How to distinguish true and false copper?

The authenticity of copper can be distinguished from five aspects: rust color, feel and sound, pattern, inscription, copper and vessel type.

1, rust color

To win the bronze medal, you must first use your eyes:

If the rust color is integrated with the body, the depth is consistent, solid and uniform, bright and natural, it is a naturally generated rust color.

Rust color floats on the utensils, which is green but not bright, and the skin is rusty and not moist and dazzling, which is false rust.

Further approval:

Because a thousand-year-old bronze ware has no copper smell, if you rub objects with your hands and smell your hands with your nose, it is fake rust.

If washed with hot alkali, the fake rust will fall off. If you can't wash it, you can bake it with fire. If it falls off, it is fake rust.

If you lick it with your tongue, it is salty and fragrant, and it is also fake rust.

2, feel and sound

If you weigh it by hand, you need to pay attention to it if it is too light or too much. Of course, it depends on your own experience.

Knock on an object with your hand and listen to its sound, if it is thin and crisp; If the voice is turbid and makes a "buzzing" sound, you need to be vigilant.

3. Mode

Judging from the pattern style:

Xia Dynasty: Simple Patterns

Shang dynasty: the patterns are gorgeous and complicated, and there are many flowers all over.

Western Zhou Dynasty: It is roughly the same as Shang Dynasty, but it tends to be simple in the later period.

Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period: The patterns are fresh and lively, full of life.

Qin and Han Dynasties: Emphasis on practicality, few patterns, not as fine as the previous generation.

Judging from the pattern content:

There are many gluttonous patterns, Zen patterns are the most common, and dragon patterns are popular in the Spring and Autumn Period.

There are the most kinds of decorative patterns in Shang and Zhou Dynasties, such as animals, birds, phoenixes and figures.

4. Inscription

The ancients believed that bronzes were very strong and could live forever. There are many inscriptions on Shang and Zhou bronzes.

Shang dynasty: the font is regular, the brushwork is vigorous and generous, beautiful and free and easy, and most of them are elegant and beautiful waves in the later period.

Zhou dynasty: early following wave body.

Spring and Autumn Period: There are fat and thin books, tadpole-shaped Li Douwen and patterned Bird and Insect Book.

Warring States: Although the inscriptions on bronze inscriptions are not exquisite, they also have the prototype of "hanging seal", with long and drooping fonts and sharp ends.

Qin dynasty: unified writing, universal seal script.

Mastering this, it would be a joke if there was a small seal font on a bronze ware called Three Dynasties.

5, copper and container type

Copper:

If the bronze sole is made of brass, it is a fake.

If the soles of your feet have been counterfeited with copper color, you can see their true colors by brushing them with hot alkaline water.

Equipment type:

For example, the altar and the altar are square containers, which appeared at the end of the Warring States period. If it is made by three generations, it is a fake if it is rusty.

For example, the tripod has existed in all generations, but if it has a cover and the tripod is short, it is unlikely to be a three-generation product.

Extended data

From the historical data, the basic situation of counterfeit goods is as follows:

First, the whole device is fake. For example, a "Zhang Zi" in the Palace Museum in Beijing is carved with Feng Niaowen and other patterns, but the lines are stiff and the pattern is dull, and the surface of the instrument is made of patent leather. Therefore, if you look closely, you can also see the flaws.

Second, some cultural relics are fakes. For example, a statue of "Father Yi Fu" of Shang Dynasty collected by Beijing Palace Museum is genuine, but the forger added a stream to its mouth and an ornament to its upper abdomen, which became an antique without this shape, neither fish nor fowl.

The third is to piece together the pieces of the real device to make a fake device. For example, a "Shang Dynasty" in the Palace Museum in Beijing is different from Liang's decorative style. Look carefully, there are welding marks on the beam ring, which shows that the beam is different from the car body.

Fourth, the equipment is true and false. This includes two situations: first, the inscription is completely false. Inscriptions are either carved with knives or etched with chemicals. The content is either an imitation of the real inscription, a patchwork or a random fabrication. Because the plane parts of Ge and Jian are easy to forge, it is common to forge inscriptions on Ge and Jian.

Fifth, the device is true and the pattern is false. That is to say, fake patterns are carved on real plain surfaces or noisy objects with few patterns. For example, the "Father Pot" of the Shang Dynasty in the Palace Museum in Beijing was originally a vegetarian pot in the Warring States period, and counterfeiters forged the animal face pattern of the Shang Dynasty on it. Another example is the "Warring States Geometric Pot" collected by the Palace Museum in Beijing. The forger mistakenly embedded gold and silver pieces in the pattern.

References:

Baidu encyclopedia entry-bronze medal