Dear James,

Peter's advice, as per usual, is sound as a bell. These guys need to be reported to the appropriate authority, and I'm sorry to hear your story, though it is by no means the first case of sharp auctioneering practice we've heard about, nor will it be the last. 

I see you did not actually 'name and shame' the auction house in question with which you had this bad experience. I don't think you need be reticent about this. You know what your experience was, and can stand over it. In fact, you'd be doing us a favour if you let us know.

Whenever auction houses are family-run businesses, as seems to be the case with Hannams, then it is entirely understandable that their proprietors might be tempted to succumb to all sorts of self-interested practices, ones that don't apply in the case of the major auction house. So, for instance, I know that when I consign something to Sotheby's, the people who accept my consignment aren't directly profiting from the sale of it, and so have no direct vested interest in manipulating its sale in any underhand way.

Thanks for your reminder, James, because I had forgotten about Hannams Auctions, located so very close indeed to the eBay seller Patricia Hannam who, when it comes to her Chinese listings, is putting up a mix of dodgy and decent stuff (more dodgy than decent). A pretty big coincidence, is it not? I will see if I can find out if Patricia Hannam is personally connected to Hannams Auctions in some way. On the face of it, it would seem pretty likely that she is.

Alan

Dear Alan,

You are absolutely right with regards to self interest in family run auction houses.

I had a quick look through a Hannam's auction that took place in October and I found a vase that was offered for sale at Hannam's that ended up on the ebay site in question:

https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/hannams-auctioneers/catalogue-id-srhan10047/lot-520c7622-9c3b-4234-9f9c-a7fa01044f9b

https://www.ebay.com/itm/huge-and-fine-chinese-blue-white-porcelain-vase-bearing-qianlong-marks-40-cm/112804252208?hash=item1a43a84a30:g:~6oAAOSw8A1aXi3C

My experience was with John Nicholson's. The oriental specialist there at the time, who I mentioned had my items sat on his desk when the owner went in to confront him about what had happened, was Harry Hannam, who went on to open Hannam's a couple of years later.

J

Dear James,

Many thanks for the heads up on that, your information is very valuable. This is why the information-sharing process is so important.

Fortunately, that knock-off 'Qianlong' vase didn't hit the high notes on eBay. But on another day, in another listing, who knows, it might have done. As with any an auction room, so with eBay, it all depends on who turns up on the day to take a look and bid. If the wrong person had have been watching at the time, t's possible that they could have been taken in by the knock-off 'Qianlong' vase.

All the best,

Alan

The vase has been relisted, either the seller ran up the bid and got stuck or the explanation given on the re-listing is true, the buyer was unable to pay for it. 

CLICK TO VIEW NEW RE-LISTING

and so it goes..

Peter

hi peter and everyone, to follow up as peter did, the guy ecliptic art wrote me and advised me he had a couple non payers and I told him that word had got around, maybe not his fault and good luck.  Let's see what happens the second time around.  I will be you 10 cents it goes over a grand again.  I just saw in my latest shootout on ebay last 4 second bid which I would have won, but the large bowl or pot went from 3550 to 7575 or something mine was 4k.  I'm not boasting I'm investing:) I have a credit card right?  anyway it's exciting and Im usually sure I will be outbid but fun to participate, I am a participator in my own life.  Have a good day all and lets follow this as it goes it will be fun but also sad.

best

joe carazola

Hello everyone, nice to meet you all.

This is my first post, and I will hopefully be active here in the future.

I'm curious, how is it that this seller can be dealing in fakes and still have entirely positive feedback on ebay?

Cheers

HI Peter and everyone,just had a experinced with Hannams Auctioneers  two months ago,i bided one Chinese Ivory fan from them,but they require a deposit of GBP500 to approve to bid.

i did pay it and won the item.they didn't send me the Invoice untill i phoned them some days later.and they claim can't ship to China as of the Ivory but they never mention it when i asked them can they deliver to China which they say yes.Luckly i have one UK address to make them deliver it successful in final.

No confidence with them  now. ☹️ 

Hi positive,

all these people are convinced that they have bought the real thing, otherwise they wouldn't have bidded. So if the article arrives fast and well packed they give a positive feedback.

I don't know how many buyers acquire the knowledge over the years to notice they have bought a fake. (I did, and I resold two or three pieces with some loss but with a correct description - I consider it as tuiton fees, happily it was not too much.) Some people will notice they bought a fake when they try to resell it to an auction house. Some will never know and believe they will pass on a really valuable Kangxi vase to their children.

Best regards

Shinigami

Hi Shinigami,

Thank you for the insight. Everything has a price, I suppose, including one's reputation.

Hi,

I hope that even I, novice that I am would not have been taken in by that vase: figures aside, am I right that the dragon looks all wrong, the bird looks unnaturally contorted and it is all very flat.  I also think the shape looks contrived and stiff rather than elegant.  Furthermore,  there all those narrow, evenly spaced rings on the foot, is that a bad sign?  It doesn't look quite right to me.

I have also had an odd experience with an auctioneer that might be worth mentioning.  Sometimes, when items don't sell, some auction houses offer them in an in-house online auction.  I have suspected that the "house" was bidding against me on a few occasions, so I have learnt not to bid until the last moment.  You have to be so careful.

Julia

Yes Julia I see what you mean. Everything looks a bit off. The overall appearance is not harmonic as it should be in a true Kangxi vase. And the dragon is so thin, it looks like a snake or a worm.

For other examples, the current Bonhams catalog for the New York sales has a number of good, very often seen types of Kangxi porcelain. 

Click to view Bonhams Kangxi Porcelain

Double-clicking the pages will enlarge the image, a small "navigation bar" will then appear for moving in and out. 

best Peter

Posted by: plcombs

The vase has been relisted, either the seller ran up the bid and got stuck or the explanation given on the re-listing is true, the buyer was unable to pay for it. 

CLICK TO VIEW NEW RE-LISTING

and so it goes..

Peter

Or maybe they found this chat site Peter and walked away. Although that still isn’t right to walk away from a commitment to buy. But then again it’s not right to knowingly misrepresent the listing.

Dear Forum members,

Just to let you know that the eBay seller, Patricia Hannam (eBay name, ecliptic_art), has in the last few hours de-listed this Kangxi knock-off vase. I'd been following its progress. At the time of de-listing, it wasn't hitting the high notes that it had hit on its first time around.

I wonder what she ended up doing with it? It's certainly having a chequered career!

Alan

Hello Alan:

You might not as yet have attained the distinction of being a genuine antique, but you certainly make up for that lack in knowledge and in the usefulness of your posts here!

I agree with you that qing-period is currently the best regular seller of authentic Chinese antique porcelains on eBay. I assume he has much more access to them in the Netherlands, but he also has a very good eye and his descriptions seem by and large to be accurate although even he has a tendency to hyperbole. Another truly excellent and totally honest  but infrequent eBay seller is Marion of Ascot Court Antiques (see link) but even she has become disillusioned by eBay and rarely sells there.

This additional apparently fake blue and white vase exposed by Peter highlights the dilemma faced by the average collector of Chinese art such as myself. Although I can recognize obvious fakes, recognition of the type of detail being discussed here and also with the apparently fake butterfly vase withdrawn from an auction recently requires a lifetime of experience to recognize.

eBay provided access to Chinese antiques and made them affordable for collectors who could not pay the sky high auctions prices at Christie's and Sotheby's. However, eBay has also facilitated, one might say has even abetted, the widespread dissemination of fake items.

In my earlier years of collecting, I bought mainly from galleries in NYC where I markedly overpaid according to appraisals I obtained years later, but the items were all appraised as genuine. I would say that overall I would prefer to overpay for a genuine item than to get an apparent bargain that is a fake. Fortunately, Peter both personally and through his newsletter has been a very good and generous guide to me in my endeavor to enlarge my collection by bidding on eBay and I think most of my collection is composed of genuine items although I suspect that some are later Qing and not Qianlong  or Kangxi as they were billed.

I think you are correct in stating that eBay bidders should confine themselves to sellers with a known track record. However, I think even some of these lack expertise and might unwittingly pass on an item that is fake. So this is a continuing dilemma.

As long as eBay continues to act as a facilitator of the sale of fake items this problem will continue and it is worst at the level of very high-end Chinese art objects as we can see from the recent fakes exposed on this forum. It is one thing to pay $500 for an obviously recent but attractive and decorative fake, but quite another to pay thousands of dollars for a "high-end" fake.

Best regards,

Errol