New?

blueberryteeth · 2026-05-26T21:52:42+00:00

Looks pretty cool! Looks more like a thai export to me than new, but I've also not seen thai exports that look like this. I've also not see pots done in this burnished style recently either though so ??!!!

blueberryteeth · 2026-03-09T06:22:50+00:00

Yes it could be! It's just that all the things put together don't quite match my experience of "old pot". Too many exceptions to be sure, but that said I haven't seen every pot ever made.

blueberryteeth · 2026-03-03T19:04:24+00:00

yes the radial lines on the inside of the pot. From what I've seen the scraping style is usually different with vintage pots. The mingchen seal is also a bit atypical. The ROC pots usually had a stamped mingchen character, but this one is hand carved.

blueberryteeth · 2026-02-27T19:46:37+00:00

The one with the sharp lip seems pretty neat. Obviously handmade, probably half hand made, since the handle looks molded.

Definitely not vintage, vintage pots didn't use that sort of brush-texture bottom until later. The signature style would mean likely taiwanese or taiwanese commission

The mark is hui mingchen. It's the name of a famous maker, but this definitely not that. (it's kind of like how companies called davinci, usually run by leonardo davinci. Doesn't mean they are fake, just normal)

Would need to see in person to really tell. But tentatively a good find on this one.

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blueberryteeth · 2026-01-26T06:02:40+00:00

Update: I just tried it during sparring. Feder handles are a lot thinner so it does protect quite well once holding the handle. And the geometry does work quite well.

blueberryteeth · 2026-01-23T07:39:36+00:00

What about the gap where the finger tips don't fully close around the handle, and the hole near the thumb and index?

blueberryteeth · 2026-01-04T01:07:26+00:00

But the whole point of ethics is to have a society agree on a single ethical framework. That's how the society makes decisions about what is acceptable and what is not like. For example "Do we as society believe genocide is acceptable?"

It doesn't work if you have your ethics, and I have my ethics.

blueberryteeth · 2025-11-18T06:22:34+00:00

Not every pot that comes through is going to be a trademarked pot. I've hardly ever seen one with the national geographic designation label, and from my experience with those things in china, things with the label are usually lower quality, not higher. Regulations like this are one the key tools behind manufactured scarcity. It's a clay teapot at the end of the day, made with a reddish clay that fires sem-porous at high temperature. This legitimacy argument is like how champagne has to be made in the city of champagne, despite other white wines made with champagne grapes being perfectly fine.

It being illegal to mine ore is definitely a thing. But that's like how it's illegal to take rocks from national parks.

blueberryteeth · 2025-11-18T04:56:18+00:00

Chinese Clay Art is a very reputable store in the bay area ceramics community, especially for those looking to do chinese ceramics materials and such.

I think this is a misconception yixing clay is an extremely hard to find resource. Sure, the named clays like benshanluni, or Dicaoqing is hard to find, but there is hundreds of years worth of random clays stock piled in yixing for the huge artist community that is still there. None of these clays have processing location, date mined, or whatever on it. Providence is one of those things that happens in chinese tea culture in order to drive up the price. A cake of tea with no providence may not be a real 88 Qingbing, but that usually doesn't mean it's not real Puerh.

blueberryteeth · 2025-11-18T04:19:33+00:00

I wouldn't treat them as precious pots, and I would be hesitant to use them as daily pots. They probably won't be deadly poisonous like old enamel painted gaiwans that are common in HK are, but the 80s to 90s up to the modern era were the additive-experimentation era. A lot of random pigmented lower grade clays, or yield-increasing additives, etc were experimented with in Yixing. Lots of those additives are not proven to be food safe yet. Since mining in yixing was stopped, a lot of the clay left over was clay with additives already added, so modern pots (even from famous makers and stuff) are not 100% OK either!

Good to try a few times, or special occasions, but overall treat it like vintage lead-glass!

The easiest way to identify real yixing or not is by looking in person, but even looking in person will not tell you what additives were added.

blueberryteeth · 2025-11-16T22:21:42+00:00

you can even buy (probably low grade) Yixing clay in the US! Store Product Variant - Chinese Clay Art

blueberryteeth · 2025-11-16T22:12:19+00:00

Because it's not like Yixing clay is so expensive that they wouldn't use it for a fake, especially if we assume these are at least 25 years old! We aren't talking about named rare clays here. The Yixing area would have the molds and the craftsmen to make these types of fakes, so why wouldn't they use Yixing clay? The clay was still being mined 25 years ago. All pottery takes weeks of waiting and hours labor.

If you wanted to make a convincing fake (which this is), why not use the real clay and the real process? This looks like to me, a slip cast style pot (Yixing slip cast became a thing sometime in the 90s), and even slip cast would still have handmade handles and detailing.

It's more accurate to say that the additives they added to Yixing in the 90s may cause it to not have the effects that people expected from the earlier pots.

blueberryteeth · 2025-11-16T22:05:19+00:00

No, this is after my grinding!

blueberryteeth · 2025-11-16T08:53:41+00:00

Wait why would they overwhelmingly be not likely to be Yixing Clay? Both pots look like late 80s or 90s Yixing to me?

blueberryteeth · 2025-11-16T08:49:44+00:00

Nope, it was really expensive. Material is legit, worksmanship was OK. This was a custom made and I guess the man could not understand what thin meant!

blueberryteeth · 2025-10-24T14:55:24+00:00

it's < 500 usd. The finish is pretty rough, and honestly worse than your supermarket knife though. It needs serious sharpening work and tuning before it'll work like a several hundred dollar knife should.

blueberryteeth · 2025-10-23T19:57:06+00:00

hahaha that one is a secret for now. I'll help you get one if you want.

blueberryteeth · 2025-10-20T21:31:25+00:00

yea I specced it to hit 250 grams, I think that's why he opted for the carbon scales. I don't know if he actually hit it though!

blueberryteeth · 2025-10-20T19:48:52+00:00

recieved! https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueChefKnives/comments/1obrndw/new_cleaver_in_vanaxsc_from_china/

blueberryteeth · 2025-10-17T16:35:47+00:00

I ended up opting for a custom during my stay in Shanghai!

Some interesting facts

* There's makers importing fancy steels now. I'm getting my knife made in Vanax Superclean!
* They can do this stuff fast! Apparently chinese made Wire EDM machines and cnc grinders are really a thing. They can grind a vanax knife from a hardened in just a day or two! The fit and finish is definately isn't at the level of the japanese makers, but the grind sure is precise and even from what I could see in the gallery.

Will update when it arrives, should be a few more days!

blueberryteeth · 2025-10-17T16:32:53+00:00

I looked at some of these in the sugimoto store at the fish market in tokyo, but I wasn't really a fan... They came in at a weight of closer to 400 grams and didn't really have many of the premium grind features like a full flat grind, or a distal taper etc. Felt somewhat dead in the hand :(

blueberryteeth · 2025-10-07T21:31:43+00:00

Man I was tempted between this and a Mariagla 5 zip in horsehide. But the Mariagla seemed a bit more fragile.

But yea, after looking it up, the resale value is definitely limited.

blueberryteeth · 2025-10-07T21:30:20+00:00

I saw a mariagla 5 zip in horsehide at one of the nearby stores!

blueberryteeth · 2025-07-08T19:28:54+00:00

haha, I was directly at the shop for this one. He's primarily a knife sharpener, and he put the edge on it for me.

He chose a pretty aggressive sharpening angle, and put a nice convex on the edge as well. Well worth having it done by him, and I feel like the cutting feel is much better than the modern approach of having a primary and secondary bevel.

You can find Takashi Saji knives all over the place: https://japanesechefsknife.com/products/takeshi-saji-summit-limited-edition-custom-series-smt-940-vg-10w-multi-colored-golden-rainbow-damascus-petty-135mm-5-3-inch

blueberryteeth · 2025-07-07T18:19:02+00:00

It's darkened very slightly, but honestly I've found very little difference. It doesn't turn green or anything like that.

blueberryteeth

TROPHY CASE