r/YixingSeals

If you recall I was searching for a dragon teapot some time ago and u/servania told me what to look for and now I have this and I couldn't be happier. Even the head reaches out while pouring 😀 A signature seems to be under the lid.

Hello, I think this teapot is very beautiful, and I am looking for a zhu ni teapot for brewing oolongs.

https://teahabitat.com/products/yixing-sa-jin-zhuni-red-clay-brian-deng-teapot-160-ml?variant=46595391848739

I know this isn’t on the list of reputable sellers, but I am inclined to trust the owner because of the quality of her teas, and her knowledge.

Can anyone read the seal and tell me if this looks authentic? I would only want to spend this amount if it is indeed authentic and of good quality.

Thanks!

Midnight in Cambridge countryside, perfect to carry on writing my YiXing stories in such chill crispy silent night.
I should have done one for answering “the change of value of teapot over my lifetime”, but paused after typing over 600 words: that’s a question too intricate and object to fit into the scale of a single post. The question itself plays the same way as the final moment of “who’s the murder” in Agatha Christie’s novel( big fan!): in order to reveal the answer , you have to follow the entire plot, “talk” to every character, and pay close attention to those tiny drops of evidence that neglected in “forensic”document.

So I decided to sit back to my role, a story teller, a “detective novel”, that gradually mapping out the answers you might wait for YiXing and teapot piece by piece, page by page. Now, shall we?

This part of my YiXing stories might be interesting to those curious about the names behind the seals. Who’s the maker/creator of your teapot? And how come I know ( in person) almost every active teapot crafter/master/dealer? I’ll explain in chronological order in a few following posts.

The truth is, I started “hanging out” with some nowadays high profile teapot crafters since the first day of preschool. If anyone says “that’s ridiculous, did you even develop a memory by that age” I’d force out a smile and politely tell them two fun facts; first, I can’t remember what I had for dinner yesterday but I can recall every moment I’d v spent in that preschool( people insist to call it kindergarten in China, but you know what I mean), second, it was a preschool where famous teapot master and local teachers would send their toddlers to, both having the similarity of tight in parenting time due to the long hours work. Including my parents.
My patents are both teachers of difference grades. The first day to school was so…. Bubbly Fascinating! Every little kid was fighting to leave in their creative tricks, tears and torn napkins and lost shoes all over the place. And among these cheeky monkeys, there were daughters sons grandkids of most teapot artists in Ding Shu ( the sub town most renowned Zisha masters resident). If you print out my preschool graduation ceremony photo and pin a dot to any kid related to teapot crafter/master, there won’t be much blank space left. Apart from me and my bestie(a funny guy who’s now married to a master’s daughter, oh then he didn’t count. Just me as the solo “survivor”)

The entire three years of my preschool was total nightmare to me, bulled by girls older and stronger( I was 1 year younger than other kids and slow learner) , guess that how I hold strong memory of that period. However my suffocating schooling became the best occasion for my parents to get in touch with teapot crafters or their siblings/parents, because they would be gathered at the gate to pick up their monkeys led out by supervisors. Imagine early 1990s in a small sub town in China, where one compound might just luckily share 1 telephone, let alone mobile phones, chatting was the one and only entertainment parents can have when awkwardly herded together. And I never thought that would turn into the prelude of the next chapter about how my mother, a teacher, became my gateway to meet more teapot masters.

This is a pot for auction that claims to be made by Shi Dabin from the Ming dynasty. I know how exceedingly unlikely that is to be true, but assuming it were, how would one go about authenticating it?

(Also there are no any inside pics or pics of the underside of the lid)

So lurking good sub it seems like there's more fake Yixing pots than real ones lol

I was at a teashop a few weekends ago and saw Yixing pots for sale but opted to go to Etsy instead. Don't ask me why, I probably should have just bought from the shop lol.

But this pot looked pretty cool, after I bought it I noticed that the seller had like under 15 sales, and a lot of art for sale. They were based out of China though.

The pot itself looks nice! It's pretty thin feeling tough, and it came in a nice box. Along with a note and some interesting clay "nugget" things. I'm assuming the nuggets are made of the same kind of clay as the pot. It has kind sandy texture to it as well.

Anyway, I'm curious to hear peoples thoughts, I'm pretty sure it isn't real, but the pot looks neat at least.

I have two more teapots I’m hoping to identify.

The tiny one I bought in China for I think 10 yuan, I have no reason to believe it’s yixing, but just curious what the seal says/what people can tell about it. I think it might be painted cause there’s a spot on the rim of the lid that looks like it’s chipping. It’s very smooth inside.

My aunt gave me the huge (for gong fu brewing) teapot, which she got as a gift, so no idea what its origin is. I can see a faint seam and there are tooling marks inside. It also has some mica I think. Wondering what the seals say, if it seems legit, and what kind of clays it is made of.

Sorry the pictures aren’t the best, I can take more if needed. Also didn’t realize we need pictures of the filter, I can take more pics in a couple days.

Hi! I originally posted this in r/tea and a someone recommended I post here too.

I just bought this teapot today at a local cafe having only previously known what yixing pots are and why they’re good, not knowing that fakes exist and could be toxic to drink from.

I’ve looked up the easy tells for fake and authentic yixing teapots and, as far as I can tell, the only thing that seems fake to me is the price: $39.95. Aside from that, it seems to be the right colors, isn’t overly flashy, and appears to be very well made (I’m not a potter, though my mom who was about 2 decades ago said they appeared to be very well-made).

Worth noting, it was among teapots that, upon looking up the tells, definitely seemed fake (too bright, too smooth-looking, cheapest one was around $29). I also found that apparently authentic ones smell earthy while fakes smell like chemicals and I can’t really tell if it smells like either, though it definitely has a smell if you stick your nose in it.

So, does anyone have any idea about whether this is authentic or not? Any input greatly appreciated!

Hi.

I found this cute pot for 60€.

To be honest, I bought it because of the looks. A friend of mine told me, that it looks promising to be a real yixing pot.

Can you help me? I wouldn't be too sad, if it's cheaply made or anything else, but I don't want to drink from potentially harmful pots? Could it even be authentic?

The lid fits perfectly, it rotates very easily and fits very very smoothly. It fits 120ml.

Hi everyone,

I’d really appreciate help identifying the seals on this teapot and getting a general opinion on it. I have a few other Chinese teapots I’d like to research as well, and learning to read these seals myself would be a great starting point.

Here’s what I can describe:

Shape: ribbed / lobed body, looks like a jinwenqi, possibly a Ju Ban Hu or Gua Leng Hu style.
Clay: matte grey-blue, possibly qinghuini (青灰泥) or minguo lü (民国绿).

Seals: one large rectangular seal with multiple columns of seal script (zhuanshu) under the base and inside the lid, plus a smaller oval seal next to it. There is also a seal inside the lid near the air hole.

Filter: single round hole at the spout base.
Origin: inherited from a distant uncle, so I don’t have any background on when or where it was acquired.

I’d love to know:
1. What do the seals actually say? (Artist name, studio, poem, etc.)
2. Does this look like a workshop piece, a semi-handmade pot, or something more serious?
3. Any rough idea of period (modern, 80s-90s, older)?

Photos attached: full pot, base seal, lid seal (outside), lid seal (inside), interior view, spout filter.

Thanks a lot for any insight!

So I think many of the Teasenz pots are not authentic, just by the bright colors and ornate designs. But there are two I’m interested in, and teasenz has provided me with photos of their seals, and the filter/interior of one (but the interior is not in focus):

https://www.teasenz.com/small-xishi-yixing-teapot
The color is very bright, is it probably dyed?

https://www.teasenz.com/small-round-yixing-teapot-taihu
This one has a grainy appearance, but is also shiny, if it is not authentic yixing, do you think it is dyed?

There is a very similar qing duan ni teapot with the seal shown on their website:
https://www.teasenz.com/qing-duan-ni-taihu-stone-lid-knob-teapot

There is also a yixing jar that has the grainy appearance, so maybe authentic? The seal is shown on their website:
https://www.teasenz.com/small-yixing-jar

What do you guys think?

Bought this pot online from a local theashop.

It only said "yixing teapot" 180 ml.

I know it's probably not real yixing clay but I wanted to know if anyone could tell me what clay it is and it's authenticity.

Hi ya, as promised I write about my memory and observation about YiXing and Zisha teapot as a local YiXing woman. If you haven’t read the first one, please excuse that English is my second language and I’m writing without gpt or Google translation to keep the content genuine in meanings.
This post is about the street Gu Nan Jie (old south street) where the legend master Gu JingZhou used to live. I want to share with you some archived photos before it got conserved and converted into tourist spot( in a good way), and a yet-to-be-confirmed story regarding Gu’s early life that I heard from my grandma.
It might confuse you when comparing the picture to the name: it’s called STREET but more like a village. To be more accurate, Gu Nan Jie is a residential community of combined terraced shop houses stretching along HuaXi (literally translated as Painting Creek, there’s a local middle school named after it), leaning against Shu Mountain. Initial Residents of this community were either families of crafters making teapot/clay flower pot/glazed clay cistern/anything pot , including the renewed undisputed masters like Gu JingZhou and Wu YunGen, or traders of those items.
Those adore Zisha teapot or art-deco clay pot will be stunned when walking along this street, no, not by how many masters ‘former residences it gathers, but the building materials used in each shabby house( yep, they were kind derelict and started falling part before the massive restoration conducted by gov after 2017): locals used to stack slightly flawed teapots or flower pots in their back yards to build walls or vegetable plant beds. Some of these “masonry”, if not trashed or damaged, might be worth a small fortune in auction. That’s pure luxury in modern eyes, but was just life to the residents.
These photos were taken in 2017, before the restoration rolled out into action officially. I haven’t got the time to revisit Gu Nan Jie afterwords, but according to my parents, it’s “back to life” after significant restoration and repairing with TLC and deep budget by local government.
Back to Master Gu. As a Gen Y, what I know about Gu can’t be more than anyone of you because Internet is the main source of my knowledge about him. There’s just one story that I can personally tell with my uniqueness, and it involves my grandma.
One day I was casually chatting with mother about Gu, and grandma joined silently for a while before leaving a draw-dropping comment, “oh that GU, he worked for my family at early age for a period” then drifting away to cook dinner. To me the fact didn’t add up( my family by no means can be considered as loaded to employ such master!) so I chased grandma for more explanation. Turned out I knew nothing about my own grandma at all…. She was born into a land manor’s family which shortly fell into decline later days, and according to her vague memory, Gu often would come to the house to work for making a living. There’s no official historical record about this part in any archive I can hold on to, but grandma isn’t kind of person that randomly joke for fun. It’s impossible to dig out more “before 1949” memories from the last generation, they hold very tightly that part of life experience with themselves for tough unspeakable reasons. And I totally respect their decision. I’d choose to believe it, after all, teapot craft masters are also normal human being like you and me. We’re all gifted with something, either the magic power turning clay into intricate design of craftsmanship or speed reading through pages, yet we still have to make a living with or without it.

Being the narrator of these stories pulls me closer to the root of teapots and the cultural heritage of my hometown. And once again, I’m grateful for every one in this subreddit showing the unconditional patient and open mind to my posts. Thank you guys!
@Servania you can use any photo I shared here into your website if in need. Credit free for you.

In the next post, I will answer the question from a user regarding the change of value of YiXing teapots over my (not very long yet) lifetime.

Pretty sure I got this years ago at a dim sum restaurant. I'm not expecting it to be anything "real" or serious, but my boyfriend recently joined this subreddit and thought it'd be cool to find out :) I just bought it because it looked neat and I like tea ha ha.

I tried to take a ton of photos, the texture is smooth on the outside and gritty on the inside. I did not paint it, it came like that. There's a photo with my tiny hand for a size comparison (roughly the size of a medium apple). Thank you for any help!

Is this a real handmade Yixing? I bought it more or less 7/8 years ago in a teahause in Munich.