Art, Diamonds, Watches, Collectibles etc.

[tonylim]

Hi Tony
Try ebay, both the local and international sites. Lots of BE collections for auction. I use ebay to check prices out pretty often.

Hi Lena,

I will , thanks.

[LenaHuat]

Hi Tony
U're welcome. Are U the one who's posted this in the local ebay site?
http://cgi.ebay.com.sg/25-silver-gold-plated-stamps-Empire-Collection-/180512998128

[tonylim]

Hi Tony
U're welcome. Are U the one who's posted this in the local ebay site?
http://cgi.ebay.com.sg/25-silver-gold-plated-stamps-Empire-Collection-/180512998128

Hi Lena,

I have yet to post in ebay, i will take a look on this .

[tonylim]

Hi Lena,

I just saw it in ebay, it seemed similar to mine but will have to take a look as it is not with me except some letters/Papers.

No one bid for that ?

[tonylim]

This guy asked for S$1,000 and received not even one bid.
My records shown we paid for S$138.50 per piece in 1980.

[LenaHuat]

Hi Tony
You can also try the international E-bay website. I saw bids for BE collections.

[winston]

Qing vase sale in Hong Kong shatters all price expectations
By Fu Wen

A Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1911) vase was sold for a record HK$252 million ($32 million) during Sotheby's Hong Kong autumn sale on Thursday.

Alice Cheng, a Hong Kong-based collector, walked away with the vase after having paid far more than many expected. She and a telephone bidder engaged in a two-way bidding war after the bid reached HK$80 million ($10.3 million), the Xinhua News Agency reported.

The price was the highest for any Chinese porcelain, according to reports.

"It doesn't matter how much it cost because I like the vase very much," Cheng said.
This is the second time Cheng made a world record for a Qing porcelain item. She made the winning bid for a Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) porcelain bowl in 2006 for which she paid HK$150 million ($19 million), the highest price at an Asian auction, the Hong Kong-based Ta Kung Pao newspaper reported Friday.

The Sotheby's seven-day autumn sale began October 2 in Hong Kong featuring more than 370 lots with an estimated total value exceeding HK$780 million ($100 million), according to the company's website.

"The record showed that the Chinese art market has entered a new active phase with more capital inflow and a prosperous market potential," said Dong Guoqiang, general manager at the Beijing Council International Auction Company.

Dong was present at several Sotheby's autumn auction sales in Hong Kong this week.
"All these record prices have removed doubts that the Chinese art market bubble will break this autumn and I believe a new record will soon be made again since the market is going so strong," Dong added.

http://china.globaltimes.cn/society/2010-10/580087.html

[winston]

Pot o' Gold: Family's old vase fetches $83 million

It was just an old Chinese vase that had been in the family for 80 years. It turned out to be much more.

When the intricately painted 18th-century piece went on the block at Bainbridges, a small suburban London auction house, it sold for a record $83 million Thursday, scooped up by a Chinese buyer.

"How do you anticipate the Chinese market?" asked the shocked auctioneer, Peter Bainbridge. "It's totally on fire."

The sale price was more than 40 times the pre-sale estimate and a record for a Chinese work of art — an outcome Bainbridge called "a fairy tale" for the family who owned the vase.

The sellers, who wished to remain anonymous, are the sister and nephew of a deceased elderly woman in the West London suburb of Pinner. The vase had been in the family at least since the 1930s, though they don't know how it was acquired.

Many Chinese artifacts surfaced in Britain in the 19th century, having been looted from Beijing's Summer Palace when it was sacked by British and French troops at the end of the Second Opium War in 1860.

Painted sky blue and imperial yellow and adorned with medallions depicting leaping goldfish, the 16-inch vase dates from the Qing dynasty, a time when Chinese porcelain-making was at its pinnacle. Made for the personal collection of Emperor Qianlong and bearing the imperial seal, experts said it was an exceptional piece.

Still, no one expected what happened when the delicate enameled vase went on the block.

Bainbridge said the atmosphere was "electric," and when the hammer came down on the winning bid he struck it so hard the gavel broke.

"There was a silence that wrapped itself around the sale as the figure grew slowly but surely up to the sky," said Bainbridge, who specializes in house clearance sales — and whose previous record sold for $161,000.

"I'm an auctioneer, so at that point I'm just doing the professional job I'm paid to do. But once the hammer's down you do take stock slightly and think, 'Oh, wow, that's really rather a lot of money,'" said Bainbridge, whose $13.9 million buyer's premium is included in the sale price.

The vase, bought by a Chinese bidder on behalf of an undisclosed buyer, beat the previous record for Chinese art. A 45-foot-long 11th-century scroll elaborately decorated with calligraphy sold for almost $64 million in Beijing in June.

While the vase sold Thursday is not extremely old — it dates from around 1740 — it comes from a period whose works are coveted by Chinese buyers. Last month, Sotheby's sold another Qing dynasty vase in Hong Kong for $32 million.

"While European taste tends to focus on the really old stuff produced by the Chinese, Chinese collectors consider this period of porcelains the zenith of their art," said Roland Arkell, deputy editor of the Antiques Trade Gazette.

"It's a superb object. It's also a piece which chimes completely with Chinese taste. And it has to be seen in the context of a rapidly rising market."

Even he was surprised, though, by the sale price, which makes this work by anonymous artisans the 11th most expensive artwork ever sold at auction.

"It's right up there alongside the Picassos, which is unheard-of for a piece of porcelain," he said.

More record prices are sure to follow. Prices for Chinese art and antiquities are buoyant.

Art markets in the West are still feeling the effects of the economic downturn. Masterpieces set records — often acquired by Russian, Middle Eastern or Asian collectors — while mid-range works languish unsold.

"It's like a creme brulee: hard at the top and a bit soft underneath," said Robert Read, a fine art expert at specialist insurer Hiscox

In contrast, China's booming economy means wealthy new collectors are joining the market all the time, eager to repatriate treasures from their heritage.

"There's definitely a shift in the balance of power," said Read. "Things are going east these days. That's where the future is, and that's where the big collectors are going to be over the next 20 years."

He said the result was also good news for small auction houses like Bainbridge's, which the auctioneer runs with his wife and a staff of eight.

"This result indicates the depth to which buyers are prepared to hunt for treasure. The Internet has opened up the market for small auctioneers who now find themselves in the happy position of being able to compete with the big players," he said.

___

Online:

Bainbridge Auctions: http://www.bainbridgesauctions.co.uk

Source: AP News

[winston]

Rembrandt portrait to be offered for US$47m

LONDON - A REMBRANDT portrait, one of the last works from the Dutch master's late career still in private hands, will be offered for sale at the TEFAF Maastricht art fair later this year for US$47 million (S$60 million).

Portrait of a Man With Arms Akimbo was under the auctioneer's hammer as recently as 2009, when it fetched an artist record price of 20.2 million pounds (S$42 million, at Christie's in London.


Source: Straits Times

[winston]

Diamond Sales in the first tier cities in China is very brisk ..

Anglo's De Beers Seeking to Reach Full Diamond Production By End of 2012
By Carli Lourens

De Beers, the largest diamond miner, may raise its annual rate of output 21 percent to full capacity by the end of 2012 and is preparing a final study for a new mine in Canada to meet “extraordinary” demand from China and India.

The company, based in Johannesburg, may raise the pace of its production to an annual 38 million carats during this year and to 40 million during next year, from 33 million in 2010, said Bruce Cleaver, joint acting chief executive officer.

De Beers, 45 percent owned by Anglo American Plc, today reported record 2010 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization of $1.4 billion following a 57 percent surge in its trading arm’s sales to $5.08 billion.

China and India delivered “extraordinary growth, well beyond our expectation at 25 percent and 31 percent respectively for the year,” Cleaver said on a conference call.

“In America, the Christmas season also exceeded our expectations with an increase of approximately 7 percent for the full year.” Growth will probably continue to perform in those markets, he said.

De Beers and main rival ZAO Alrosa of Russia have benefited from restocking after the global credit crunch forced purchasers to cut inventories in 2009, and an average 27 percent recovery in prices. Alrosa’s sales reached $3.48 billion in 2010, the company said Jan. 17. The figure was a 90 percent increase from a year earlier, according to pricing company Rapaport USA Inc.

“A blossoming diamond market and strong rebound in fundamentals” is fueling gains in listed producers, Liberum Capital Ltd. wrote in a note today. Namakwa Diamonds Ltd. is up 24 percent this year and Petra Diamonds Ltd. up 29 percent.

Booster Billion

“We think that by 2015, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India and the Gulf, which is kind of typically the places in the East where diamonds are bought, will account for around nearly 40 percent of global demand,” Cleaver said in an interview.

Early data show the U.S. bought about 38 percent of diamond jewelry last year, with India making up about 10 percent and China and Hong Kong combined about 11 percent, he said. Asian economies are growing faster than those in the U.S. and Europe, where consumers and governments are trying to cut indebtedness.

Anglo, the Oppenheimer family and the Botswana government, De Beers’ three shareholders, invested $1 billion in the company last year through a rights offer after 2009 profit was hit by a collapse in demand following a recession in the U.S. De Beers suspended mines in Botswana and Namibia, cut more than 4,000 jobs and refinanced $1.5 billion of debt to cope with the slump.

The positive result of the action “arrived sooner than any of us thought possible,” said Stuart Brown, joint CEO. Debt and profit “normalized” about two years ahead of plan, De Beers said, adding net debt fell to $1.76 billion from $3.2 billion.

Canadian Mine

In anticipation of further demand growth, De Beers will in a few weeks submit the final feasibility study for the Gahcho Kue project in Canada, its third mine, which may yield 5 million carats a year, Brown said. De Beers owns 51 percent of the venture with Mountain Province Diamonds Inc. De Beers also plans to spend $3.6 billion expanding its Jwaneng mine in Botswana and may build underground operations at Venetia in South Africa.

The company isn’t distracted by speculation on whether Anglo American will increase or decrease its shareholding in the company, Brown said. A carat is equal to a fifth of a gram.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-1 ... overs.html