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Chinese Republic Period Porcelain Vase, ca. 1920

Value (2020) | $6,000 Auction – $8,000 Auction
Watch  

GUEST:
My grandmother just recently passed away, and I inherited this and a few other pieces. She got this from Hong Kong, where she used to live.

APPRAISER:
Oh, really?

GUEST:
My grandfather used to work in the shipping business, and he had a lot of friends, and she would go over to different friends' houses, and one, one in particular just loved her personality, and she would like a piece, and, you know, a month later, he'd give it to her as a gift.

APPRAISER:
Well, I'll tell you, this piece is actually a pastiche of the best of Chinese porcelain production in the Qing Dynasty. It has great enamel painting here, marvelous landscape scene, gilded work, molded decoration of dragons and leafy tendrils, different colors of glazes which were all used during the Qing Dynasty. However, this is actually a production from the Republican period. That is, the period after the fall of the Qing Dynasty down to 1949, and so the piece was probably hot off the kiln...

GUEST:
Oh.

APPRAISER:
...when your grandmother received it.

GUEST:
Oh, yeah?

APPRAISER:
It is wonderful, tour-de-force decoration-- it does have some condition issues, where the gilding here is, been rubbed off during the course of its life. That's the only minor drawback to the piece itself. There is a seal mark on the bottom of the piece, has a Qianlong mark, which actually would mean, if the piece were of the period, made during the reign of the Emperor Qianlong. However, these marks are what we consider to be apocryphal. That is, they are marks which now indicate in the style of something that was done during that period. And so this is a Qianlong mark on a 20th-century or Republican period piece.

GUEST:
Oh, okay.

APPRAISER:
About 20 years ago, these wares were not really very valuable at auction. And now, because of the new market in China, a piece like this that would have been worth, say, maybe… $800 to $1,200 about 20 years ago, is now, in this particular condition, worth between $6,000 and $8,000.

GUEST:
Oh, wow! Damn!

APPRAISER:
And do you know what?

GUEST:
What?

APPRAISER:
If all the gilding were intact...

GUEST:
Yeah?

APPRAISER:
It'd be worth at least $10,000 to $15,000 at auction.

GUEST:
Oh, jeez.

APPRAISER:
But it's a marvelous, marvelous example...

GUEST:
Wow.

APPRAISER:
...of what we call the Republican period wares.

GUEST:
Jeez, wow. That's awesome.

Support provided by: Learn more

Appraisal Details

Appraiser
Dessa Goddard
Asian Arts
Bonhams, San Francisco
San Francisco, CA
Update (2020)
$6,000 Auction – $8,000 Auction
Appraised value (2007)
$6,000 Auction – $8,000 Auction
Featured In
Las Vegas, Hour 1 (#1216)
Vintage Las Vegas 2021, Hour 2 (#2513)
Event
Las Vegas, NV (August 18, 2007)
Category
Asian Arts
Period
20th Century
Form
Vase
Material
Enamel , Gilded , Porcelain

Executive producer Marsha Bemko shares her tips for getting the most out of ANTIQUES ROADSHOW.

Value can change: The value of an item is dependent upon many things, including the condition of the object itself, trends in the market for that kind of object, and the location where the item will be sold. These are just some of the reasons why the answer to the question "What's it worth?" is so often "It depends."

Note the date: Take note of the date the appraisal was recorded. This information appears in the upper left corner of the page, with the label "Appraised On." Values change over time according to market forces, so the current value of the item could be higher, lower, or the same as when our expert first appraised it.

Context is key: Listen carefully. Most of our experts will give appraisal values in context. For example, you'll often hear them say what an item is worth "at auction," or "retail," or "for insurance purposes" (replacement value). Retail prices are different from wholesale prices. Often an auctioneer will talk about what she knows best: the auction market. A shop owner will usually talk about what he knows best: the retail price he'd place on the object in his shop. And though there are no hard and fast rules, an object's auction price can often be half its retail value; yet for other objects, an auction price could be higher than retail. As a rule, however, retail and insurance/replacement values are about the same.

Verbal approximations: The values given by the experts on ANTIQUES ROADSHOW are considered "verbal approximations of value." Technically, an "appraisal" is a legal document, generally for insurance purposes, written by a qualified expert and paid for by the owner of the item. An appraisal usually involves an extensive amount of research to establish authenticity, provenance, composition, method of construction, and other important attributes of a particular object.

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