Authenticity

[Space Samurai]

I was just curious...

My wife bought me a little yixing pot for Christmas from Silk Trade Tea (You can see the pot and the link on the "show off your pots" thread). And I saw some interesting information about clay and who made it and what not. I know very little about yixing. How authentic do you think that kind of information is? Is it even important?

Here is the link again http://tinyurl.com/26dq6y

[scruffmcgruff]

Did your pot come with a certificate of some sort? I guess there's no way to really guarantee authenticity, but that would be a start.

[hop_goblin]

I was just curious...

My wife bought me a little yixing pot for Christmas from Silk Trade Tea (You can see the pot and the link on the "show off your pots" thread). And I saw some interesting information about clay and who made it and what not. I know very little about yixing. How authentic do you think that kind of information is? Is it even important?

Here is the link again http://tinyurl.com/26dq6y

Space, your pot seems to be what the item is be what is described. It is certainly green, and claimed to be on lu ni zhisha. The chop mark would indicate that it was made by a particular artist hired by the studio or factoty to pound out as many as possible. Although I don't know for sure as ME don't read or speak chinese. As for the Lu ni zhizha clam, it is hard to tell if artifical colors were added. Many of the Lu ni pots that I have examined ( online) have been much lighter in color. And with the increasing rarity of many clays, it could be a mixture of different clays with added colors. Of course it is hard to base any claim soley on the computer alone as all pictures and computer images are distorted from computer to computer. As for the sand claim that the sand increases porosity, this is if first for me. I have heard of artist adding clay only to increase the stability of the clay as it is fired usually for the pot to keep its shape. Of course it also gives the pot an interesting texture.

There are ways to see if it was hand thrown on a wheel vs the clay being hammered out by the artist. Look inside the pot and if you see circular markings usually on the bottom and sides of the pot this would be a good indication that it was thrown and made of inferior industrial clays. However, if you see paddle marks generally looking like linear scrapes then it could possibly be a hammered pot - although still made of industrial clay, but of a better class. All in all, from what I can see it looks to be on par with a pot which is made for a utility function and possibly made in a studio where they make many a aday. This is not to say that it is not a great pot, indeed, I am jealous and I think it certainly you have a geniune yixing made of zhisha.

Hop

[Mary R]

Actually, I can sort of see the sand claim having some merit. I'm thinking of my inorganic chem classes when we studied crystalline structures. It seemed like the strongest structures required one of two things: the atoms had to all be the same, as in diamond, which gave the whole a very regular structure, or the atoms had to be 1 large, 1 small, as in table salt, where sodium basically fills in the holes left by the larger chlorine molecules. The more varied the components were in the structure, the more 'lacy' the crystal could be. So you could go from something close packed like this:



to something more like this:



But don't quote me on it...I really wasn't any kind of chemistry genius or anything. My boyfriend largely helped me get through that course. Scruff? What think you?

[hop_goblin]

Holy Mary! Cool thanks for the insight!

[scruffmcgruff]

P chem scares me (and I never took it), but that makes sense to me. Thanks Mary!

[Mary R]

Heh heh...now THIS is intense tea discussion...breakin' out the molecular structures and talkin' p-chem...

I never took it either. This was from my inorganic course.