golden ear

Chapter 320

Wu Tianyuan left the museum and went directly to Yixing, Jiangxi to hunt for treasures. This time, he took a few master pots that Xu Sihai had collected to develop the top-quality mud deposits.

"Dahongpao, navy blue ash, Jiangpo mud, the three famous species must be found!"

It took Wu Tianyuan a few days to travel all over Yixing, and finally found the three major mud deposits, allowing Tianyuan Mining to enclose all the land and prepare for development.

"Brother Wu, I have admired your name for a long time, and I finally have the opportunity to meet you!"

Xu Hanting, a national arts and crafts master, warmly received Wu Tianyuan. He is one of the ten existing national arts and crafts masters, a master of purple sand pots, and an old friend of Mr. Ouyang.He came here this time just to talk about cooperation. He has the best clay in his hand, and he wants to find a real master to make a pot.

"I have stayed in Yixing all my life and played with mud all my life. This is my home."

"Right now, the purple clay teapot market is full of chaos, and a good brand has been turned into a mess by its own people!"

Xu Hanting said helplessly: "In October last year, it was exposed that the names of more than 10 well-known Yixing purple sand pottery artists were registered as trademarks. It is indeed necessary to register one's own name as a trademark, but the industry and commerce department found on the spot that his name had already been pre-registered by others."

"Later, these purple sand pottery artists frequently received faxes or telephone harassment, asking them to pay for the ownership and use rights of their names and trademarks, which caused them a lot of headaches."

"When buying a purple sand pot, the author's seal, signature certificate, etc. are one of the important basis for identifying the authenticity of the work, but once the name of the purple sand pottery artist is registered as a trademark by others, the authentic purple sand pottery artist can also engrave it on the pot he made himself. Put your name on it?"

"If the trademark squatting is successful, the squatting person will have to affix the name of the purple clay pottery artist on the purple sand pot that he processed himself, so he really can't say he is fake."

Wu Tianyuan is also helpless, this kind of thing happens in every industry, and it is for this reason that China does not have a high-end brand of its own.Porcelain is, tea is, and purple sand pot is also!

"Why many people don't pay attention to the trademark rights of their own names, in fact, it is related to the tradition of making purple clay pots. They think that their own workshop-style management does not matter, or they are bothered by the fake products that have already flooded the market, so they just let it go. go."

"No matter how much you emphasize its artistic level, the purple clay teapot must first meet one condition, that is, it is used for drinking tea! This point is quite different from calligraphy, painting and even porcelain. Furthermore, the materials used to make it The raw material of the teapot is also unique, unlike the smoking pipe which also has obvious use value. As a collection, it can be made of briar wood, meerschaum, or even corncobs. So I don’t think the purple sand teapot can be completely said to be a It should be a work of art, but a handicraft. In fact, if you look at the masters who make purple clay teapots in Yixing, our full name is actually the master of Chinese arts and crafts.”

Wu Tianyuan suddenly remembered the master Gu Jingzhou pot in his hand at the beginning, and a copy of Zhou Zhenfang's disciple, and asked curiously.

"High imitation teapots have existed since the birth of Zisha teapots, just like antique porcelain. A master Zisha pottery artist made a pot. Other Zisha pottery artists used more exciting methods, similar materials, and privately engraved the seal of the master. on, and counterfeit."

"Some pot-making masters have a very high level of imitation. For example, some masters in the Republic of China specially imitated famous pots in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. "Imitation pot" has also become a boutique sought after by collectors."

"This is also relying on craftsmanship. The most harmful thing is the "gunman OEM pot", that is, the maker of the pot fakes his own work! The market for purple sand pots is now very popular, and some master pots cost more than 10 yuan. However, the market demand is still extremely strong, and when one is sold, someone grabs it, and some corporate organizations even spend tens of millions of yuan to buy master pots, trying to preserve the value of funds in this way.”

"Last year in the Yixing market, a southern enterprise sent someone to spend 1000 million yuan to purchase 100 national master pots. However, according to the traditional hand-made method, no matter how hardworking a purple sand pottery artist is, the A year can only make 50 pots at most. In fact, in order to maintain the level of their works, more purple sand pottery artists often only produce 3 to 5 pots a year. How can there be so many master pots for purchase in the market? But in high Driven by the huge amount of profits, a very small number of masters can't help but be confused by it."

"The common practice is to hire 'gunners' to do the work, but the last one or two processes are done by the master himself. Do you think such a pot is a fake pot or a real pot? This kind of pot is often made in the master's studio or in the hands of the master. If it is sold directly on the Internet, coupled with the real master's seal and authentic certificate, who can tell whether this pot is real or not?"

Wu Tianyuan also had a headache when he heard it, he didn't expect the purple sand pot market to be so chaotic!Antique porcelain has high technical requirements, and it is not easy to succeed in high-quality imitation. Even if imitation costs are high, the scrap rate is high.But the purple clay pot is different, that is, the mud is burned.

There is no glaze color, no painter, no engraving, if the master himself is also involved in the forgery, then there is really no place to reason!
"Traditional handmade pots, from cutting mud blocks to making mud strips to surrounding mud pieces to drawing negatives; then to making the body, closing the bottom, grating the body, making the handle, making the spout, until the blank is completed and dried After entering the kiln and firing several times, it often needs to go through dozens of processes."

"But since the machine was installed, one pot body came out in a flash. Originally, at most 10 pot bodies could be made a day, but hundreds of thousands of pot bodies can be easily made in one day with the drawing machine. After the pot body comes out, we can make more Make pot lids, spouts, etc. in an assembly line, and finally splice them together.”

"In the current Yixing purple sand teapot market, the price of a teapot is actually "recognizing people but not objects." It is an exaggeration to say that even a poorly made pot by a celebrity is better than a pot made by a person with no name." High-quality purple clay teapots are expensive. "

"At present, there are more than 3 purple sand pottery workers in Yixing, and thousands of purple sand workshops. The market price is that the works of national masters start from 10 yuan or even millions of yuan, and the works of provincial arts and crafts masters generally range from 5 to 10,000. + yuan, and the price of arts and crafts artists below ranges from several thousand to tens of thousands of yuan. The works of the lowest-level craftsmen are often between 200 and 500 yuan. And for purple sand pottery artists without any professional title, a handful of purple sand The wholesale price of the teapot basically does not exceed 100 yuan, and there is no difference in material from a purple sand teapot worth 100 million yuan, but the price is ten thousand times different."

(End of this chapter)