More than two years ago, a Li surnamed Quanyou in Japan's second-hand website shopping, spent a few hundred yuan to buy a few five-baht, Yongle, Shunzhi, Kangxi, the Japanese seller is very cheerful, after the shipment also incidentally accompanied by a Tongzhi heavy treasure Dangshi.
The Japanese seller did not expect that the Tongzhi heavy treasure that he thought was a fake was a very rare genuine carving mother, and hundreds of thousands of them were given to others in such a vain way. And Li surnamed Quanyou also did not expect that a big leak was sent to the eyes, but the ending was not very good.
The source of the picture is shared by friends
As soon as you get started with the physical object, Quanyou feels that this coin is not simple, the money is exquisite, the money diameter is huge, the copper is pure, the pulp is passed down from generation to generation, how to look like ordinary coins, it is sent to a famous domestic veteran coin website for identification.
The opinion of the grader is that although the coin bag pulp plate is "too familiar", not a thing that opens the door at a glance, there are traces of "old plus knife" on the back, but the comprehensive reference is still characterized as the real mother money, into the box, giving 82 points.
This result Quanyou is still relatively satisfied, but also directly on the recommendation of the website staff, and soon sold at a price of 50600 yuan on January 7, 2020. But after selling it, a friend reminded him that this Tongzhi had no traces of turning sand, and it was either a fake or a female carving, unlikely to be a mother's money.
Screenshot of a website deal
QuanYou listened to a little drumming in his heart, but he didn't particularly understand it, and he didn't care, so his friend reminded him: "Believe it or not, after a year, this coin will be auctioned as the eagle mother!" ”
Sure enough, the connoisseur is "like a god", well aware of the unspoken rules of this line, and only 11 months later, the coin was auctioned on that website, with the identity of "carving mother" and marked as "Japanese collector's old collection". Then a number of domestic power collectors competed for the auction, the hammer price of 900,000 yuan, plus the commission final transaction price of up to 1.035 million yuan.
Quanyou posted "protest" afterwards, he felt that he was routine, the website staff deliberately said that the carving mother as ordinary mother money, and then let the "insiders" buy it and change hands to make a lot of money, which is a typical "shop bully". But the website also quickly debunked the rumors, to the effect that Quanyou recognized their appraisal results at the beginning, and also agreed to sell, and the final auction price subverted the cognition is normal, the enterprise is legal and compliant, and did not deliberately "pit" Quanyou.
This is the "Tongzhi Eagle Mother Incident" that has caused a lot of noise in the spring world, and it is still being ridiculed to this day. Obviously, although Quanyou accidentally picked up a big leak, he couldn't grasp it and sold a house for the price of a van. As for whether the old website is "deliberate" or not, we will not guess.
Xianfeng Dang Fifty Eagle Mother Deng Tong Autumn Auction Transaction Price: 2.53 million
Why are the carving mothers so valuable? An ordinary Xianfeng Tongbao Xiaoping coin is worth 20 yuan; Xianfeng Heavy Treasure is ten beautiful products, which is only a few hundred yuan; Xianfeng big money is fifty, when it is a hundred, although it has soared, but it is generally between a few thousand yuan and tens of thousands of yuan; even if it can be rated as mother money, the general Quanyuan Bureau will sell twenty or thirty thousand yuan when it is almost ten.
But the carving mother is different, every time it appears, it is basically a high price of hundreds of thousands, and there are countless millions of sky-high prices. For example, in the Deng Tong Autumn Auction a few months ago, a salty and rich baby spring was a fifty eagle mother, and the transaction price was as high as 2,530,000, breaking the highest record of the variety.
The reason for your price is, of course, that the number is rare, such as the above Tongzhi Dang Ten Eagle Mothers, before the total number of found is only three, Qi Xiang carving mother only five, Xuantong carving mother only four, many carving mothers are even more orphans. The reason why there are so few, let's understand its causes.
In the Qing Dynasty, sand was turned over and coined
In ancient times, coins were minted, of course, not blindly, and there was a very strict specification process. Before the Tang Dynasty, the "Fan Minting Method" was mainly used, and the initial cavity of the coin was first carved on stone or clay, which was called "Zu Fan". Then, after being officially approved, the cast model of copper or iron is made of zu fan, which is called "mother fan". Finally, the mother fan is used to make a batch of pottery fan, called "sub-fan", and then you can use the sub-fan to pour a large amount of copper liquid and cast the copper coins we are familiar with.
This method is connected to the watering duct because the copper coin is cooled like a tree, which is what we commonly call the "cash cow tree", and then the coin is broken off the watering duct, and after a little polishing, it can be put into circulation on the market.
After the Tang Dynasty, the Fan casting method was gradually abandoned and replaced by the "sand turning method". First, a copper, ivory or wax coin sample is carved by hand by skilled craftsmen, and after passing the examination, it becomes "ancestral money", theoretically there is only one. Then use the ancestral money to turn over the "mother money", this amount is much more, and then send the mother money to the various coinage institutions, turn the sand to make a large number of "sub money", that is, the amount of square hole copper coins.
The fan casting method is similar to the sand turning method, but the efficiency of the sand turning method is higher, and a version of the sand type can be re-minted with 64 copper coins at a time. In summary, the money sample is the "first draft of the design", and the ancestral money is what we call the carving mother, which is the model of the mother money, and the mother money is the model of the sub money. So how to distinguish between the mother of the carving and the mother of the mother?
Appreciation of the details of the carving mother
Found no, in fact, the money sample is rarer than the carving mother, but the money sample can not be counted as a coin, most of them are carefully carved with tin, ivory or mahogany and other materials, which are used for the emperor's review, there is no way to circulate, and the average person cannot see it at all, so it is not within the scope of discussion.
The mother of the carving is hand-carved, and a lot of the mother money has also been artificially modified, and many quanyou do not know how to distinguish. In fact, it is not difficult, one of the carved mother money text is exquisite, the overall thickness, the word mouth is deep, the text is narrower and narrower the upwards, which is conducive to demolding. Although the mother money also has such characteristics, it is obvious that it is not carved at the beginning, but changed later.
Daoguang Tong Baby Spring large sample mother money
Second, the carved mother money is smoother, denser and flawless than the mother money, the copper is more exquisite, the diameter is larger, and each font is very clear, and there is no adhesion and blurring. The mother coin is made of carving mother,after cold processing, the outer edge and inner outline are smooth, the body has obvious signs of friction, and the edge retains the slope of the draft.
Third, taking Qing Qian as an example, the real Qing Dynasty mother money is not repaired with the land chapter (money meat), nor is it repaired (a few Tongzhi mother money repair text), and the mouth must be refined. Therefore, from the sand marks of the ground chapter and the outline of the text, it can be seen that there is a big difference from the carving mother.
At present, the discovery of metal carving mothers is limited to the Ming and Qing dynasties, such as the earlier ones such as the "Song Dynasty carving mother", with lead tin or wood as the carving mother are legendary things, and there is no physical evidence. Therefore, when we say that we collect carving mothers, we basically say that the Qing Dynasty and the middle and late Ming Dynasty are mainly based on the Qing Dynasty.
Xianfeng Baoquan Dang 500 Eagle Mother 2013 transaction price: 2.185 million
The real carving mother is exquisite throughout the body in one go, the pulp is extremely beautiful, and most of them are orderly, it is difficult to counterfeit, and those fakes on the market are basically "one-eyed goods", and people with a little experience can distinguish. Therefore, counterfeiters are more willing to take ordinary large sample money to "add knives and re-engrave" into mother money, and the income is much higher than that of the fake carved mother.
As for whether the "Tongzhi Dang Ten Eagle Mother" mentioned at the beginning is genuine, there is still controversy, and few people have touched the actual object and cannot confirm it. However, judging from the results of Quanyou really selling quickly, and then the buyers changed hands to auction the sky-high price, the powerful collectors are not fools, and there is a good chance that they are stable.
It also shows from the side that there are still genuine carving mothers in the folk, but it is best not to "target" to find, because if you want to collect this kind of treasure, fate is actually more important than strength.