan. Mr. Chen looked at it but cried and laughed, it turned out that this was a pot he bought two years ago, when more than 1,000 yuan bought home, after repeated inspection found that this is a high imitation pot, he gave him to a friend who played high imitation, who knew that after two years, he returned to his eyes.
While we were talking, Mr. Chen got up to introduce his collection and talked about the different shapes of the purple sand pot in front of the real thing. The purple sand pot type is divided into three categories from the large aspects, namely light goods, flower goods and tendon goods. Light goods mean that the body of the pot is light and does not have any ornaments; flower goods refer to the body of the pot depicting various ornaments; tendon goods, which refer to the round body of the pot with concave and convex vertical lines, like a pumpkin style. If subdivided by production process and form, there are many types. For example, the purple sand hanging glaze during the Qianlong period, because the Qianlong Emperor paid attention to complexity and luxury, he let the manufacturing office go to Yixing to collect the fired pot blanks, let the painters paint the glaze dot color, and the secondary processing was fired to make a dot color, full of color purple sand pot, and divided into pastel and enamel color, the appearance looks no different from porcelain. For another example, Weihai in our province uses the inlay process to reprocess the purple sand pot into a "Weihai tin pot", and subcontracts tin, copper and silver, which has been applied for heritage. Famous works also have their own characteristics in terms of instrument type, such as Mr. Qin Youtao's first masterpiece is the hanging tire turtle and dragon pot; Mr. Shi Xiaoma makes more square pots, and is best at making flower pots. From the perspective of the size of the utensil, the purple sand pot in the early Ming Dynasty was mostly used to boil tea, so the instrument type was larger; later it was changed to brew tea, and the instrument type became smaller. Contemporary purple sand works, the shape of the instrument is more and more abundant.
The Purple Sand Collection speaks of three words: "eye, edge, and money." Eyesight is not good, can not see the truth or falsehood of the good, can not buy; no matter how good the eyesight, there is no fate to see good goods, it is also in vain; with eyesight and fate, see good things, if there is no financial resources, there is no heart and weakness can only give up. One year, in order to collect a good pot, Mr. Chen used all his savings, and when he arrived at the Chinese New Year's Eve, the family of three only had five yuan left, and they could hardly open the pot, so they had to go to their parents' house to rub rice for the New Year, and did not return to their homes until the sixth day of work. A few years ago with two friends to visit the Hero Mountain Cultural Market, just into the antique stall, a glance found a pot of Chen Yongqing in the Ming Dynasty, he took the pot in his hand to inquire, the main price of the stall was 5,000 yuan, before waiting for him to return the price, he was targeted by another Tibetan friend, saying: "5,000 yuan I bought!" "You have to pay the bill." Buying things is at first glance, this is the rule. But at that time, Mr. Chen only brought more than 2,000 yuan of money, if the money is not enough, he can only lose his hand with the baby, fortunately, two friends followed, and the result was that the three of them made up money to buy this pot. Who knew that that night, the buyer who competed with him for goods came to his home and said that he wanted to bid 50,000 yuan to buy the pot, and it was difficult to get the beloved thing in his hand, and Mr. Chen naturally did not transfer it. Although the Tibetan friend surnamed Zhang was disappointed, he looked at Mr. Chen's collection with pleasure, and the two became good friends.
Mr. Chen Shibin reminds purple sand collectors that the five character tips of "mud, type, work, model and work" to be followed to identify purple sand pots. The most basic is mud, the real purple sand mud is only produced in Yixing, Jiangsu, but in recent years, some places in the country have produced red clay similar to purple sand mud, counterfeit purple sand to make pots; type finger type, the above mentioned various types of utensils, can be selected according to their own hobbies; work finger process, craft thickness and different styles reflect the level of craftsmen; the model finger drop, from the drop of the name seal can be identified from which famous artist's work, but there is also a phenomenon of computer imitation of the famous family, although the computer imitation of the famous seal although the pattern is the same, But from the depth of the stroke can be identified, the depth of the engraving stroke is different, and the depth of the stroke imitated by the computer is the same; the function of the function, the fundamental function of the purple sand pot is to make tea, a good pot must be easy to use first, such as good water, broken water is also good, if the function is not good, it must not be a good pot. For beginner enthusiasts, Mr. Chen reminds that first of all, we must look at the price, do not covet cheap. First calculate the cost price of a pot, from the mud, the real purple sand mud, from mining, grinding to sinking, the cost of mud in a pot, at least more than 50 yuan; each pot on the kiln firing cost of 80 yuan; handmade a pot takes one or two working days, the cost of labor costs 300-500 yuan, such a pot if less than 300 yuan, it must be unreliable. For example, the mold-formed "grout pot", a worker can produce 200 a day. The 30-50 yuan pot sold on the market is neither purple sand mud nor handmade, and most of them are grouting pots of other mud materials. One of the easiest ways to identify purple sand mud is to touch it with your hands, don't feel the glass, and have the feeling of touching the bean paste. Then look, all the colors of the pot body are too bright and bright, are equipped with chemical raw materials, and the real purple sand is matte. Therefore, remind novices to see more, touch more, and buy less.
One point number Xi Talk Jinan