Introduction: One day, a Tibetan friend surnamed Wang in Changsha, Hunan Province, received a phone call, and then Lao Wang immediately picked up his bag and magnifying glass and hurried to the antique market. Handing over money and delivering the goods with one hand, it took 30,000 yuan in a few minutes to buy the copper box that I had looked up to three years ago. The owner fell in love with him and gave him a small box. What Lao Wang did not expect was that this small box given to him changed his peaceful life.
Lao Wang was originally the director of the management of a local factory, and after retirement, he started collecting without any trouble. And this time his harvest is not small, after returning home, Lao Wang took out the cowhide to wipe the dirt off the surface of the two boxes, and after a long time of busy work, the two treasures finally revealed their true faces.
The lid of the large square box was engraved with a "green bamboo figure", and the small box that was given to him less than an inch square was engraved with several strange and obedient words, some like human forms, some like cars, and some like weapons.
Although he didn't know what the symbols on the small box represented, he looked at the two shiny things in front of him, and Lao Wang's heart didn't mention how happy he was. You know, this square box engraved with "Cuizhu Tu" made him regret for three years.
The treasure that Lao Wang had in mind was something he had encountered three years ago in the "ghost city" of Changsha, Hunan Province.
Mention of "ghost city" can not be misunderstood, this "ghost city" is not the other "ghost city", he is not only not haunted, but unusually lively, attracting many people flock to it. But the amazing thing is that the people who go to this place, it is a few joys and a few sorrows. Lao Wang has formed an indissoluble relationship with this mysterious "ghost city".
One day three years ago, Lao Wang shuttled through the crowds of the "ghost city" of Qingshuitang as usual, carefully searching for targets at each stall. Suddenly a small metal box on the stall attracted him. After a closer look, he decided to buy it. But the price offered by the stall owner made him a little difficult to accept. So, he only changed phones with the stall owner and left.
We all know that the antiques are traded in two or three minutes, and if you hesitate and put things down, someone else will take it.
At that time, he did not buy it, but Lao Wang regretted it when he returned home, so he called the stall owner, but he couldn't get through. Since then, that small square box has provoked Lao Wang to be obsessed with it and blame himself.
However, what Lao Wang did not expect was that three years later, this treasure could be lost and recovered. But before Lao Wang's happy mood could calm down, the next day, the stall owner called again and said that he would buy it for three times the price.
This made Lao Wang's heart begin to mutter, because he knew that this was a trick that antique dealers had always used.
It turns out that antique dealers often use a trick to get away with it, and when a fake is sold, they deliberately take it back at a high price, so that the buyer will be more at ease without any doubt.
It was not unreasonable for Lao Wang to think so, ten years ago he had experienced something that he still remembered vividly.
At first, Lao Wang was not interested in collecting and playing with antiques, let alone good. Later, he found that he had more and more friends around him who collected antiques, and every time they gathered, they always had to take out the treasures they had collected to circulate and play. That music and energy also gradually affected Lao Wang.
He also began to wander around the antique market, learning to collect some small utensils from ancient literary rooms. He especially likes to engrave copper ink cartridges.
"Engraved copper ink cartridge" in the late Qing Dynasty and early Minchu is more popular, this ink cartridge is mainly used to store ink, the general ink cartridge will be placed with silk cotton or sponge, so that the ink is filled in between, convenient for writing anytime, anywhere.
Cartridges vary in size, ranging from more than 20 cm in diameter to only 2 to 3 cm, with the most common being around 10 cm.
The type of instrument is mainly square and round, and there are also various strange shapes. For example, ellipses, hearts, drums, and so on. Since the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty, exquisite poems, books, paintings and prints have appeared on the ink cartridges.
Before the advent of ink cartridges, people wrote with bricks, but the ink of the bricks needed to be polished, which was very inconvenient to use. When the cartridge is produced, it greatly improves the convenience of people's writing.
In addition to the convenience of use, many celebrities like to engrave words on the ink cartridge, which makes the value of the ink cartridge increase a lot, and also makes it a gift between the literati and inkers at that time.
Therefore, during the Republic of China, people used to engrave copper ink cartridges in Beijing, Nanchang elephant eye bamboo millers, and Hunan embroidery, and became "China's three famous things". So now many people like to collect this kind of engraved copper ink cartridge, Lao Wang is one of them.
Sure enough, soon Lao Wang came across a carved copper cartridge that he thought was valuable.
According to the merchant's introduction, this treasure is some years old, and the ink cartridge is engraved with the famous "Yueyang Louji" of Fan Zhongyan of the Northern Song Dynasty, which is of high value.
But what Lao Wang did not expect was that he bought a fake on the first shot, according to the introduction of experts, this cartridge is also nearly 10 years old, and there is no value.
Thinking of this, Lao Wang felt that it was not right, was it not right to spend 30,000 yuan this time to buy a one-free ink cartridge is also a fake?
At first, Lao Wang felt that the two ink cartridges obtained this time, judged by the experience he had learned in the antique market for several years, should not be out of shape. But the seller called again, and Lao Wang's heart inevitably beat the drum again.
So he took the two ink cartridges back out of the bottom of the box and then found an expert to identify them.
Sure enough, the cartridge he had liked for 3 years was indeed a fake. Just when Lao Wang was disappointed, the expert told him another surprising result.
Although his favorite cartridge was a fake, the cartridge he gave him was real and worth an extraordinary value, with an estimated value of more than a million.
Experts told him that according to the research, the ink cartridge should be an object from the Qing Dynasty. These strange symbols are actually Oracle, and their contents are also of great research value. For example, the "heaven" in the three words of "Heavenly Father" may be a previous clan, or it may be a kind of emblem, or it may be a title.
The three simplified characters of "Shang Jue Wen" in the lower left corner indicate that this oracle bone was once engraved on a wine glass in the Shang Dynasty, and then it was moved to this ink cartridge.
The "jue" of the Shang Dynasty is the wine cup, and since this text comes from the Shang Dynasty, this ink cartridge has extremely high archaeological and research value, so the valuation is not much.
When Lao Wang heard it, he was overjoyed, and he didn't expect that a gift could have such a value.
After returning from the experts, Lao Wang's mood was particularly comfortable. And the news that he found the treasure spread. Friends who come to Lao Wang's house to enjoy are naturally endless, and some buyers who come to see him also have their eyes on Lao Wang.
In this way, Lao Wang's new troubles came again. In order to cope with these friends who want to buy his baby, and not to hurt the peace, Lao Wang tried his best. In the end, he could only hide this treasure.
But left hidden and right Hidden, Lao Wang always felt inappropriate. In the end, he found that the joy of this collection had to be shared with others in order to experience and enjoy it.
Lao Wang said that this is playing antiques, playing is the mentality, compared to the experience. Since he started playing with collecting, he felt that his mentality had changed a lot.
At the beginning, I often suffered from gains and losses for the authenticity of a treasure, but after a few years, my mentality was much calmer. Lao Wang said that this is all due to the fact that he has been cultivated by artistic enjoyment and sentiment in these famous calligraphy and paintings between these square inches, and his life has become colorful with these small boxes.
It seems that collecting is really a good thing to get more in one fell swoop.
References: Oracle, Antique Identification