BUYER: Gai Wan Cup

While wandering through the Cat Street Market in Sheung Wan, Hong Kong, you spotted the item for which you have spent years searching. Years ago your grandparents gave you an antique tea set that, in its complete setting, today may be valued as high as $10,000–$12,000 USD. Unfortunately, your set was not complete. You have the Yixing teapot, the cups, the tea tray, and scoops — but no Gai Wan Cup.

You have had this (incomplete) setting appraised by a professional. Though the appraiser was excited and impressed with your tea set, he suggested that the most value was in the full set — and that individual items and incomplete sets were perhaps 20–25% less valuable. He suggested you might be able to sell your items through an antique consignment shop for $4,000–5,000, or through an auction house for perhaps $6,000. With the Gai Wan Cup, you might be looking at around $8,000–$8,500 at auction.

You looked at the Gai Wan Cup very carefully and are absolutely certain this is your missing piece. It clearly has a Jingdezhen porcelain stem, which matches the style, the location, and the setting of the piece — from the late Ming Dynasty. You are 100% certain.

YOUR RESEARCH

You’ve searched for this cup online and in specialty magazines. The Gai Wan Cup seems to be the hardest piece to find. You’ve seen estimates listing the Gai Wan Cup alone for $400 to $1,200. Until now it has been impossible to find the item for sale on its own.

You have $3,000 in your bank account and could get it all out this afternoon if necessary.

YOUR OBJECTIVE

You realize you must seize this opportunity. Based on the estimate, you could pay up to $2,500 for the piece and still show a profit. You realize it may be many years — if ever — before you would happen upon this individual piece again. You know that prices at antique markets in Hong Kong are generally negotiable. But how much difference will there be between the seller’s initial price and the “true” price?