I don’t know much about the history of this pot except that it’s a classic design.brebenne wrote:Zared wrote:Which shape are you talking about? Also zero chance anyone can help w/o pictures of your pot.brebenne wrote: Hi, I have a pot similar to this with different markings and I wonder if you had any insights into it. Bought in Tainan, Taiwan recently. I understand if you don't want to provide free advice, but I am learning and appreciate any thoughts you might have.
Thanks for your response. I meant the three friends of winter pot. I attach pictures here.
I'm new to Yixing (or any clay) pots, but visited quite a lot of shops in China and Taiwan on a recent trip because I've always loved fine teas ordered from online. I purchased this from a tea shop in Tainan where the owner's father made 20 and 30 year old Dong Ding and has a display case with what look to be a bit older along with about 30 other pots. All he wanted to do was talk about the aged tea (he said he wasn't an expert on tea ware and his dad bought most of it), but he said this was the #1 he had, and it was the most expensive at 1600 New Taiwan Dollars. It has a box with it. I bought another pot in Tainan that is of higher quality from another shop, and tea owner also said his dad bought it, so that's either a tale or something that happened a lot in Taiwan.
I bought this and a few others from the tea merchant because the prices were reasonable and everything looked a bit different than I saw in other stores (except those selling much higher prices). Searching online, I see a few variants of this style, including yours, so I imagine it was popular at some point and was copied. I have theorised, based on your comments, that mine is probably a copy of an older model, hence the price, and I suspect it comes from around the same time period as you discuss (1990s) due to Taiwan buying a lot then (so I read). My suspicion was that people aren't buying the lower end Yixing (or so-called), and Tainan gets a few fewer foreign tourists than Taipei (as I perceived on the visit), so it may be something of interest, but if it was a more valuable version the prices would be higher to it would have been gone.
I really am less interested in how much it's worth than the story of the design, and whether these are common or a bit rarer to come across. I'm a scholar, so I love the scholar-gentleman ideal it represents, which I discovered researching the theme.
Thanks again for any insights. I appreciate your time and expertise and am happy to reciprocate in any way.
I also own 2 of these from late 70-80’s era. I believe yours is 90’s or newer though.