Whether it will be old-fashioned and whether it can be old-fashioned to the extent of the five books in front of me, I won’t say yet.
As long as he can identify them, he can see that these five books have no signs of wear and tear, and that is enough.
There are no traces of old age. Although it cannot be said that it must be of high value, it is definitely an antique.
Looking at the content inside, the handwriting is clear and the printing is regular.
Although the paper is yellow and brittle, and seems to break when touched, these five books do not look like ancient books.
After looking at the name, I actually found it. This is a rhyme summary of the Ministry of Rites. It seems to be a Song version of the book!
Just thinking about it for a moment, Chen Wenzhe remembered that his time in the gold medal store was not in vain. At least he had seen too many transaction records of cultural relics.
It seems that there is a set of rhymes of the Ministry of Etiquette in it. This thing is really famous.
Because ancient books are more difficult to preserve, it is even more difficult to find real ancient books.
Otherwise, there is a saying in the ancient book market that a page of Song edition is worth one tael of gold, and the same is true for a piece of official kiln!
Official kilns are precious, and Song editions are no less valuable.
Since ancient times, there has been a saying that "a page of Song edition is worth one tael of gold", which refers to the preciousness of printed books in the Song Dynasty.
At the "Song Engraved Editions Exhibition" held by the Zhejiang Provincial Library for only three days, twenty rare Song Engraved Editions were on display.
The estimated value of each of those Song edition books is over ten million.
And if the rhymes of the Ministry of Etiquette in front of me are genuine, then they are worth at least 50 million!
You must know that the Song version of "The Rhymes of the Ministry of Rites" was once a "tool book" for the imperial examination. This thing is just like the Xinhua Dictionary, it is not ordinary.
The more I read the five books in front of me, the more they feel like genuine books.
These five books have exquisite engravings, particularly neat and graceful fonts, white paper and fine ink, and refreshing visuals. Although this appearance cannot prove that they are genuine, at least they do not look like fakes.
Chen Wenzhe feels that these books have a different temperament compared with other Song dynasty editions, not to mention the fakes around them.
He couldn't help but take it in his hand and look through it. After flipping through it, Chen Wenzhe discovered the difference again.
These books look very brittle, as if they will break when touched, but when you actually pick them up, they feel very different.
The feeling of getting started with these ancient books is warm and soft.
This is not like today's rigid, heavy, and bulky books, which seem to want to be immortalized by their iron-clad binding.
Perhaps, these Song engravings, which have been handed down for thousands of years, use softness to overcome hardness and have profound connotations.
In fact, after seeing this, Chen Wenzhe was already convinced that this was probably the real Song version of the book.
However, to confirm that it is a Song version of the book, it must be identified from various details.
If it is revealed, not only Chen Wenzhe will want to identify it, but many big names in the literary world will gather together to identify it.
Because something like this has already happened once.
Looking at the books in front of him and the letters that collected these books, Chen Wenzhe felt a little emotional.
It is said that the Song Dynasty was a weak Song Dynasty, but this weak Song Dynasty developed an extremely brilliant civilization.
Song porcelain, Song paintings, and Song engravings all contributed to the dazzling Song Dynasty culture in many fields.
As for the Song Dynasty edition, there are only about 1,000 copies in existence in the world, and a page of the Song edition costs one or two gold, which is really not just talk.
These five "Rhymes of the Ministry of Rites" are reference books for people in the Song Dynasty to study poetry.
So how to use it? The main thing is the rhyme standard, and the pronunciation of the words!
Rhyme is an important means to enhance the musicality of poetry. In order to make the tone harmonious and easy to remember, modern poetry is very particular about rhyme.
The so-called Ping and Ze must be strictly based on the ancient pronunciation and are different from modern Mandarin.
Therefore, the ancients usually used official books that specifically guided rhyme, among which "The Rhyme of the Ministry of Rites" was the most popular one.
There is a book in the Ming Dynasty that states that all those who practiced poetry and poetry in the Song Dynasty bought a copy of "The Rhymes of the Ministry of Rites", which can be compared with the Four Books and Five Classics today.
It is also recorded that in the early Song Dynasty, students were allowed to carry "The Rhymes of the Ministry of Rites" into the examination room, because it was difficult to memorize it accurately by memorizing it. If you wanted to write a certain poem well, you had to take the book and quickly check whether it was written correctly or wrongly.
Especially taboo.
It was an indispensable reference book for scholars at that time.
Perhaps it is because this book is widely used that it has been circulated for thousands of years. How many books can be preserved?
Although there is a saying that paper can last for thousands of years, it is really a miracle that it can be preserved for thousands of years. Otherwise, the Song version of the book would not be so expensive.
Looking at the five relatively new books, Chen Wenzhe would not have been able to believe that these five well-preserved books had been circulated for thousands of years if he hadn't been a little talented!
He couldn't believe it, so why should others believe it too?
Thinking of the exhibition at the end of the year, he wanted to bring out something good and let the old people in the Dahai City Collectors Association see his strength.
Only with their approval can Chen Wenzhe go to other people's homes and see their treasures!
Even if I now go to Chang'an and get two paintings, a set of beauties, and five Song engraved copies of this letter, it seems that the weight is a bit light.
If you can increase some weight, you should increase some, at least the variety will be increased.
However, how to determine whether this is a Northern Song Dynasty engraving?
Avoiding textual research and inferring the year when the book was written?
To avoid taboos is to avoid the emperor's name, so it should be easy to understand.
Open it carefully and look at the well-preserved pages. Although time has left traces, this butcher knife has not abused it!
Compared with the set found before, this set is much better preserved.
The Rhymes of the Ministry of Rites was discovered in China very early on, but that set was taken away by the Japs and is still preserved in a temple.
As for the second set, when they were discovered, the books seemed to have been soaked in water, and some pages had obvious wrinkles caused by water damage.
During the appraisal, many people from domestic and foreign literature participated.
They seemed to have compared the layout style, printing paper and ink color, font and knife skills, etc. Although they could not confirm that it was a Northern Song Dynasty publication, they were sure that the date would not be very late.
Now look at the five books in front of you and recall the set you discovered before.
Because they are all block printing, they should be roughly the same.
However, that set seems to have been soaked in water, so the ink color and printing paper have changed a bit.
However, the font, carving technique, format, etc. cannot be changed.
Therefore, after a little comparison, Chen Wenzhe found that except for these five books, which were more sophisticated in printing, the other characteristics were almost exactly the same, and there was nothing unusual about them at all.
Of course, this does not prove that the five books in front of you are the Northern Song Dynasty engravings.
It must be very old, but how long it lasts is not certain.
This is the same situation as the previous appraisal of the set of Flooded Books. How did they accurately estimate the year of their publication? Now it has become a big problem that Chen Wenzhe needs to solve.