People who do not understand the collecting circle will have a "stereotype" that antique cultural relics are just a "dead thing" and do not create practical value. There's definitely an inside story! In fact, people who can afford to buy cultural relics at astronomical prices, money is secondary, and the cultural value behind it is the most important, after all, in addition to eating and sleeping, human beings also have the need to pursue and enjoy art.
And the people inside the collection circle also have a "stereotype", just like some "experienced" experts, always subconsciously "look down" on the cultural relics circulated by the folk, thinking that the folk are basically all fake imitations and cannot be on the table, and this attitude has also created a legendary story of leaking.
In 2010, a grocery auction company on the West Coast of the United States was dealing with some "small legacies" where staff sold items they thought were worthless. Among them, there was a Chinese bronze vessel, and he couldn't understand what it was for, so he hung up a starting price of $300, during which no one bid, and he was snubbed.
At that time, there was a Chinese boy mr. Du who lived in the United States, whose main job was to find chinese cultural relics lost in Britain, the United States, Japan and other countries, he rushed to the grocery auction company after hearing the news, and took the bronze at a starting price of 300 US dollars.
Later, this bronze artifact appeared in Beijing Chengtian Antique City, and Mr. Du entrusted the merchants on the first floor to help him sell it for 120,000 yuan. It is said that after a Zhejiang businessman bought it, he found a lot of connoisseurs to identify, and they all thought that it was a Song Dynasty imitation, which was worth 40,000 or 50,000 at most, so he returned it.
Mr. Du was very helpless, and found several senior cultural relics experts to identify, the results are very consistent: Song imitation, the value is not high! Why do domestic experts and connoisseurs consider it to be imitations? In fact, this bronze ware is very large, everyone feels that it is unlikely to appear in the hands of Chinese guys, and its origin goes back to the Song Dynasty.
During the Southern Song Dynasty, this bronze artifact was unearthed and has been stored in the court, Zhang Shu's "Commentary on the Ancient Artifacts of Shaoxing Inner Province" has a detailed description of it, a 133-character inscription, recording that in the 5th year of King Xuan of Zhou, the northern foxes invaded the residents, and King Xuan of Zhou ordered Yin Jifu to go out on a campaign against the foxes, and after Yin Jifu returned from the great victory, he received many rewards from King Xuan of Zhou, and was ordered to go to Chengzhou (Luoyang) to take charge of the government and govern Chengzhou in an orderly manner.
Because Yin Jifu is the Xi clan, the famous armor, this bronze is also called "Xi Jia Pan", it is the Western Zhou Dynasty to commemorate Yin Jifu cast, unearthed in the Southern Song Dynasty, there are classics to examine, the history of inheritance is very clear. After the Southern Song Dynasty was destroyed by the Mongols, the Xijia pan fell into the folk and was once reduced to a "pan of flapjacks".
It was in the early years of the Yuan Dynasty, when the xijia pan fell into the hands of a folk couple, who looked like a pot, so they knocked off the cross-legged, leaving only the "plate" flapjack, fortunately found by an official named Li Shunfu, who saved the national treasure. This story has been recorded in the famous Yuan Dynasty calligrapher Xian Yushu's "Miscellaneous Records of Sleepy Learning", and the Yuan Dynasty Jinshi connoisseur Lu You's "Yanbei Magazine".
Since then, famous collectors have passed on this treasure in successive dynasties, and the last recorded collector is Chen Jieqi in the late Qing Dynasty and early Minchu, after whom the whereabouts of the Xijia Plate are unknown. Due to the fame, similar imitations have appeared in the markets of Japan, Hong Kong and other places, so Mr. Du only spent $300 to buy the xijia plate, which is also considered by most people to be imitations.
Until 2014, Mr. Yuan Zhenghong, an expert on intangible cultural heritage in Shiyan City, Hubei Province, and several other experts personally confirmed that the Xijia plate purchased by Mr. Du was genuine. Yuan Zhenghong began to study the yin jifu culture of the Book of Poetry in 1980, collecting more than 400,000 words of Yin Jifu's relevant written materials, and deeply studied Yin Jifu, a great thinker, military expert and philosopher of the Western Zhou Dynasty.
After precise comparison and identification, Yuan Zhenghong, Zhang Xiwu and other experts said that this piece of armor plate, whether it is the shape of the instrument, inscription, wear and tear and traces of circulation, all correspond to the historical records, the authenticity is undoubted, the inscription content involves the wars, rewards, talent system of the Western Zhou Dynasty, etc., the value is no less than Mao Gongding, which can be called a national treasure in the national treasure, and the only regret is the lack of pan foot.
This national treasure, which was once used as a "pan of pans", somehow fell to the United States, was picked up by chinese guys for $300, and was once identified as an imitation by most "insiders", but in 2017, hangzhou Xilingchun auction, auctioned for 185 million yuan, plus the commission transaction price was 212.75 million yuan, which was equivalent to 0.6 tons of gold at that time! The person who photographed the national treasure was Hangzhou collector Jiang Zaiming, who believes that compared with the artistic value of the national treasure, this price is very "cheap". Those who have let the armor plate circulate in their hands do not know whether they will regret not leaving this heirloom national treasure.