Old Antique Chinese Snuff Jar

One of our fellow treasure hunter in this community has sent us an interesting photo of an “antique Chinese snuff jar”. It has a white color with very beautiful artistic cultural design.

On its front portion, it has a dragon serpent design while at its back is an old Chinese text. So the question asked by our fellow treasure hunter is that he wanted to know my opinion about this antique bottle.

Unfortunately, he did not provide any details about how he acquired this item. So he may either have uncovered it as a treasure hunter or it was passed down to him. 

The only details he gave is that this is a “snuff jar”.

In this photo, we can see the front side of this antique bottle. Based on my analysis, I can say that this is indeed a snuff jar that was originally owned by the Chinese. 

Such bottles often contain traditional medicines.

Snuff jars are intentionally designed to be very artistic. This is the reason why this bottle that we have here has a dragon serpent design. 

In case you do not know, the dragon serpent is the main symbol of China.

In this second photo, this is the opposite side of the bottle where we can see some Chinese writings. These writings have something to do with the original contents of this antique snuff jar. 

Probably, it refers to the type of medicine it originally contained.

Antique snuff jars owned by the Chinese could have a very high amount of price today. But not all antique snuff jars could have such a price because there are several criterias that need to be met.

One of the most important criteria is the age of the item. So the older the snuff jar, the higher the price can be expected.

Two is the original owner of the snuff jar. If the original owner of the bottle was a famous or powerful person in the past then surely, the item is deemed to have a very valuable price.

Currently, the highest snuff jar is valued at a price of 25.3 million Hong Kong dollars. This is equivalent to 1.6 Billion in Philippine Peso. 

And this snuff jar was an “18th-century Imperial Enamel-Painted Bottle” which has been used by the “Qing Imperial Family”.

Therefore

Antique Chinese snuff jars can be very valuable today. However, there are several criterias in order to identify their current value such as the age, the original owner, and etc…

So when it comes to this snuff jar owned by our fellow treasure hunter, if it belonged to the ancient period of China and it was originally owned by a powerful person in the past then surely we can say that this object is very valuable today.

Kanji Symbol on the Old Antique Jar

We have here a photo that was sent to us by one of our fellow treasure hunter which is an old or antique jar that belonged to the Japanese.

According to him, they call this antique jar “tibod” in their own local language. This means that this particular object has a value similar to the jewelries.

So the question here by our fellow treasure hunter is, “Does this antique jar really have a value?”

This antique jar was owned by his father. 

At some period of time in the past, he overheard a conversation between his older brother and a person who was interested in buying the antique jar for a price of ten thousand pesos. 

During this time, this amount of money was already considered a large sum of money. However, their father disagreed with selling his antique jar.

Time had passed and their father died. Suddenly, his older brother asked him about the old jar. This was the only time that he realized that this antique object was left behind by their father in their own house.

So the older brother had asked him to take photos of the item and then look for a person who can read the Kanji symbol on it.

In this photo, we can see a close photo of the Kanji symbol that he wants to be interpreted. According to him, he actually has a Japanese friend who can read Kanji. 

So he showed this symbol and he interpreted the meaning as “power”.

Studying the symbol on my own, I totally agree that this is a Kanji symbol so as with the interpretation of his Japanese friend. 

So aside from “power”, it can also be interpreted with meanings as “strength, strong, bear up, and exert”. 

In my own opinion, this meaning probably has something to do with the original content of this old jar.

Aside from the Kanji symbol, our fellow treasure hunter noticed something about his antique jar. He noticed that there seems to be a mixture of gold on it. 

But when it comes into this matter, this really requires an actual examination of the object to fully confirm.

If it happens that this old jar has a mixture of gold then I can say that this object can be heavy. 

And when it comes to its value, the basis will not only be on the weight of the gold but this includes the antique quality of the jar itself.

Therefore

The engraved Kanji symbol on this antique jar has something to do with “power” or “strength”. Based on my own opinion, this meaning has something to do with the details of the original contents of this old jar.

When it comes to the value, surely, this old object has a high price simply because of being antique. And if it happens that it really has a mixture of gold then its value will further increase several times up.