Services

The services we currently offer to collectors are as follows:
(please email with any questions or concerns and be sure to include all pertinent contact information such as email or telephone numbers so that we may work with you to fulfill your current needs)

· Documentation of your collection or of individual pieces for the maintenance or establishment of provenance. This can be extremely valuable should proposed restrictions on ownership of cultural antiquities come into effect requiring collectors to prove that they owned a particular item before a restriction went into place. Our documentation service will provide photo(s), microphotos and a textual write-up of each item including references from museums, other collections and/or publications as requested by the client. Our documents are dated and can be notarized.
· Authentication of ancient bronze (where possible)
· Translation of Chinese inscriptions (ancient Chinese is considerably more difficult but we have the resources available to perform this service on a case by case basis)
· Radiography

· Metallography and other metallurgical analyses
· Scanning Electron Microscopy - which can provide imagery and limited qualitative and quantitative analysis reports

· Chemical analysis
· Cleaning of ancient bronze
o We don’t normally recommend that items be cleaned, but under some circumstances, like heavy dirt or if patina obscures decoration or inscription, a light cleaning can be beneficial. As part of the cleaning process, we take extensive before and after photos and are very careful to take steps necessary to preserve the item. The pictures below are before and after shots of an early Zhou Dynasty dagger axe that had a calcified encrustation obscuring the decoration. After one month treatment most of the encrustation was removed uncovering the decoration. Note the areas of red cuprite present where the original encrustation had been.

 

We hope to offer radio carbon dating and thermo-luminescence testing in the near future. Feel free to contact us with your individual needs. Services start as low as $100 and can be tailor made to client specifications.