The Treasure Hunt of an Antique Dealer

The "Great Shark" is a bulk mixed cargo ship, which will be simply modified into a large salvage ship with suitable equipment-let it deal with the "Titanic" which is 3765 meters below the seabed. It is absolutely impossible, but it will be handled. The 30-meter-deep "Taixing" can take care of it casually.

You don't need to be too professional, just be bold and careful, and have excellent hardware equipment.

Zhang Nan worked as a tomb thief and a cultural relic dealer in his previous life, and later "transformed" into a glamorous collector, but he brought the nature of a merchant and collector to his bones.

Underwater archaeology?

Forget it, I am not the agricultural curator myself, not so careful and serious. Zhang Nan was playing commercial salvage this time, and it was not as virtuous as the guys who were pirates fishing for porcelain in the south with explosives.

Those guys are frantic and mentally handicapped. They used zha medicine to explode the seabed porcelain that was hardened by corals and sand. Compared with these people, the tomb thief who used zha medicine to open the hole was weak.

Zhang Nan still made a record. The image of the shipwreck was taken by an underwater camera as a material for some people to study in the future; he would not pry most of the porcelain and throw it away. Anyway, after the cargo ship returned to the port, there was some place to pile these porcelains.

At this meeting, Zhang Nan was wearing a thin white cotton T-shirt and a pair of off-white beach pants, a pair of sandals with non-slip soles on his feet, and he moved a beach chair and a sunshade over his head. He sat comfortably on the deck of a cargo ship and watched the sailors. Work.

Two marine cranes are working continuously, lifting the semi-rigid large frame from the seabed to the deck again and again—every lifting, hundreds or even thousands of pieces of porcelain will be sent up.

There is a shading cloth that is opened and propped up in front of the beach chair, and a monitor is placed underneath: the signal is directly connected to the submarine camera fixed on the seabed under the seabed: while Zhang Nan is on the deck watching the large amount of porcelain effluent, it can be clearer See the situation under the water clearly.

Thank you for the clear waters in the southernmost part of the South China Sea. There is not a lot of silt on the seabed in this area. Every time divers pick up a lot of porcelain, it will affect the visibility of the seabed to a certain extent, but it will not be blackened like in the coastal areas of China.

And "Black Stone"

Oh, Zhang Nan named the Arabian shipwreck a few nautical miles away as "Black Rock" as in the memory of his last life-the black rock is nearby, which is more reasonable.

Unlike the "Black Rock" which uses large urns to load porcelain, the "Taixing" cargo warehouse basically uses huge wooden lattice shelves. The rotten roof of the cargo warehouse has been removed in advance, and the seabed is about 2 meters square. Inside the wooden lattice, the porcelain is densely lined and stacked, neatly exposed.

Especially those who are placed in orderly and densely arranged dishes, if people with intensive phobia see it, they may feel hairy in their hearts!

The divers can be seen using a suction pump to remove the mud and sand in the middle of the porcelain, and then take the porcelain plate out and put it into a small basket next to it, and then move it to a large basket that is dropped nearby and parked on the seabed.

There are waves on the sea, so it’s safer to dry so quickly, otherwise the big frame is easy to lift and fall, it’s not a joke—the sea is shallow, and the rope is obviously affected by the undulations of the ship. It must not be placed just above the sunken ship, or it will be smashed. Bad things are small things, and a diver who doesn't pay attention will bump into a diver at work.

Today is March 22. I have been fishing for two days. An astonishing amount of porcelain is sent to the cargo ship with the crane's movements every once in a while.

Except for the boss, Zhang Nan, everyone else is busy: Although there is not a surprising amount of bonuses like transporting Philippine gold in the past, the salary and bonus for such long voyages and salvage are not low, and they can be regarded as high salaries in New York. Everyone is motivated. Full.

The bottom of the sea is busy, the deck is busy, and even the chefs in the ship building’s kitchen are not available. They need other staff to provide logistical support.

The weather is hot, and there are many people doing heavy physical work. The chefs have to use more advanced skills to prepare food, and even Chinese-style iced mung bean soup is available.

The kitchen is hot, and there is another place on the cargo ship that is also very sour: rows of steel shelves have long been fixed in the cargo hold, with steel plates embedded in the middle, and a large number of rice husks and rice husks from the southern United States. The machine cuts the straw into sections.

Zhang Nan came up with a method, the Tang Dynasty people used tea, we used chaff and straw to prevent collisions.

The guys in the cargo hold are all shirtless. They have to run to the deck to wash their bodies with water for up to an hour, and then sip the Chinese-style dried bamboo shoot soup, iced plum soup and various beverages prepared by the boss. hot!

Not only is it hot, the anti-collision performance of the chaff is good, but after it sticks to the sweaty body, the taste is not so good.

It is not easy to be a farmer, so the folks from China are supposed to be doing farm work during the busy farming season in their hometown; as for the American folks, those green Franklins are in their heads.

Besides, some of them originally came from the farm, and there was an Arkansas man who grew nearly 1,000 acres of rice at home.

…

Others are busy, Zhang Nan is enjoying, Xiang Weirong is looking east and west on the deck, as for Guan Xingquan

Boss Guan couldn't rest, after many diving exercises, this would be helping work under the seabed.

At a depth of 30 meters, he can't help him.

Xiang Weirong is not interested in challenging the quasi-professional diving depth of 30 meters, although when he joined the army in 1970, he was almost assigned to be a navy diver because of his first class body.

Not suitable, it is not a submarine soldier, but a diver. This is different.

In his words: "When you get older, you can't take risks if you don't take risks."

Zhang Nan deeply agrees with this: In fact, according to Vita Bruno, after three or five days of training, Zhang Nan may not be able to adapt to 30 meters of body diving, but there is absolutely no problem within 18 meters.

I still don't try it anymore. Be careful to sail the boat for ten thousand years. I'm getting older.

This will see my brother-in-law walking over with a piece of white porcelain in his hand: this is one of the latest baskets of porcelain hung up just now.

"Is it white porcelain or Dehua kiln?"

Xiang Weirong handed the things in his hand to his younger brother-in-law, and Zhang Nan took it: it was a flower gob with an imitation of ancient beasts, which was more than 40 cm high, and each side of the square in the middle was decorated with beasts.

Typical ivory white is hard to come by: the production of white porcelain in Dehua kilns in the middle and late Qing dynasty has been scarce, and most of the kilns have been converted to burn blue and white. Such white porcelain products can be regarded as fine products of the Jiadao Year.

Zhang Nan took a look at it, and said, "The short one is taller. It is not a big problem for this thing to sell for $2,000. Those plates and bowls are only ten or twenty dollars each. This thing is more valuable."

Hailao Dehua kiln blue and white is only at this price. This is still a gimmick of "Hailao"!

What others buy is a souvenir of a special event, not a completely "antique", otherwise a Clark porcelain plate more than a hundred years ago will not sell for less than 10 dollars!

In China, Daoguang folk kilns are owned by many people at home, and some are better preserved.

Especially in the rural areas, because there are many old houses and there are many stores in the home, it is normal for some families to even use it during the New Year and New Year holidays.

Jiadao porcelain, this is still not at the level of "antique" in the eyes of ordinary people, at most it can be regarded as an old thing or a second-hand.

So what price will these Jiadao folk kilns be in China?

No price!

Nowadays, there are few people in China who play antiques in the Jiaqing Daoguangnian kiln—it is estimated that they can be found in the old house of their own. Who will play it?

No one buys it!

There are a handful of hawkers who have started to buy antiques from the villages, that is, they are staring at some silver dollars, a few official kiln porcelain, calligraphy and painting, and jade jewelry.

As for Jiadao porcelain, no one wants daily-use utensils except for vases, hats, buckets and other appreciators and displays.

In another twenty or thirty years, the situation will be normal. Just like around 2015, a large-scale blue and white glaze red carp plate with a diameter of more than 25 cm was actually sold at a folk antique store of more than 200, and it was sold on the Internet. Hundred.

There are too many Jiadao folk kilns, especially blue and white, and they are not even as good as the later Tongzhi famille rose.

Zhang Nan estimated that this batch of sea-fished porcelain plates could sell for more than ten US dollars in the western market, which is considered very good.

In my memory, in 2001, 356,000 pieces of blue and white porcelain from the shipwreck of the "Taixing" were publicly auctioned in Stuttgart, Germany, with a total turnover of 22.4 million Deutsche Marks, which is roughly equivalent to more than 11 million U.S. dollars.

For Zhang Nan, this is not an exaggerated number, but for Hai Lao Porcelain, it is already a very huge number.

It is very interesting. Many people think that the sale was cheaper. If the water was produced ten years earlier, it would have risen by a few percent. The emergence of the "global village" would be good or bad, information would flow more smoothly, and material exchange would be more convenient, leading to a drop in prices.

But in 2001, it was not as good as that: if it was a dozen years later, the price would be higher if the Chinese collectors swarmed; if it was a decade or so later, Westerners would be more curious about the mysterious East, and it would be more expensive.

The turn of the century is a bit embarrassing, the world is so wonderful.

Moreover, there are not only Dehua celadon plates and bowls in the shipwreck of the "Taixing", but also more expensive blue and white displays, as well as a small number of other types of porcelain.

Besides, there are millions of pieces in quantity. Even if you don’t break most of them, you can sell three to four hundred thousand pieces and give the company ten to twenty million dollars. It’s not a big problem.

Excluding expenses, profit is never a dream.

Xiang Weirong was talking about the large number of porcelains, "It's endless, God knows when it's going to be fishing."

"At least one or two months, I estimate that there will be millions of pieces, so take your time.

Gee, some guys are busy.

Brother-in-law, we will go to Belitung Island in the afternoon. Tomorrow we will replenish some fresh vegetables and poultry meat on the cargo ship. After that, we have to do other things. I don’t have the time to watch the guys all sun like Zach, waiting for the black stone. Come back at the time of the number. "

There are also several black buddies on the boat, and using "you came back from Africa" ​​can no longer reflect the viciousness of the equatorial sunshine!

Just this week of work, Zhang Nan felt that he was already dark, and if the water bubbled up again, he would be close to Comrade Zach.

Speaking of this, Zhang Nan stood up and handed the animal mask flower goblet in his hand to Alyosha passing by, "Let the yacht go to my room and wash it clean."

I just said that this thing is worth one or two thousand. It seems to be cheap: that is the price of the artifact itself, plus the shipwreck characteristics, it is estimated that it can be flipped one or two more times.

It’s not bad to keep it as a decoration or as a vase. It’s not about money, but there are not many Dehua white porcelains of this style.

After that, let's see the batch of white porcelain that is being sorted and washed.

Not far away, just over ten meters.

I thought it was all white porcelain, but I realized it was a hodgepodge when I was near: white porcelain accounted for more than half, and many others were blue and white, plus a few variegated porcelains.

Blue and white dishes with ganoderma pattern, blue and white plate with "Morning Half-Famous Fragrance", blue and white bowl with plum bird figure, blue and white plate with orchid, bamboo and chrysanthemum, blue and white spoon, blue and white plate with chrysanthemum pattern, blue and white bowl with birthday pattern, blue and white small circle dot pattern Bowl…

There are a lot of flower patterns. In a more elegant way, it means that the brushwork is smooth, the layout is sparse, elegant and refreshing... The blue and white material should be domestic stone green, the color is faint and soft.

Well, that was the official statement just now.

Whether it is export porcelain, sea fishing porcelain, or folk kilns, it actually represents one thing: it is manufactured in large quantities and used to make money from foreigners!

In the past few years, the country could not wait to sell the best things in exchange for foreign exchange. That is because most of its technology products are not good, so they can only sell crafts and local products...

And the folk kiln porcelain of the Qing Dynasty, even if the fineness and public welfare are not as good as the official kiln porcelain, even in the second year of Daoguang, it is also something that can be dumped in Europe, properly "high-tech"!

Will the Americans sell the top technology to China?

Will not!

For the same reason, UU reading www. Uukanshu.com does not have top-quality Huaxia porcelain for export. Even the celadon bowl that Zhang Nan put away the day before yesterday is an ordinary product: since ancient times, it has been a custom for Huaxia to export porcelain. In the general sense, official kilns are not exported. Want secret color porcelain? !

Oh, except for the wonderful works of the Yuan Dynasty, the blue and white porcelain will be sold and presented as a gift to the princes of the Middle East and the Near East. It will be local in China, and it is not too cold for blue and white porcelain from the aesthetic point of view.

In the past few years, Zhang Nan has seen a lot of official kiln porcelains, but also looks down on these folk kiln blue and white porcelain.

There were two times in the 21st century, and each time nearly a hundred pieces of "Taixing" shipwreck porcelain "returned to their hometown", it was all kinds of propaganda media that made it lively and vigorous!

Everyone knows that those gadgets are not worth a few bucks at all. They are just a publicity benefit, adding some historical and educational significance, and so on.

As for economic value...

There are still 365,000 pieces worldwide.

Going to the museum is a good home for some of these porcelains, but they are by no means the pursuit and preference of true private collectors.

The base number is too large, and at most a few can be counted as a variety.

This is the fate of the folk kiln and the sea fishing porcelain!

Except for white porcelain and blue and white, variegated porcelains are all sauce-brown, or...

They are not porcelain at all!

Seeing the water coming out of the basket just now, Xiang Weirong was a bit speechless to the guys working under the sea. He picked up a sauce-colored guy in his hand, and said with a smile: "That Vita and the others can do it well, even the tea bottle. Don't let it go."

It is customary in my hometown that porcelain tea cans are called teapots, and objects called "tea bottles" are pottery products with a thick sauce-colored glaze on the outside. They are used to bring water and soup to the fields when the farmer is busy.

It is made of the same material as the water tank, so it will not be too distressed if you drop it!

Zhang Nan is also a bit speechless: this thing will be given away for nothing in 20 years!