"Yes, it's so expensive. I'm afraid you can't imagine that Mr. Qian's research on chicken blood stone has reached its peak!"
Regarding the research on chicken blood stone, Chen Wenzhe really admired Qian Qinggu.
And with such a unique skill, Lao Qian can still sit firmly on Diaoyutai?
The most important thing is that in the antique market, he can hide such a huge net worth without showing off. This is definitely not easy.
If you think about it, you will know that there are no shops that trade bloodstones in the Antique City. It seems that the chickenblood stones in Qian Qinggu's hands were all purchased from other places.
I bought it back and kept it in a low-key collection, so naturally not many people knew about it.
"So, these seals are all fake? But where are the fakes? Soapstone is okay, right? Otherwise you wouldn't have paid three million to buy it?" Li Jinli was still confused.
Chen Wenzhe shook his head: "As I said just now, if there is no problem with the chicken blood stone, then these six seals are worth 60 million."
Li Jinli was a little dumbfounded. He had not done much research on soapstone.
Therefore, he simply stopped looking at the bloodstone and focused on the seal.
In terms of sculpture, he has also been studying it recently. After all, Chen Wenzhe's craftsmanship is too exquisite, which also aroused his interest.
"Look at this seal. Is it hand-carved?"
After taking the seal, Zheng Banqiao's seal had nothing fancy except for a clump of bamboo, which was his name. This was the skill of the imitator. If there were too many imitations, it would be easy to expose flaws.
.
Also, if you don’t use a machine and use hand carving, naturally the fewer things you have to carve, the less effort you will have.
If you use a machine, there will be too many exposed traces, especially the machine wiring.
Whether it is a machine-engraved animal button or an engraving on the bottom, evenly arranged thin lines will be left behind. This is the machine wiring.
We must understand that ancient craftsmen worked slowly and carefully, and they were all carefully crafted.
And those that are machine-carved, or semi-machine-carved, semi-hand-modified, are hard to match.
Some modern ordinary imitations, the craftsmen have impetuous mentality, lack the ingenuity of the ancients, are crudely carved, and the works are dull and lack of three-dimensional beauty, but they are still very difficult to identify.
But these works in Chen Wenzhe's hands are obviously different. They are obviously exquisite works made with care.
There are many imitations of famous seals in the antique market, and many novices will buy imitations if they are not careful. This is mainly because we lack the patience to check information and compare.
When looking at handwriting, no matter ancient or modern, the words are just like the person they wrote.
Before buying a seal, first check to see if there is a signature on the side, which is similar to a certain time of a certain year (published, produced, made).
If so, use your mobile phone or computer to search for calligraphy, painting or seals related to the person who carved the seal, and then compare the handwriting.
Don’t worry that the seal carver knows several calligraphy styles, because signing is a matter of habit, just like writing your own name, and few people will write it in various styles.
In fact, identifying a seal is very simple. Compare and analyze the signature, handwriting, and the original. If the style or the sharpness of the strokes are different, you don't need to think too much.
Finally, let’s look at technology. The technology here refers to the engraving technology of seal fonts.
The carving of the chapter is not like a signature. It is an artistic creation from flat to three-dimensional and then to flat.
Therefore, the calligraphy and seal cutting skills of the seal maker are particularly tested. Modern imitation seals can be divided into two types: manual imitation and computer imitation.
First, let’s talk about hand-imitation seals.
The hand-imitation seal has obvious traces of hand-engraving on the seal surface. The scratches are of varying depths when viewed through a magnifying glass, and there are chipping edges on the font strokes.
However, if the ability of the seal maker is limited, the layout of the fonts on the chapter surface will lack design, and the overall layout will be dull and ugly. The font strokes will be awkward and lifeless, which can be understood as having no strokes.
So people who understand this will know if it is worth collecting if they look at the font on the chapter surface!
Then there are the computer imitation seals. If they are computer imitations, in most cases, the fonts will be arranged neatly, the font notches will be of the same depth, and there will be evenly distributed thin lines.
Use a magnifying glass to look at the font strokes. There are almost no breaks and they are straight up and down.
The font lacks three-dimensionality and the strokes are stiff. However, one advantage of the computer imitation seal is that it looks very similar.
If you are not particularly familiar with Shen Yun, most people will not be able to recognize it.
Therefore, to identify ancient seals, you still have to look at whether the seal is exquisite or not, whether the handwriting is beautiful or not, and then the price.
Generally, the font on the seal is weak, coy and has no charm at all. Don't buy it. Even old seals have little collection value.
Don't buy if the fonts on the chapter surface are too neat, or if the notches have obvious evenly arranged lines. Computer-engraved ones can only become handicrafts rather than works of art, and they also have no collection value.
Of course, you also need to pay attention to whether the ridges of the seal are rounded. New seals may have an angular feel, or there may be obvious polishing marks!
Li Jinli's basic skills are very solid, but if he only looks at the handwriting, carvings and other details, he will definitely not be able to tell anything on these six seals.
Otherwise, veteran players like Qian Qinggu who are very proficient in bloodstones or seals would not be fooled.
As for his statement that he spent more than three million to buy it in the 1990s, just listen to it.
The items must have been made during that period, and he later refurbished them. As for the purchase price at that time, he said it was whatever it was!
The craftsmanship of the second renovation is also very good, and it also looks old.
The traces of distressing are very light. If you don't pay special attention, even if Chen Wenzhe is a master of distressing, you won't be able to see it.
Since it was difficult for him to see it, it was even harder for Li Jinli to see it.
Therefore, no matter what Li Jinli thought, he was still confused in the end.
He knew clearly that it was a fake, but everything he saw was exquisite, beautiful, gorgeous, and valuable!
This made Li Jinli very frustrated. He felt that what he had been pursuing seemed to be difficult to achieve!
"Am I not talented in appraisal?" Li Jinli was a little doubtful about life.
Chen Wenzhe shook his head directly: "You are already very powerful. After all, it has only been half a year and you have already learned so many basic skills. I have told you a long time ago that you should generally not touch seals and other things. Today's high-end imitations of these things will definitely reach the level of
Realistic level."
The main reason is that today's computer engraving technology is so powerful, and with some modifications by manual masters, it becomes even more difficult to identify.
In this antique market, the water for bloodstone is also very deep!
However, a counterfeit of this level in his hands is probably not that easy to make, otherwise, there would be no reaction in the market.
Seeing Li Jinli struggling, Chen Wenzhe could only give him some basic methods to identify such fakes. The most important thing was to use a magnifying glass to look at the texture, that is, the stone pattern.
This relies on experience, but there is no way. If you use soapstone with a bad color to transform something, you can see some clues in the texture.
Only when you see something wrong like this can you completely reject a work.