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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Rastella, post: 340397, member: 6722&quot;]Thank you for taking the time to write all of this.&nbsp; I sincerely appreciate it.&nbsp; Last night I went to bed feeling like I was spinning my wheels.&nbsp; I was prepared to get up this morning and take a whole lot more pictures and try my best to show everyone what I was seeing.&nbsp; But this morning, the thought exhausted me.&nbsp; However, still torn between going with my gut on this one and giving up, I felt I had to at least show it to someone so they could tell me in person to stop wasting my time - which was the most I had hoped for.&nbsp; What drove me to the decision to get in my car and take it somewhere is you all.&nbsp; You all have been a real blessing.&nbsp; You see, there&#039;s a balance that this group gives me between going with my gut and keeping myself in check.&nbsp; The last couple of times, y&#039;all have been instrumental in keeping me in check and opening my eyes.&nbsp; I expected the very same eye-opening experience to happen this time as well ... but when I woke up this morning, it didn&#039;t happen.&nbsp; I stared at both of them for a long time and decided to find a reputable place to tell me to shut up and move on.</p><p><br /></p><p>I found a place that sells upper-end English, American &amp; Oriental antiques and furniture and accessories.&nbsp; They&#039;ve been in the same location for many years.&nbsp; When I walked in, I felt a bit sheepish.&nbsp; The place was amazing.&nbsp; I almost ran out because I felt I was getting ready to waste this man&#039;s time.&nbsp; When he approached me I asked him how much a verbal &quot;description&quot; of my shadow boxes would cost me.&nbsp; I told him I wasn&#039;t interested in value at all.&nbsp; I just wanted to know what I have.&nbsp; Then I told him that better yet, I&#039;d prefer a teaching moment and asked, &quot;May I pay you to &quot;tell you what I think I have and you tell me whether I&#039;m right or wrong?&quot;&nbsp; He said to show it to him first before quoting me a price to make sure it was worth it.</p><p><br /></p><p>When he saw that it was Chinese shadow boxes, his first instinct was to warn me about all the fakes.&nbsp; He said he use to travel to China for antiques but sifting through the fakes to identify the real ones just became something he didn&#039;t want to do anymore.&nbsp; He still loves Chinese antiques and sells them but he doesn&#039;t travel to China for them anymore and doesn&#039;t do any written appraisals on them.&nbsp; He, instead, refers people to licensed appraisers if he thinks it&#039;s worth it.&nbsp; I started with the larger shadow box which caught his attention enough to let me continue.&nbsp; First, I showed him the silk fabric wrapped frame inset and told him I thought it was hand sewn silk fabric.&nbsp; He replied, &quot;Looks like paper to me.&quot;&nbsp; I thought, &quot;Wow.&nbsp; He&#039;s seeing this in person.&nbsp; I can&#039;t imagine what it must look like in pictures.&quot;&nbsp; I said, &quot;It&#039;s dry from age.&nbsp; There&#039;s a tiny corner edge that&#039;s frayed.&nbsp; Feel it.&nbsp; I think you&#039;ll feel the silk.&quot;&nbsp; As he felt it, I could see it dawning on him that it was, in fact, silk fabric.&nbsp; He took it to the light and inspected it closer and then said, &quot;Yes, that&#039;s definitely nice fabric they&#039;ve got wrapped around it.&quot;&nbsp; I then went through everything else.&nbsp; He confirmed very easily that the stones were absolutely jade, coral and tigers eye.&nbsp; He completely understood when I said jade can&#039;t be carved (I think I impressed him just a little with that statement, lol).&nbsp; When I got to the hardware and the glass, he explained that he doesn&#039;t even look at that when evaluating authenticity and explained that he gets antique furniture all the time with new knobs and hinges.&nbsp; He spent approximately 45 minutes with me going over all the details of both of them.&nbsp; When we were done, he handed me a slip of paper with two reputable licensed appraisers and said that he&#039;s not sure if they appraised Oriental items but they could direct me to who does.&nbsp; He said it&#039;s unfortunate but most of his very good friends that had Oriental antique shops have closed down and decided to run their businesses other ways.&nbsp; He also said that about three times a month, he has Oriental experts coming through his shop, buying and taking it back to China to sell.&nbsp; I asked, &quot;Do you think they&#039;d buy something like this?&quot;&nbsp; &quot;Yes,&quot; was his reply.&nbsp; He said I picked up an extremely good buy.&nbsp; He estimated that they are early 20th century.&nbsp; I thanked him for his time and asked him how much I owed.&nbsp; &quot;Nothing.&nbsp; Just keep me informed on what else you find out.&quot;&nbsp; On the way out, I asked, &quot;So how did I do in explaining what I saw in these?&quot;&nbsp; He smiled, &quot;You know a whole lot more than the average person that comes in here.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;ll keep y&#039;all updated.&nbsp; Thanks a million times over![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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