Zhai Jianmin can be recognized by porcelain lovers everywhere he goes, and people ask him to "look over" the photos of the collection in his smartphone, and he always happily helps. Not long ago, when he rushed from the airport to the scene of the special lecture on natural history in Kuangshi, Beijing, the porcelain lovers who were waiting for him finally breathed a sigh of relief. Zhai Jianmin, the owner of Hong Kong's Wing Po Zhai, is regarded by the big auction house as one of the most important antique dealers in Asia, and behind his iconic Zhai smile, there are stories of sky-high prices and inspirational legends of the antique circle.
The apprentice "washes" out good eyesight
What made Zhai Jianmin famous in the collection circle was a Qingqianlong imperial enamel color amphora, which in October 2005, after a competition at the Sotheby's Autumn Auction in Hong Kong, Zhai Jianmin pocketed this vial for HK$115 million, and he also became a focus figure along with the birth of the Qing Dynasty porcelain auction record. Just like "one minute on stage, ten years off stage", behind his words and vertical and horizontal words in the porcelain collection market is beyond the diligence and efforts of ordinary people.
In the 1970s, after Zhai Jianmin's family moved from Macau to Hong Kong, he was forced to make a living, and at the age of 15, he had to interrupt his studies, go out to work, and share the responsibility of supporting his family, so he met his master Huang Yinghao, who later led him into the antique shop.
Working as a handyman in a yarn shop, he often went to Master Huang of the antique shop next door to help after work. In 1973, Master Huang planned to open his own antique shop and asked him to work in the store. As a buddy and apprentice, Zhai Jianmin stepped into the antique industry.
His main job was to clean porcelain. "A wash is 9 years, no matter whether it is cold winter or hot summer, they all squat in the corridor to wash, at that time they did not understand, and their hearts still hated the master." Every piece of porcelain that the master bought and sold had to be washed by his hands, from dirty to clean, "slowly it felt like he was holding his own child to help him clean."
After 9 years of washing, Zhai Jianmin washed an average of 20 pieces of porcelain per day, and the porcelain that passed through his hands accumulated five figures. Gradually, he went from being interested in those bowls, saucers, and bottles to paying attention to their feel, weight, thickness, shape, size, style, color, pattern, model, fall, age, material and other details and differences.
Since 1975, Zhai Jianmin began to follow his master to Europe, to britain and the United States, and the museums everywhere opened his eyes. The master was bent on buying things, and after returning to the hotel, he was responsible for cleaning as usual. Over time, Zhai Jianmin said that he became more and more aware that cleaning dishes was a rare opportunity for him to hone, and he believed that his professional foundation was laid at this time.
Years of close contact and practical experience have tempered Zhai Jianmin's professional vision. At the age of 43, having been in the industry for many years, the little famous Zhai Jianmin came to the Department of Archaeology of Peking University to study.
When he dropped out of school, Zhai Jianmin had just entered the first grade of middle school, and now he had to complete his homework for undergraduate courses, and the antique shop in Hong Kong also had to be taken care of, and he could only fly back and forth between Hong Kong and Beijing every week, the pressure could be imagined, but Zhai Jianmin once again insisted.
Unfortunately, because he was an auditor, Zhai Jianmin could not obtain any qualification certificates, and was impressed by his diligence and persistence, and the teacher of the Department of Archaeology suggested that he go to the cultural relics course class of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences to study. Two years later, Zhai Jianmin completed his course at the age of 50, and who expected that his age was just above the standard for awarding academic qualifications. However, after the relevant people of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences learned about his resume, it was decided to appoint him as a professor in the Department of Archaeology.
Sensitivity to trends
The antique industry seems to be slow and leisurely, the so-called three years do not open, open to eat for three years, in fact, behind the undercurrent surging. Zhai Jianmin believes that half of his success comes from his ability to grasp market trends.
In 1988, Zhai Jianmin opened his first antique shop in Hollywood Road, Hong Kong, named "Yongbao Zhai" by his wife Liu Huifang, hoping that every customer would always buy a treasure from here. Born in Shanghai and raised in Hong Kong, Liu Huifang comes from an antique family and specializes in miscellaneous items, while Zhai Jianmin is responsible for porcelain, and the couple really complement each other and begin to work hard in the Hong Kong antique circle.
At the beginning, zhai Jianmin's customers were about 60% Hong Kongers and 40% Were Westerners. In the 1980s, he also went to the mainland to buy goods, and at that time, antiques and cultural relics could only be traded to the public, and could only be bought in cultural relics stores, external stores and other places, because they could provide the relevant documents needed for export.
Around 2000, the demand for mainland investors began to grow rapidly, resulting in major changes in the antiques industry, Zhai Jianmin became one of the first brokers to adapt to this great change, and now his mainland customers account for 70%, he goes to nearly 100 auctions around the world every year, collecting various porcelain miscellaneous items for mainland customers. "Rich people in the mainland already have big houses, luxury cars, and watches; they are not optimistic about the stock market, and they can't keep buying houses; therefore, there is no better investment channel than antiques."
"If I want to make money, I'll just sell two dishes." Since 2002, Zhai Jianmin has been holding an annual antique fair, which he has wanted to do for many years. Over the years, he has found that many big collectors and people in the industry hope to have a good platform to reach buyers and enthusiasts in the mainland.
However, running an expo was far more difficult than he had imagined. Zhai Jianmin once held antique fairs in Taiyuan, Shanxi, and Dongguan, Guangdong, but was later forced to interrupt. "It's not that they're bad. Collectors and visitors were enthusiastic, but we couldn't solve the problem of antiques entering customs from abroad. "A thing that exceeds 100 million yuan will have to draw tens of millions of taxes as soon as it enters the country, and it will be enough to sell it, but most of it cannot be sold."
Since the second half of 2012, he has taken on a new direction, when a mainland real estate developer asked him to build a private museum for himself. It is no accident that the background is that private art museums in the mainland are setting off a new wave.
Zhai Jianmin first took the real estate developer to Japan for a walk, they went to kyoto's MIHO Museum, Tokyo's Demiguang Museum of Art and Nezu Art Museum, after inspecting three private museums of different styles, the real estate developer changed his previous idea of just luxury and style, according to Zhai Jianmin's positioning, planning to make a professional museum based on ceramics, including official kilns, small kilns and folk kilns.
Collecting is inseparable from fun
Zhai Jianmin's Weibo is getting hotter and hotter because his appraisal is very stylish. A porcelain lover asked Zhai Jianmin on Weibo whether a porcelain plate decorated with flowers and fruits was old, and attached a photo of the collection, and Zhai Jianmin answered him very clearly, the porcelain plate was from the Qing Tongzhi period. This should be his decent answer, and sometimes he will say "unreliable!" unceremoniously! Sometimes he will leave room to tell fans "Irrational! Often he will humor it and let fans "wash and sleep!" ”。
"Collecting should avoid buying things under the wealth, do not borrow money to buy, and do not carry interest to buy, otherwise it will be very tired." Zhai Jianmin often said that it should be collected with a happy, happy, and elegant taste, "If it is used as a tool to make money, it is not a collection, just like us, it has become a person in the industry." So first figure out my own identity, I want to enter this industry is not to make money, there are ideas to make money eight or nine not far from ten must be getting deeper and deeper. ”
Every time he attends a TV show or lecture, Zhai Jianmin is most happy to share his appraisal experience. "How does some people think the official kiln is so clean?" Looks newer than new? There must be three things to remember in the collection: true, refined, and new. Needless to say, the exquisite fine, if it is used for a long time, it may wear out a lot, if it is true, refined, and new, a piece of porcelain must be preserved. ”
When visiting the antique market, most people think that old things should look dirty, have a sense of vicissitudes, and have traces. "In fact, decades ago, my master also said that when buying collectibles, you must buy clean and perfect, dirty is artificially old." Zhai Jianmin believes that the official kiln porcelain is either smeared with mud or old traces, which is artificially old to cater to the buyer's mentality.
"But now sometimes after the porcelain is washed, people will not look at it, and now the market is popular and orderly, because there are too many fakes, so everyone has strong confidence in the orderly circulation, and it is contradictory to wash the pulp or not to wash." Zhai Jianmin believes that it is still necessary to wash, how to wash a real thing is true, the collection is mainly to practice their own eyesight, eyesight is not good, there is no pulp can not play a role.
Zhai Jianmin is an antique dealer, but he is also looking for the joy of collecting, whether it is a Weibo fan, or a rich businessman entrepreneur, no matter who asks him to help look at things, he is equally enthusiastic and tireless, this is his happiness. Fans combined his consistently happy and fashionable image and humorous and frank identification style, and also gave him a nickname "Zhai Shuai".
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