Although Jiang the Mudman is just a folk artist who doesn't understand academic subjects, his family's skills are quite solid.
Although he seemed amiable, my words questioned his expertise, which made him feel maliciously offended and instantly enraged the old man: "So-called antiques are precious objects passed down from dynasties. You want me to make imitations? I can make them indistinguishable from the real thing! But a fake is a fake. What kind of nonsense is this, talking about firing real antiques?"
I asked with a smile, "Mr. Jiang, what are your standards for appraising antiques?"
Clay figurine Jiang proudly said, "I specialize in ancient ceramics. I don't know anything about appraising other antiques, but I can tell whether a piece of porcelain is real or fake just by looking at it."
I continued, "What if I could create a piece that you couldn't tell the difference between the real and fake?"
Mudman Ginger scoffed: "That's not the real thing either! No matter how flawless something is made by hand, it's still a high-quality imitation."
"But what if the things I bring out are so fake that no one can tell if they're real or fake, and even the C14 test can't identify them?"
I looked into Mud Figure Jiang's eyes and said, "As long as I don't reveal the origin of this artifact, no one in the world except me will know that it's a fake. So, is it real or fake?"
Clay Figure Jiang's grandson instinctively retorted to me: "That's impossible! People can make mistakes, but modern technology can never fool them! In the past, some people brought several high-quality fake porcelain pieces to my grandfather for appraisal, but none of those porcelain pieces passed the C14 test!"
The "C14 dating method," invented by Willard Libby, the 1960 Nobel laureate in Chemistry, is a technique that uses carbon isotopes to determine the age of ancient artifacts. Archaeologists call it the "carbon clock," and it represents a major revolution and milestone in archaeology and connoisseurship.
C14 is a radioactive element with a half-cycle of about 5,700 years. Its molecules gradually decrease over time. By comparing the C14 content in a sample with data from a known year, the approximate age of the artifact can be calculated. Generally, the older the year, the more accurate the result.
When carbon-14 technology was first introduced, it had a tremendous impact on the global antique counterfeiting market, causing many collectors to go bankrupt overnight.
The grandson of Mudman Jiang was still young and inexperienced, and this one sentence revealed his apprehension, indicating that Mudman Jiang had made mistakes before, but he had always managed to save face by relying on carbon-14 dating.
Clay Figure Jiang was a smart man. Seeing that his grandson had already let slip the truth, he didn't hide anything: "I've spent my whole life in the porcelain business. I've seen all sorts of high-quality imitations. So-called fakes are nothing more than a game between people. But when faced with technology, all these methods are exposed. Do you really have a way to fool C14?"
"You are a master of porcelain, and I certainly wouldn't dare to make any boastful remarks in front of you if I didn't have absolute confidence."
Seeing that Mudman Ginger had taken the bait, I calmly lit a cigarette and asked, "Do you think it's worth 300,000 if I tell you the secrets of this technology?"
"Worth it! Of course it's worth it!" Mudman Jiang said without hesitation, "If you really have this kind of skill, not to mention the 300,000 yuan final payment, I'll even refund your previous 200,000 yuan deposit in full, and do this job for you for free!"
Seeing that Mudman Jiang agreed, I added, "Old Jiang, I can tell you about this, but your grandson cannot listen. I'm not doing this to guard against you, but because I'm afraid your grandson's mind is not mature enough, and if he learns crooked ways, he might easily go astray."
Mudman Jiang pulled out a hundred yuan from his pocket and handed it to his grandson: "Go out and find a store, buy me some wine, and bring out some snacks to go with it."
"Why!"
The grandson of Mudman Ginger, who had been eager to hear me explain the method, was suddenly distracted and left dejectedly.
After the boy left, I said to Mudman Jiang, "Old Jiang, although we hired you to do this work and can teach you this technique, you must promise that you will never spread this technique outside, otherwise our four sects will not let you off the hook!"
Clay Figure Jiang patted his chest and assured, "Don't worry about that! Although my Jiang family isn't a prestigious clan, we're quite well-known in the industry. I learned this technique not to counterfeit, but so that I won't be fooled by the same tricks in the future. I will definitely keep my promise to you!"
"Actually, this kind of forgery is both difficult and simple. It's nothing more than a thin layer of paper. Once it's exposed, it's nothing special."
As I spoke, I walked to the car, opened the trunk of the Jetta, and laboriously pulled out a sack: "This kind of counterfeiting method boils down to two things: the raw materials and the technology!"
"raw material?"
Mudman Jiang stepped forward, opened the bag, and upon seeing the contents, narrowed his eyes: "This thing is..."
"We recently unearthed fragments of funerary objects from a Western Zhou tomb. If we grind these items into powder, reshape and process them, and then conduct carbon-14 dating, the result will definitely be Western Zhou!"
I paused for a moment: "As long as your craftsmanship can make the shape perfect enough to fool the appraiser, half the battle is won. As long as the other party is unsure whether the item is real or fake and puts it on an instrument for testing, then in his eyes, this item is an absolute genuine piece!"
"I've never heard of such a counterfeiting method before!"
Mudman Jiang stared in astonishment at the pottery shards in the bag: "The most sophisticated counterfeiting methods I've ever seen are nothing more than adding inferior parts to broken ceramics, but your method... is outrageous!"
"This method of counterfeiting is rare and requires extremely high skill from the craftsmen. Before the advent of carbon-14 dating, it was almost an unsolvable problem as long as the ceramic makers could make the shape perfect enough. However, ordinary counterfeiting gangs had difficulty obtaining such materials, and tomb raiders who could obtain the materials would risk going to tombs, so there was no need for them to abandon valuable burial goods and go through the trouble of carrying ceramic fragments and tomb bricks back. That's why this profession did not flourish."
The method I'm describing is recorded in the Judge's Records.
During the Spring Festival of 1994, my grandfather was once deceived by this craft. At that time, he almost emptied his family's savings to buy a Northern Wei Dynasty human and horse terracotta figurine that was pawned.
My grandfather was so fond of this terracotta figurine that he played with it for an entire afternoon, only to discover that the figurine's belt was not in the style of the Northern Wei Dynasty.
By the time he realized something was wrong and tried to contact the seller, the seller had already vanished.
My grandfather was unwilling to accept this, so he took the terracotta warriors to have them carbon-14 dated, and surprisingly, it showed that the age was not a problem.
Finally, following his ancestral teachings, in order to avoid selling fakes, he smashed the terracotta figurine and discovered the insidious method of using the closest materials and techniques to the genuine article, making the shape and decoration of the object indistinguishable from the real thing, enough to deceive everyone.
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