Chinese treasure for auction
NZPA-Reuter Amsterdam
A British salvage expert has , disclosed a huge treasure hoard of gold and Chinese porcelain valued at more than SUS 4 million ($7.56 million) raised last year from a wreck in the South China Sea.
Michael Hatcher, aged 45, who now lives in Australia, announced his discovery in the Amsterdam auction house which will sell it for him in April. He showed reporters a warehouse stacked ceiling-high with the haul.
It includes nearly 100,000 pieces of 18thcentury Chinese porcelain in perfect condition, and
125 small gold bars worth SUS7OO.OOO ($1,324,795). They were all aboard a Dutch East India Company ship which sank with a cargo from Nanking especially made for the fashionable dinner tables of Europe.
Packed in tea, the blue-and-white porcelain survived the sinking and two centuries underwater to emerge as bright and shiny as the day it was made.
There are 50,000 teacups and saucers, 18 whole dinner services, and tea-pots, beer mugs, butter dishes, salt cellars, gravy boats and chamber pots.
Mr Hatcher will not
keep the entire proceeds of his discovery. Both the ship and its cargo are the property of the Dutch Government, and he is negotiating how much he and his team will get.
Asked whether he would agree to a 50-50 split, he said: “Oh, I think we deserve more than that.”
The ownership of the ship was established from artefacts on board. It belonged to the Dutch East India Company, the manager of the Dutch empire in the far east, and it has been tentatively identified as the Geldermalsen. Mr Hatcher owns a salvage company based in Singapore. He has found a
hoard of tableware once before, when in 1983 he raised SUS2 million ($3.78 million) worth of 17th century porcelain from an Asian junk.
He was evasive about the location of the latest wreck, saying only it was in the south of the South China Sea and in international waters.
Some of the porcelain is being donated to museums, but most of it wil be auctioned in Amsterdam, as was intended when it set out on its journey 235 years ago. Lots will range from single items to whole sets comprising up to 370 pieces, Christie’s auctioneers said.
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Press, 30 January 1986, Page 8
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373Chinese treasure for auction Press, 30 January 1986, Page 8
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