Just an interesting side note...

I received my Sotheby's Buy It Now link in this morning's emails, where you can buy some very good Chinese and Japanese pieces that are GUARANTEED to be authentic!

Having looked the entire selection of pieces being offered, I honestly feel the prices are quite in line with the market.  In fact, I've known a few collectors that bought from Sotheby's when they had small venue auctions offering 'sub standard' quality pieces that have in the past 20 years come up quite a lot in value.

Take a look!  If you've been thinking about stretching your buying limit, there are a few pieces in here that look very nice to me!

https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/shop-all?Period%20-%20General=Antique&cmp=email_bn_mktg_11-Nov-21_BN_Antique_FULLFILE&utm_campaign=bn_mktg_11Nov21_BN_Antique_FULLFILE&utm_content=email_bn_marketing_emails&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zaius&zm64_id=cm9zZWF0ZTIwMDBAYW9sLmNvbQ%253D%253D

Put on "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey, perm your hair, the Eighties are back.

@greeno107 I agree with your earlier points about the other things the auction houses could do to evolve the market in other ways, and I hope they do those things to a greater extent in the coming years. But I still think in general it is possible these repros could end up raising the prices of older items, because it actually makes them even more special and rare as compared to the newer more cheaply made and abundant examples. It also spreads awareness of a particular artistic sensibility based on antiques, which can also expand the market and bring more buyers in for the authentic stuff down the road. There is a solid and long historical foundation for the appreciation of Chinese antiques, and I think the market is going to continue to grow for the foreseeable future. That's not going to be upended by repros coming into the market as long as a portion of the market still wants the old stuff, which it does and has been the case now for hundreds of years, so I think it's going to be fine. The Chinese antiques sky is not falling, it's probably actually only going to get higher. Also, while distinguishing between old and new can sometimes get tricky, in most cases well educated collectors and dealers can distinguish between the two, and this need and ability to differentiate also increases the value of knowledgeable authenticators such as many here on the forum. At any rate, I think the future is bright for this field of antiques. 

I have been saying for months that Chinese decor is hot right now. Everything in the western US is being picked dry. Chinese buyers are hitting every store I shop. It was not this way a few years ago. If I post anything decor related it’s sells. They don’t care if it’s authentic when the housing market is hot it will sell. I believe the decor trend will subside but while it’s hot why shouldn’t Sotheby’s be allowed to cash in. Right now many real estate brokers are buying homes from their own sellers and jacking up the price and re-list at a profit I talked to one broker friend and she said that’s the Perks of the job. I’m sure Sotheby’s would agree it’s the Perks of the job.

@greeno107  Thank you, I enjoyed looking, Kitchen Qing bowl for 800, what a bargain, P. T. Barnum was correct.

Another trend in China is jade carvings. 

I have been informed that the younger generation of collectors buy new carvings rather than old. Add a premium I might add. 

Mark 

$995 for a 19th c standard piece !

Maybe an email campiegn is needed. Although, when the word fake, reproduction  or modern is brought up at auction houses, it’s my experience that I just get ignored

I believe the decor trend will subside but while it’s hot why shouldn’t Sotheby’s be allowed to cash in. Right now many real estate brokers are buying homes from their own sellers and jacking up the price and re-list at a profit I talked to one broker friend and she said that’s the Perks of the job. I’m sure Sotheby’s would agree it’s the Perks of the job.

Not to speak of the integrity of your real estate friend, but large institutions dealing in goods/services that their clients may not have adequate training/knowledge/experience to make sound decissions (banks, real estate firms, law firms, hospitals, and yes, auction houses) have a responsibility to uphold the integrity of their industry.  It's called a fiduciary responsibility.

Additionally, how can we point the finger at a small auction house selling fakes, and give Sotheby's a pass?  Just because they state the piece is late 20th c. makes it ethical?  Are they, are they not in the business of selling art & antiques? Or, should they simply open a big box store like a Walmart?

If there was any shred of integrity in Sotheby's selling of these modern fakes, then they would just sell them at a fixed price of their true cost...about $50-100.  Running the sales as auctions, they are clearly hoping to lure buyer with more money than sense who will bid the price up.  Just watch.

More importantly, why invest all of this energy in a Forum to discuss the intricacies of identify the age and quality of genuine Asian antiques, and disuede the purchasing of fakes, only to then surrender to the idea that since the market is 'hot', it's okay to cash in on selling reproductions?  It sound like hypocrisy. It sounds like capilalism trumps integrity.

This idea that Asian art is 'so hot' that buyers are purchasing reproductions to fill 'the need' is baseless. If the demand is high, lower quality authentic antique pieces (of which there are millions of piecese) could easily fill the demand, but that's not what is happening. 

More likely, there is a new generation of inexperienced buyers who lack the knowledge, but are lured into the possibility of striking it rich on a finding a lost treasure that are buying every piece of junk that has a mark or looks like something in the Palace Museum.

Those who buy fakes for decorative purposes should be paying decorative prices, and in some rare cases it might be as high as a few thousand dollars.... but that would have to be one special piece.

Buyers purchasing fakes will reap what they sow.... a huge loss.  At best, it's a game of 'hot potato' where the last person holding the junk porcelains incurs the largest loss.  Perhaps it seems like a good opportunity for more knowledgable collectors to unload their mistakes on the less knowledgable.

Anyone perpetuating the idea of selling fakes to 'meet the high demand' is perpetuating a lie and deliberately undermining the integrity of the art collecting world.  It's immoral and instead of selling our modern fakes to them, we should be educating these unfortunate souls about the risks, just as we would have liked to have happened for ourselves when we began into this most tricky of trades.  Or should we all just put our mistakes out on the market and cash in on their ignorance?

But I still think in general it is possible these repros could end up raising the prices of older items, because it actually makes them even more special and rare as compared to the newer more cheaply made and abundant examples. It also spreads awareness of a particular artistic sensibility based on antiques, which can also expand the market and bring more buyers in for the authentic stuff down the road.

I completely disagree.  I could name a dozen examples from the top of my head of artists who have financially suffered from mass reproduction, including a few that fell on their own swords by producing open edition reproductions of their original works.

Quality, scarcity, age and demand .... these are the four cornerstones of what determines value in the antiques/art market.  Making more cheap versions of original pieces doesn't satisfy any of these components of value. 

As for 'awareness', an abundance of fakes in the market makes more people falsely 'aware' that Chinese antiques are abundant, that Chinese porcelains are not all that well made, and potentially, not all that desirable.

Let me just close with this....

Collecting Asian antiques and art is for many of us is a very expensive endevor.  We hope that with careful study and diligent searching that we'll find a few treasures worth more than we what we pay.  And when we succeed, we enjoy sharing the success with other likeminded students, and possibly down the road sell the piece at the value which the artistry deserves. Then, the cycle begins again!

Inevitably, we make purchases that don't turn out the way we had hoped.  A modern copy that in the moment of making the purchase, convinced us that it was in fact genuine, but turns out to be not.  It's painful whether you spent $5 or $5,000.  As collectors, we live and learn, and the loss is accepted as 'tuition'.

Unfortunately, there are numerous millionaires in China and abroad that have purchased literally millions of dollars of fakes during the past 30 years in hopes of making a fortune.  Up until recent events, they have had nowhere to sell their fakes because the audience of collectors they've been selling to have become increasingly knowledgable, and now the game of hot potato is over.  They are holding millions of dollars of high quality fakes which they very much would like to get rid of.

(my opinion) Sotheby's appears to have made a choice to provide these valuable clients a venue to sell their pieces as decorative.  However, Sotheyb's can not escape their own precedent as seller of FINE ASIAN ART & ANTIQUES, and that there is already an existing narrative based on decades of past sales to prove that the lure of offering a low estimate 20th c. piece is enough bait to lure the misinformed buyer into risking crazy money in hopes that Sotheby's has made a mistake with their description.

My friends... please.... don't drink the cool-aide!