About Chinese Antique Auctions On eBay From Fakes to Rarities

The Problem: The Best Fakes Ever Made, What You're Up Against

Chinese Antique Auctions On eBay have been problematic for dealers and collectors alike since the site began. With the proliferation of increasingly better copies being made each week primarily in Jingdezhen filtering them out from authentic pieces is a daunting task.

Bear in mind always, it is illegal to export antique Chinese art, porcelain, bronze, jade, scholar's objects and just about any other cultural art form you can think of. These fakes typically enter the open market via three primary routes.

First, they are sold directly by dealers in China directly through sites like eBay or Amazon.
Second, they are sold in bulk to western auction houses or sent to them on consignment to be sold. They then become listed on auction sites like Live-Auctioneers or Invaluable. They are often listed as well on numerous Chinese based auction sites and bought buy ill-informed Chinese bidders. Today, several US auction houses are run by Chinese nationals who create slick looking western style art gallery sites, so be careful.
Third, They are sold through Chinese websites like Baidu or Alibaba. They are then sold on eBay, ETSY, 1st Dibs, Amazon, and every other venue you can imagine.

After coming through all of the various routes, they can appear anywhere, from the quaint looking neighbourhood "Antique Shops", to "Antique Malls", "Flea Markets", and even "Yard Sales."

In the end, you have this, over 750,000 items listed under Asian Antiques on eBay:

Chinese Antique Auctions On eBay, Finding Authentic Things, Rare Things

Despite the obstacles presented by the proliferation of fakes and copies, finding and collecting great objects and even very rare things on eBay is not only possible but happens every month. So remember, finding authentic Chinese antique auctions on eBay is entirely possible, it's all there! Getting to them is the challenge.

The Four eBay Seller Groups Including "Wild Card Sellers"

Sellers of Chinese antiques on eBay can be broken down into four basic groups.

General sellers who don't really know what they are selling, if it looks "Oriental" they'll do the best they can to describe things, often based on a friend's opinion or some internet searches.
Intentional Sellers of Fakes who do know exactly what they are doing. They either make bold claims about provenance and include "Quotes" from alleged nameless experts and attributions to important sounding collections or create such vague listings free of dating and little else to help you learn more about the listing.
Knowledgeable Experienced Sellers who have in most cases over many years and decades bought sold and appraised fine Chinese and Asian art. They are professionals, many have well-known shops and galleries and sell on eBay under either their own business name or under some oddball name.
"Wild Card Sellers", rare and great things being sold by folks who are more or less clueless about what it is they are listing. It could be Chinese they've listed as Japanese, or listed as Thai and is Chinese. Their descriptions are more or less worthless. They could be very knowledgeable sellers of other antiques or even used stereo equipment, but somehow got something fabulous to sell.

The trick is, of course, to find great things out of this pile of over 750,000 listings all categorized as "Asian Antiques."

How the BidAmount Community Can Help

Authentic Chinese antique auctions on eBay happen every week, and every week we do our best to find them and share them with our Subscribers. It's 100% Free.

Since 2007 we've developed ways to dig out many of the best Chinese and Asian antiques offered on eBay every week.

The "Weekly News-Letter" Page: Started in 2014. Each week, we implement searches of known established sellers of authentic things, we then set about finding those Wild Card sellers. They then are all assembled for inclusion in our weekly News-Letter Page, which gets updated every Friday night. You can subscribe for Free for the automatic notifications on the page. The News-Letter page has an additional addendum link to more items gathered by the staff here.

"Asian Art on eBay": Another page on the menu above, updated every day of additional objects we've selected to share with users and casual visitors.

The "FORUM" Page: A page set up early in 2018, sign up and take part. You can ask questions of other forum members, share your favorite things, post links to objects you're contemplating purchasing and much more. At the Bottom of the FORUM page are things we've found and posted for the perusal of users.

"Reference Bookcase": Auction Catalogs and Books on Asian Art all available as FLIP BOOKS. It can be found on the FORUM page, as well as via the menu at the top of each page under "Dealers-Auctioneers."

"YouTube Videos": Weekly informative videos of prices realized of News-Letter items. As well as exposés of live auctions of fakes and examinations of auctions conducted by Christie's, Sotheby's, Bonhams, Tajan and Rob Michaels Auctions Belgium. You can subscribe and be notified automatically when the latest video is posted. we do a minimum of one a week. See what over 30,000 visitors a month have found.

We've also been dealers for forty years, we're pretty good at finding things and are happy to share what we've learned over the decades.

So, sign up for the News-Letter, join the FORUM and Check us out on YouTube and get to know our little community. Save time, buy better things and make a few new friends!