From photos and a description you can check size, shape, visible condition, and whether the price makes sense. You cannot verify an exact date, a maker, or whether a seal or reign mark is genuine. Buy on what you can check, pay for what the piece will do on your table, and treat every claim you cannot check as the seller's opinion.
What can you verify from photos?
The physical object. Good photos of every side, the inside and the base show you shape, proportions, colour, glaze wear, chips, cracks and repairs. Measurements and capacity tell you whether a cup or pot suits your brewing. A short video of a pot pouring shows you the flow. That is most of what matters when you use a piece every day.
- Size and capacity. Ask for millilitres, not "small". A pot you cannot brew in is a bad buy at any age.
- Condition. Rim chips, hairline cracks, lid fit, spout damage and old repairs. Ask directly about each.
- The inside. Staining on an old pot's interior should match a working life. A spotless inside on a dark, "aged" outside is a warning.
- The base and foot. Wear on the foot ring of a cup or pot should look like years of being set down, not like sandpaper.
- The pour. Ask for a video of the pot pouring tea, not just water. Tea is thicker, and a pot that pours well with water can slow to a trickle with tea.
What can't be verified online?
Date, maker and story. An honest dealer dates antique porcelain and Yixing by style, form, glaze, clay and wear, compared against known examples. That gives a period, such as "late Qing", not a year. It is an educated opinion even when the dealer handled the piece. Nobody can confirm it from a screen, and nobody can prove a seal is genuine from a photo.
Seals and marks are the weakest evidence of all. Copies of famous Yixing masters were already common in the Ming. One Ming writer complained that the markets were full of pots sold as the work of the master Shi Dabin, and most of them were fakes. Workshops have long shared seals, and relatives and students have used a famous name on their own pots. On porcelain, many Qing cups carry Ming reign marks in tribute to an older style. Read a mark as part of the decoration.
The same goes for the clay type of an old pot, claims about who owned it, and stories of where it was found. Some of these stories are true. None of them can be checked in a listing. Our posts on Yixing seal marks and telling a real Yixing pot from a fake go into more detail.
Which listings should make you suspicious?
Walk away when the price, the story or the surface is wrong. A "Qing" Yixing pot for a few hundred dollars, a "fully handmade" pot for under US$100, an endless supply of identical antiques, and a famous master's seal on a clumsy pot are all signs of trouble. So is a surface that looks aged in a way real use does not produce.
- Faked age. Fakers darken pots with shoe polish, ink or soy sauce. Look for black streaks, an uneven or sticky surface, a pristine inside, and a strange smell once it arrives. Real tea staining is even and has a soft lustre.
- Faked materials. Pewter-wrapped pots with jade handles are valuable and often copied. Cheap copies use foil over clay and plastic handles, and show bare clay on the base where the real thing has pewter.
- Famous names. The more famous the maker, the more likely the pot is fake. Almost all pots on the market bearing a celebrated twentieth-century master's seal are copies.
- Too many of one thing. A seller with dozens of near-identical "Qing" pots is not selling antiques.
- A good price on an obvious prize. Collectors watch the online market closely. A clearly good old pot rarely goes cheap.
Are there real bargains online?
Occasionally, and usually in the worst listings. The pieces that sell cheaply are poorly described, badly photographed, or listed under the wrong name. Buying them is a gamble. You may win, and you are paying partly for not knowing. Spend small amounts until you have handled enough real pieces to recognise one.
Collectors call their early mistakes "tuition". Almost everyone who buys old teaware without a teacher pays some. You can keep the bill small. Handle real pieces wherever you can, at shops, fairs and in friends' collections. Buy cheaper everyday pieces first. Ask someone experienced to look at photos before you pay for anything expensive. For high-value antique pots, buy in person or from a dealer who will take the piece back.
What should a seller be able to tell you?
A good seller will give you clear photos of every side, the inside and the base, exact measurements and capacity, an honest account of condition and repairs, how they arrived at the date, and their returns policy. If a seller cannot or will not answer those questions, do not buy. Vague answers about age are fine. Vague answers about condition are not.
Here is how that works for us. We grade our antique cups by condition, first grade and second grade, and date them by style and form, so "late Qing" means an informed estimate. Each cup is unique in size and wear, and we do not accept returns on cups, so ask before you buy if condition matters to you.
Is an antique worth it over a modern piece?
For cups, often yes. Everyday late Qing cups are affordable, they suit gong fu, and a modern cup of the same quality can cost more. For Yixing pots, it depends. An old pot brings old ore and a working history, but it costs more, you cannot choose the shape, and the risk of a fake is real. A good modern pot is the safer first purchase.
If you do buy an old pot, clean it properly before you brew in it. Our guide on cleaning an old Yixing teapot covers how.
Buy what you can check, and be honest with yourself about what you are paying for. Questions about a specific piece? Write to us.