Baojian

Chapter 51

"Brother Feng, why are we back again?"

After wandering around the antique city on Hongqi Street for a long time, Xie Xuan found that Qin Feng took him back to Baifo Street where he had been yesterday, which made him feel more and more inexplicable.

"Just follow me, read more and ask less!"

Qin Feng waved his hand, but this time when he entered the Antique Street, he went directly to a jade shop at the entrance of the street, which was different from wandering around yesterday.

The facade of this antique shop named "Qi Shi Zhai" is not small. The main hall is a three-room shop opened up, and there is a small courtyard at the back, but it is the place where the owner entertains friends to drink tea and chat, but the guests cannot enter.

"Kisszhai", as the name suggests, in addition to selling jade, there are also various shapes of strange stones, ranging from several kilograms to hundreds of kilograms of stones, and there is a big stall at the entrance of the store.

"Hey, kids, are you two here again?"

Seeing Qin Feng coming in, an old man in his 60s stood up and said with a smile, "Come on, come on, how about my piece of material? Authentic Hetian jade seed material, such a big size is rare. "

The old man is the owner of "Qi Shi Zhai", his surname is Ge, and his single name is Jun, but the appearance of the mouse-eyed deer head does not match his name, even if he is 30 years younger, it has nothing to do with the word handsome.

Although he doesn't look very good, Ge Jun has a good reputation in Shishi's antique and jade shop. His shop is also an early jade shop in Shishi. Compared with it, Nie's is just a rising star in the shop.

After being greeted by Ge Jun, Qin Feng was not polite. He picked up the piece of jade he put on the chopping board and looked at it. After a long while, he said, "Old man, the whole body of this seed material is white and lustrous. It’s rare that it’s the size of a fist, and it’s a rarity.”

I came to visit Baifo Street yesterday, Qin Feng stayed in this shop for more than two hours, and had a great time talking with this old man Ge. Look down on him.

"Who did you learn this from?"

Ge Jun took the Hetian jade material in Qin Feng's hand, carefully put it into the cabinet, turned around and said, "Xiao Qin, are you still in school? You also play with rocks at home?"

"Old man, my family is from Yangzhou. I learned sculpture from my elders since I was a child, so I know a little about stones."

Qin Feng pointed at Xie Xuan with a smile, and said: "There is an aunt who lives in Shishi, isn't this here to see her? I like this thing, so I asked my cousin to take me around."

When Qin Feng spoke, his expression was very natural, and he also had a little Jiangnan accent in his words. Almost all the jade businessmen had connections with the factories in Yangzhou, and Ge Jun had already heard it.

"The world's sculptors came from Yang-zhou, no wonder, it turned out to be a family tradition..."

Hearing Qin Feng's explanation, Ge Jun was immediately relieved. Yesterday he was still muttering in his heart, where did such a villain as Qin Feng, who is so proficient in jade craftsmanship and quality?
Jade is divided into southern crafts and northern crafts, and each carver has its own characteristics, such as the northern school, the Shanghai school, the Su school... or the grandeur, or the kitkat.

In today's market, southern workers account for 80% of the market, while northern workers account for less than 20%. Yangzhou, as the base of southern crafts, has numerous famous jade masters.

Although Ge Jun has dealt with Yushi for most of his life, he may not know all the famous jade cutters in Yangzhou. After thinking for a long time, he couldn't figure out which one was named Qin, so he had to give up.

"Xiao Qin, come to my place today, don't you want to chat with the old man again?" Ge Jun took out a tea set from under the cabinet, and said with a smile: "You are particular about drinking tea over there, and the old man will make a pot for you this year." Longjing new tea."

"Grandpa, don't be so busy, I'm leaving now."

Seeing this, Qin Feng quickly stopped Ge Jun, hesitated for a moment, and said: "Grandpa Ge, you know, I have learned jade carving since I was a child, but this time I came out in a hurry, I didn't bring materials, my hands were a little itchy..."

"Oh? You can already start carving jade?"

Hearing Qin Feng's words, Ge Jun suddenly understood that the feeling came from looking for the original stone here, which made Ge Jun feel slightly startled.

Because there is a lot of attention to jade carving, the sooner the better, the hand is not stable when you are young, it is easy to get injured, and the hand will be abolished by practice.

In the past, apprentices had to learn painting for at least three years. After they had a certain level of art skills, they would practice with radishes or some soft stones.

Generally speaking, apprentices have to wait until they are 40 or [-] years old before they can formally start carving objects with jade, and they are usually in their [-]s or [-]s when they get their grades.

A child like Qin Feng, who looks only sixteen or seventeen years old, has actually started to use jade to practice his hands. Ge Jun has never seen many of them, because no matter how cheap jade is, it is still money.

"Well, Grandpa Ge, I... I didn't spend much money, do you think I can give you a stone?"

Qin Feng took out his right hand from his pocket, took out a handful of one-two-yuan bills, and said with an embarrassed face: "Grandpa Ge, I only have 20 yuan, so you can give me a piece of material?"

"You want to buy materials for 20 yuan?"

Hearing this, Ge Jun laughed bitterly, "Xiao Qin, it's not that Grandpa Ge is stingy. I have rough stones here, but each piece costs at least a thousand dollars. Tell me...can I sell it to you?"

With a business like Ge Jun's, simply purchasing from the jade carving factory can no longer meet the market demand. He always buys rough stones in Xinjiao, and then sends them to the jade factory for processing.

So Ge Jun's shop is not short of rough stones, but no matter how bad the quality of the stone is, even if it is carved by a machine, it can be sold for ten or eight yuan. Qin Feng's 20 yuan is not enough.

"Grandpa Ge, are those stones so expensive?"

Qin Feng rolled his eyes, pointed at a pile of stones piled up at the door, and said, "I don't think I've seen these jade stones before? Are they also very valuable?"

Where Qin Feng pointed, there were about seven or eight stones piled up. The big ones weighed thirty to fifty kilograms, and the small ones were only the size of a fist.

However, unlike Hetian jade, the skin of these stones cannot be seen at all. It is dark and ugly, and it is also very rough to the touch.

"Hey, if you don't say I forgot these ingredients."

Ge Jun slapped his head, walked out from the counter, and said with a smile: "Xiao Qin, it seems that your family only makes nephrite jade. This is rough jadeite, which belongs to jadeite in jade. There was not much market in the past. Prosperous..."

The difference between nephrite and jadeite is in hardness. The hardness of nephrite is generally 6 to 6.5, such as white jade (mutton fat jade), green white jade, sapphire, jasper, black jade and many other varieties, all of which are classified into soft jade. Jade inside.

Jadeite is more than 7. The representative of jadeite is jadeite, which has a variety of colors, including green, lavender, white, pink, brown, red, blue, black, orange and yellow.

In China, the carving history of nephrite can be traced back to 8000 years ago. It can be said that it has a long history. From ancient times to the present, it has always been a favorite accessory of dignitaries.

Since jadeite is produced in Burma, in ancient times it was only offered to the court occasionally when worshiping the Celestial Dynasty. It is rare among the people, so it has not become popular.

But at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Empress Dowager Cixi had a special liking for jadeite. During her lifetime, she collected the best jadeite in the world, which also brought about a wave of jadeite craze. It was the first time that the world learned about jadeite.

After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the later mother of the country, Miss Song Jiasan, was also an obsessive lover of emeralds. Her taste also caused the price of emeralds to rise sharply.

But after liberation, due to the inconvenience of mining and transportation, jadeite disappeared in China, and it did not gradually appear in the market until the late 80s, but its recognition and value were far from being comparable to Hetian jade.

However, due to the colorful and beautiful jadeite, it was recognized by consumers at the end of the 90s, so Ge ​​Jun also caught up with the trend and went to southern cities to buy some rough stones.

Different from the purchase of nephrite jade, the purchase of rough jadeite focuses on the word "gambling", which is the popular stone gambling in recent years. Of course, the history of gambling stones is far less than this. In some cities on the southern border, there have been Existed for decades.

Before the rough jadeite is cut, neither the buyer nor the seller can be sure whether there is jadeite inside, because the thin layer of stone skin can isolate the prying eyes of any instrument in the world.

Therefore, in the rough jadeite market, there is an extremely special purchase method of gambling on stones. Buyers can judge whether there is jadeite in the rough stone based on their own analysis, and then bid to buy it.

Since it is gambling, there are gains and losses. Some people become multi-millionaires because of this, and some people lose their families because of gambling.

Of course, not everyone is so gambler, and some jade merchants specialize in buying jade meat from gambling, like Ge Jun.

Ge Jun is not familiar with gambling stones, so this time he went to the south to buy some jadeite raw materials. Out of curiosity, he also bought a few jadeite materials for cutting and playing. The total cost was only a few hundred yuan.

But Boss Ge's luck is really not very good. The seven or eight rough jadeites he bought didn't cut out any good materials. The best one was green and black, with a rough structure and extremely poor light transmission, which is commonly known as the shit place. .

Such materials are similar to stones. Ge Jun didn't even bother to take them to the jade factory for processing. They were piled up in front of the store to be thrown away sometime. If Qin Feng hadn't pointed them out, he would never have thought of them.

"Grandpa Ge, jadeite is so hard, it's better to practice knife skills..."

Qin Feng bit the bullet and listened to Ge Jun's introduction of the history of jade. After the old man had enjoyed himself, he licked his face and said with a smile: "Look, just give me those stones? I'll give you all the 20 yuan , have you seen enough?"

"Hey, I hit you in the face of Grandpa Ge, but I can still charge you for the fertilizer?"

Ge Jun was amused by Qin Feng's appearance, waved his hands and said: "These materials are worthless, you can take them if you want, I'm just saving myself from finding someone to throw them away!"

"Thank you Grandpa Ge, then... I will not be polite."

Qin Feng was overjoyed when he heard the words, and quickly ran to the pile of stones to pick them up, but Ge Jun didn't see them, and when Qin Feng turned around, a sly smile appeared on his face.

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(End of this chapter)