Guest Posted July 27, 2003 Report Share Posted July 27, 2003 Most images, if not all images, that are sold are new. Some dealers claim they are old, but when you go to the wholesalers, you generally find the same type of 'antigue' images there. Some of the wholesalers will try to sell the 'new' images as being old and some will even tell you the various methods used to make the image look old. If you examine a new image that has been made to look old to that of an image in a museum, it is almost, if not impossible to tell the difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 27, 2003 Report Share Posted July 27, 2003 >>>Most images, if not all images, that are sold are new.<<< i would beg to differ there. it depends very much on the kind of images. smaller wooden bucha images (or often wrongly called 'lao' buddas) are rarely over 100 years old and are rarely faked due to the low cost of the originals, and the very small demand by collectors. also it is very difficult to fake the different layers of laquer which are different depending on the times during which those images were made. also, those images get regular layers of new paint as soon as the old paint goes thin, which you can esily see at the burmese wooden nath images and wooden shan buddhas. you rarely see the originals of those crude rural images in museums other than some small private folk art museums or the temples in burma's tribal areas, the temples of isaarn villages, and temples and caves in laos. larger, more expensive wooden images are more risky to buy - several techniques of faking or imitating are employed. very common is using an old piece of wood and carving an entire image. or having a image of minor quality and recarving the face so it resembles a more expensive image of not a craftsman but an artist. well, and of course the old horse piss and burial trick... bronze images are faked expertly, and extremely difficult to see. only the patina and greenspan can give some indication if it is naturally grown or chemically reached (personally, i am not knowledgeable enough in those). amulets are a very different form, and yes, most of the expensive ones on the markets are fake, but the real ones are existing, but not wholesale. an undiscerning eye can have difficulties to see the difference between a amulet costing one baht at the tha phajan wholesalers and the original costing hundred thousands. an expert can even be fooled by a somdej copy costing 1000 baht and the original costing 3 millions upwards depending on the issue. these amulets are made out of a mixture of different clays, a multitude of medicinal herbs, powdered bonefragments of famous monks and experts do look at those. again, i do not have the knowledge to see the difference. an amulet made today by a famous monk costing a few baht, or a few hundred baht, is as real as one made 100 years ago costing thousands. the difference here is the demands of the collectors market internationally (which manly looks at age and expertise of craftsmenship) and the one locally (looking at that as well and additionally at the supernatural powers of famous images). and there are more than a few kinds of images which are collected by neither and are still very undervalued. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pattaya127 Posted July 27, 2003 Report Share Posted July 27, 2003 Mighty, FlyW, You make me proud of getting this section on the board, after reading your inputs. I usually hesitate to get into arcane, or not so, thai culture subjects for fear of looking like a snob, but your depth of knowledge is an encouragement. thanks, Guys, that's really a great part of the the Thailand i love, we speak about here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pattaya127 Posted July 27, 2003 Report Share Posted July 27, 2003 an amulet made today by a famous monk costing a few baht, or a few hundred baht, is as real as one made 100 years ago costing thousands. -------------------------------- do you know of, or is it current that an amulet costing a few bahts become a looked-after one (at more bahts), due to some good luck or protection it supposedly had to its bearer(s)? PS: may actually be plenty of stories like this in amulet magazines, no? ::I wish I could read thai Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 27, 2003 Report Share Posted July 27, 2003 >>>do you know of, or is it current that an amulet costing a few bahts become a looked-after one (at more bahts), due to some good luck or protection it supposedly had to its bearer(s)?<<< it is a very complicated, and still for me very confusing subject. you can be sure that original first edition amulets of the famous monks do become very looked after in several years time. there are also the special edition amulets. if for example a famous monk dies his ashes and grounded bone fragments might be included in some commemorative amulets. these are even straight away highly priced and very looked after. also fragments of robes of those monks are given away. the same way temples life from the reputation of some famous monk residing there. often, if he dies, the temple will disappear in obscurity until another monk in another temple reaches fame due to supernatural powers. the market prices of amulets can be enormously fluctuating too. for example one otherwise not so looked after amulet somehow gets a very good reputation and can suddenly experience huge price rises. one way of getting that reputation is through the body collectors. if for example one particular amulet is found on one or several people who miracously survived a usually deadly accident or shooting that will often be connected to that amulet and will make its rounds through the magazins and the grapevine. (i myself have been once at one accident scene where by all logic the guy should have been torn to pieces but survived without a scratch. a soldier started sleeping while driving - had no seatbelt - drove against a sideplank - his car was not really recognisable anymore - he was catapulted out of his car through the front sceen and landed more than a hundered meters away in a field - not a single scratch!) well, back to amulets. the knowledge of the experts is absolutely amazing - they know the different ingredients, look for tiny irregularities in the cast, smell at them and know the particulars of thousands of different such amulets. it is a lifetime of intense study. i would love to know about those amulets but as i don't read thai and pali i guess it is something i will most likely never be able to learn, unfortunately. recently i was shown a few very high priced amulets given out to people who worked in the palace under rama V and rama VI - incredible. opening the box a very strong and aromatic smell came out, the amulets itself were inlaid with gems and gold, intricately enscripeted and engraved - so beautyful! unfortunately i know way too little on that subject that i could risk investing real money into those amulets. i hope that i can one day. for example the amulet i carry every day was made by my missus's uncle while he was a monk. he made a small edition for his relatives and some followers. i don't think that it has some real marketable value here in bangkok, but he still is, even though not a monk anymore, very respected for his healing powers. lots of people from the surrounding villages come to him to get healed. also, the first thing he did when we bought the land where he lives now his old days he started a garden of rare medical herbs he collected in the forest. it is a complicated thing - you may be given an amulet by some poor farmer for friendship, and only realise later that that amulet can cost many thousands of baht in the markets. not everybody in thailand does care about that monetary value. one of my missus relatives has a huge amulet collection worth maybe several hundred thousands of baht, but he is still a piss poor farmer (in prison since a few years now for his drugaddiction) who would never ever sell one piece of his collection. gotta stop waffling now, i start getting carried away... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dreamer Posted July 27, 2003 Report Share Posted July 27, 2003 There is a market close by Khao San Road and Wat Pho selling amulets. It?s on the river, maybe someone else can provide the address detail. It is an interesting place to explore and has a tasty food market attached to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khunsanuk Posted July 28, 2003 Report Share Posted July 28, 2003 Hi, "gotta stop waffling now, i start getting carried away..." By all means, continue waffling Very interesting subject. Sanuk! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 28, 2003 Report Share Posted July 28, 2003 >>>There is a market close by Khao San Road and Wat Pho selling amulets<<<< that is the tha pajan market Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Hippie Posted July 28, 2003 Report Share Posted July 28, 2003 Many BKK maps show several different Amulet markets throughout the city. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pharcyde Posted July 28, 2003 Report Share Posted July 28, 2003 There are many amulets for sale on phaholyothin rd. just near the weekend market. This market is only on saturdays and sundays (i think). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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