So about two months ago, I was riding my bicycle around town. On Saturdays, I often plot out a path to go to a couple local garage sales. Maybe I’ve talked about that already. Anyways, I was riding by one close to my house and a vase caught my eye. I thought, “that looks Korean, perhaps a nice celadon vase”. Upon closer inspection, it was much more rough than I expected and I debated whether to buy it for the $1 the seller wanted. After some consideration, and after the seller said it was Korean and that he bought it in Korea (I forget when he said he bought it, but he was old enough to have fought in the Korean war).
On Sunday, I was at the library doing some research on cinnabar and cloisonne (gee, they’re all words that start with the letter C. Weird!) I came across a picture that made my heart skip about 4 beats. Check it out. Needless to say, I am guessing it’s a forgery/copy, but everything seems to jive and appears to be a professionally-done copy if it is such. If it is legit, my $1 vase is surely worth over $10k. Yikes!
Update: Two online appraisal services (one paid, one free) said the same thing, it’s a forgery. How did they tell? They stated that the white streaks did not exist in Choson pottery, and that the carved lines are far too even in thickness. Oh well, it may be worth $35, not $10k. Still, that would be 340% profit.