sell your netsuke now

[Bungo]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/busines ... ref=slogin

 

 

milt

[Guido]

At long last a smart move by eBay. It hopefully will get all those crude, Hongkong made "non-Netsuke" off the market, and will reduce the trade in ivory for the only purpose of producing tourist junk. I can count the "real", collectible Netsuke I've seen on eBay over the years on one hand. People who deal in quality Netsuke usually don't sell on eBay, and getting a CITES certificate (for antique pieces) never stood in the way of international sales. I applaude this new policy!

[Ted Tenold]

I may be an Ebay sceptic, but I'm rarely disappointed. From the article:

 

Exceptions for some items with small amounts of ivory, such as pianos, will be made, though the items must have been made before 1900.

 

Wait a minute, so a piano has a "small" amount of ivory? Huh? So do they mean to allow it as a percentage of the entire finished item? Pianos have more ivory by volume than netsuke, and Netsuke are nearly always more than 100 years, right? But one rarely sees anything earlier than a Taisho period piano anyways. Humph.....maybe the Elephants won't notice.

 

Newton's law of fraudsters will apply. So, will Ebay address this next "path of least resistance" to proving the description a fraud? Doubtful.... The Chinese have flooded ebay with all manner of fraudulently represented items for years now. Ivory will become "bone", or "mastadon", or "mammoth", or "petrified" or something even more creatively ambiguous. Don't get me wrong, I like elephants and they should be protected. Some of my best friends are elephants (well "red state" genus :lol: ).

 

This is supposed to be magnanimous? Smells more like Ebay was about to get slapped with some sort of penalty for harboring not just cross border transactions, but *any* transactions they could not ensure were preban origin. Hey, but that's just me, I'm an Ebay sceptic. But this statement illustrates for me the motivation behind it...

 

''The team concluded that we simply can't ensure that ivory listed for sale on eBay is in compliance with the complex regulations that govern its sale,''

 

If they could ensure their own compliance, they would still sell it despite the benevolence our large, grey, tusked friends should be shown.

 

I can see the titles now: Small but Beautiful Old 19th Century Ivory Netsuke

 

I know it's a rant... Save the elephants, well, if it's a *large* piece of ivory less than 100 years old, and not on a big ticket item. Forget the folks getting tooled for the dubious Japanese Antiqueness of it despite it's base material. *sigh* I need more wine...

[Bungo]

Quoting some old wise German proverb " if you want to kill each other, do it outside. I just cleaned the room "

 

p.s. elephants usually cannot disagree without being disagreeable ( please do not ask me to explain the joke ) , it'll get messy . And boys, do wash your hands afterward.

 

 

Milt

[Bugyotsuji]

Maybe if they cut all the tusks off African elephants in advance,

 

so the poachers wouldn't feel the need to kill them,

 

(and gave all the elephants a pair of implants, mammoth/plastic slip-on tusks instead )

 

then ivory could be used legitimately as 'renewable, responsibly-farmed' ivory. :lol:

[Ian]

Good idea! But which poachers are going to ask the elephant if his tusks are real or not?

[Bugyotsuji]

Good idea! But which poachers are going to ask the elephant if his tusks are real or not?

 

Trojan elephants! Elephant-shaped tanks with machine guns in their tusks!

 

Actually it's all a big mess. The elephants are increasing, their land is being fenced off, the human population is upset when the elephants lumber through their fences and crops, people speak of the need for culls...

[Guest nickn]

i find it very strange that we eat wear and make glue out of cows but go all sentimental over an elephant obviously dont hunt any animal to extinction but manage and cull elephants to the benefit of the counties where they live. its a bit rich for wealth westerners to tell poor africans what they can do with their own natural resources. imagine what we would say if hindu india tried to get us to stop killing cows??

[Brian]

and now back to the subject of netsuke......

 

Brian

[Bugyotsuji]

I have a feeling that it won't make any difference to ivory Netsuke values. There will be separate antique Netsuke markets around the world. Stupid, but that's life and politics nowadays.

 

Perhaps now is the time to invest in non-ivory? Dunno.

 

This is just some people feeling good that they've forced a high-profile business to make a public statement, IMHO. I won't be selling mine.

[John A Stuart]

Borders are porous, not withstanding 9/11 or not. there is too large of a volumne of small parcels to really monitor. You will see parcels labeled, game piece, ornament, curio make it through. This trade has not been stopped and probably will not ever be. John