Reprinted in the China Daily today:
A senior citizen who sold fake craftworks has been sentenced to 15 years in prison in Beijing.
Jiang Yinglong, who came to Beijing in 2003 claimed his goods were original royal artefacts of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Jiang began his cheating to pay for treatment of his illness. In April 2004, a manager surnamed Niu from an auction house in Beijing fell victim, and was cheated of 3.3 million yuan ($428,571) after seeing Jiang’s “craftworks”, he insisted were antiques from the Qing royal family.
5 responses so far ↓
1 無名 - wu ming // Apr 2, 2007 at 11:47 pm
as craig clunas would remind us, this is hardly new. daoban has been around as long as we’ve had markets for antiquities.
2 花崗齋之愚公 // Apr 2, 2007 at 11:50 pm
Fast response and excellent point.
3 Juan // Apr 3, 2007 at 11:33 am
I thought in the antique business, the buyer takes full responsibility of the authenticity of the goods.
What if a buyer bought something worth millions from a farmer for only a few kuai? Should the farmer sue the buyer?
4 花崗齋之愚公 // Apr 3, 2007 at 5:27 pm
Juan,
That’s a fair point and I confess to not being current on best practices in antique dealing.
From the historical perspective, as Wu Ming noted, this sort of thing is hardly new and certainly not rare in Beijing. What is interesting is the government taking an interest in it.
5 無名 - wu ming // Apr 4, 2007 at 1:32 am
What if a buyer bought something worth millions from a farmer for only a few kuai? Should the farmer sue the buyer?
in a just world, the farmer would sue and win those millions.
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