From now on we will be adding fresh stock to the ‘for sale’ section of the website on a weekly basis, with one new bottle added every week or so, so check for the updates. We will also be rising above the old system where I travelled around the world twice a year showing collectors physical stock while Nick, almost unaided because of the rarefied realm of comprehension inhabited by the serious net-navigator, put a few things up for sale and received almost zero input from me other than the occasional encouraging ripple of applause.

Another possibility is to establish a Dealers Guild for not only the snuff-bottle world, but for other arts as well, although initially this will focus on Chinese art.

We will accept advertisements and allot space on the site for selected dealers. Selection will be on the principle of integrity. Any dealer wishing to sign up will be required to provide a full invoice for all purchases stating material, age, provenance and exhibition honestly and be willing to take back anything which fails to live up to all of these criteria for an immediate cash refund.

A board of adjudicators will be formed from among participating dealers and experts and in the event of any dispute both sides may state their case, and the board’s decision will be final. Any dealer who has more than two complaints which are not dealt with to the satisfaction of the board will be black-balled and removed from the site.

Participating dealers will be listed, given space on the site to offer their wares (a cyber art fair) or provide a link to their own sites for this function, and allowed to advertise. We will also, implicitly, recommend them as dealers of integrity.
If the board spots any untoward mistakes on their site they will be advised, thus sharing knowledge and opening up discussion. The dealers we end up with on the site will, obviously, take any suggestions with the integrity we expect of them.

Chinese Snuff Bottle Manifesto

This website was designed with the intent to create a medium uninhibited by distance and schedule to enable those with serious interest in snuff bottles to enjoy the experience at their own leisure and privacy. We will offer a regularly changing selection of Chinese snuff bottles to collectors all over the world with sufficient photographs and description to bring the experience as close to having them 'in the hand' as possible. These will cover the full range of snuff bottles, including many lesser but less expensive examples. The governing principle being that they are all significant works of art, at varying levels of quality, and each appropriately priced. Alongside each will be the full description, together with any appropriate commentary, which, with photographs, will appear on our invoice in the event of a purchase.

We have complete confidence in what we are selling, based on our years of experience and best understanding at the time, and believe the prices to be both reasonable and, perhaps more importantly, sustainable. We do not price bottles on the basis of what one rose-tinted enthusiast might possibly pay, but on the basis of what several people, properly informed, would agree is a fair market price. By doing so, we expect to create continuing satisfaction in the transaction and avoid the disappointments of returns.

Understanding that fancy photographs and lengthy commentaries are not a perfect substitute for holding the bottle in the hand, no sale is considered confirmed until purchases have been handled by the buyer and approved, hopefully with some enthusiasm. Thereafter, you may fall back upon our guarantee. Should any material aspect of the information contained in the invoice and commentaries prove false, or even reasonably questionable, the item may be returned for a full cash refund, at any time, with no statute of limitations. Equally, anyone is welcome to trade back bottles at the original cost and take the amount as a credit against other purchases. We are always happy to see our bottles again. This gives collectors an unprecedented way of disposing of the results of their 'early eyes' in collecting and the understanding that they may constantly 'trade up' without loss of money. If a bottle has increased in value, the collector has any number of other options in disposing of it. One of which is to quote us a price, and see if we are willing to pay it.

We want to create a medium where you can view and collect without pressure, but with as much information as we can reasonably make available to facilitate your diligence and care in selection.

We would, of course, welcome any suggestions you may have for making this site more user-friendly.

A new system for selling snuff bottles at auction.

With the ever-rising cost of selling snuff bottles at auction the enormous benefits of immediate competition before the hammer falls are becoming offset by the costs. There is no question that the best way to sell a good collection is at auction where the prices paid for the top bottles are entirely unpredictable, but nearly always much more than expected. No major auction house, however, has an expert with any particular interest in snuff bottles, and for a sometimes indifferent service, their charges increase on a regular basis.

There is a common perception among the innocent that if they go to auction and the auctioneer offers to sell the collection for a ‘modest’ premium of, oh, say 10%, that is what they are paying as a seller. But the incredibly brilliant concept of splitting commissions between a seller’s and a buyer’s premium (dreamed up by the visionary Peter Wilson of Sotheby’s a few decades ago) disguises the fact that they are also charging the buyer a hefty premium. Since the buyer will automatically discount his bid by the amount of the buyer’s premium, the seller is usually paying, at the 10% seller’s premium rate, anywhere from around 30 -35% depending upon the auctioneer. For that, unless someone knowledgeable about snuff bottles and auctions is acting on behalf of the seller, they usually get an indifferent catalogue, with inaccurate or inadequate information, haphazard estimates, and wasted opportunity.
We have devised a system which combines our expertise in the snuff bottle and auction worlds with the excitement and competition of an auction. We have tied up with Bonham’s to achieve this. In doing so we have also been able to significantly reduce overall costs to the collector.

We provide all the expertise, estimates, photography, full descriptions based upon the cutting edge of current knowledge, details of exhibition or publication, and honest and accurate condition reports. All of this will be posted on e-yaji.com. in plenty of time before each auction. Those of you who have seen the CD presentations done by Nick Moss for the Meriem Sales in New York, and for selected other auctions we have handled, will know that the multiple photographs, which show all views, are far more efficient in terms of viewing-power than actually handling the bottle at an auction view – although that is always a wise final move. We then deliver all this information, together with the items for sale to Bonham’s who will exhibit the collection along with their usual seasonal sales, publishing only a brief, identifying catalogue to take along to the auction (unless the collector chooses to pay a little extra for a fancy, one-owner-sale catalogue for the coffee table), conduct the auction, and be responsible for collecting the money.

The initial sale under this new system will be the first in a series of sales of the Mary and George Bloch Collection, beginning in May 2010 in Hong Kong, on which we are working at present. The Bloch sales will continue over the next several years with sales in Hong Kong every six months.

If you are interested in disposing of your collection in this way, by all means contact us and we’ll be happy to give you more details of the logistics and costs.

Educational information.

Here the sky is the limit – well, actually, our capacity to input information is the limit, but we’re working on that. Here are just some of the ideas:

We will have a section for exhibitions, which, once up, will remain permanently. This will include education exhibitions curated by collectors or anyone else who is interested and by ourselves, including exhibitions of individual collections (although we reserve the right to edit or decline such exhibitions). One such exhibition which intrigues me at present is one of my ideal collection, if I had access to infinite funds and could select any known snuff bottle. This may be conflated with an exhibition of the entire history of the snuff-bottle arts. Bear in mind that with the web, one can continually add to and edit content, making it a far more flexible medium than print.
We will also provide a platform for collectors who want to publish their collections, or other related books on snuff bottles (written by themselves or others) but would rather not go to the expensive (and often tiresome) option of printing and distributing individual books.

We will try to make much of this content inter-active to allow feedback, so that we can continually add to and improve the information available.

Part of our plan is to gradually employ academics to help us with existing content and provide additional content (funded by the new auction set up, in theory), so hopefully we can make a good deal of the content bi-lingual and provide translation and research facilities to anyone who is interested. We envisage the possibility of undertaking for other dealers or collectors the cataloguing of exhibitions on a commercial basis.

We will scan in old, difficult to find publications on snuff bottles so that they are accessible to all, and, eventually, perhaps even aspire to having all known works (of merit) on the subject included, but I shall be long-dead by then!
A snuff-bottle bibliography will be posted, which we will add to as new books appear. We will also try to provide useful listings: dating systems with charts, lists of artists, research encyclopaedia, etc.

We will also have links to other useful sites.
One of the great advantages of the web is that it is always a work in progress, so we are not bound by the need to get everything right before we publish, as we would be in the world of print.

We will constantly be open to new suggestions for improving the site, and will provide a feedback option for comments on the site, its construction, and uses.
So, log on regularly – we will.