So now that the direction is clear, do you just take the money to buy jadeite and jade in the store?

No, even if the market price is lowered, it is still irrational to do so, there is a lot of moisture in this industry, and it is still a special time that has never been before.

We'll have to talk slowly to understand what's going on.

Indeed, our jadeite and jade, as the mainstream varieties of special handicrafts in China, have always had a vigorous vitality that is incomparable to other industries.

In particular, the jade industry in the capital has a history dating from the Shang and Zhou dynasties, and has flourished since the Yuan Dynasty, and has reached unprecedented prosperity through the development of the Ming and Qing dynasties.

During the Qianlong Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty, only a variety of beautiful jade and good materials gathered in the capital, you can know the production status.

At that time, there were Western jasper, Western agate, wood stone, coral, etc. from abroad, as well as Dongxiu jade, Yunnan agate, Jingzhou agate, and Hunan alum.

Moreover, after the rebellion was quelled, the road to Beijing for Hetian jade and Burmese jadeite was also opened, and each of these two varieties had more than two tons of intake.

It is also worth mentioning that although there was an invasion of foreign capital during the Ming and Qing dynasties, these jade industries almost never encountered corresponding "foreign goods" to compete with them.

Therefore, this industry has maintained a thriving and famous development trend.

Especially after the Xinhai Revolution, the sea ban was opened, and the jade in Beijing became a good product for foreign countries to compete for, so that there was a scene of "noisy foreign villages".

According to the written records from the beginning of this century to the twenties, there were no less than 30 expositions held around the world at that time, and the arts and crafts industry in Beijing only participated in the exhibition 10 times, but the jade in Beijing won the gold and silver awards again and again.

Even in the early days of liberation, when all industries withered, there were only a few jade workshops in the city.

But as long as it can be brought back to normal production, millions of dollars in foreign exchange can be obtained a year. If this money is used to buy food, it will be enough to feed the people of the city for a month.

All of the above is enough to prove that the reputation of "Northern Jade", "Jingzuo" and "Jingzuo" is full of beauty at home and abroad, and Beijing-made jade has been recognized by overseas art connoisseurs as a treasure with high collection value.

It stands to reason that since the aesthetic value of jade in Beijing has been known to the world and has been widely recognized, it should not fall into a sales dilemma, but should be the main force to earn foreign exchange.

Hey, doesn't it come down to our planned economic system?

Think about it, rigid policies are not even good for the development of ordinary industries, and it is difficult to stimulate the enthusiasm of ordinary workers.

Not to mention this kind of industry, which has always been inherited by the method of "passing on from master to apprentice", and requires spirituality, understanding, perseverance, and meticulousness to learn and do well.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, there were several problems in the jade industry that existed for a long time and could not be solved.

First of all, there are too few good players, and there is a lack of young workers and apprentices, and there are serious problems in the inheritance of skills.

The existing jade artists in Beijing are generally old artists who have become apprentices before and after the founding of the People's Republic of China, there are very few young workers, and only fifty or sixty people with high skills in the whole industry.

But although their business is good, they don't want to recruit apprentices.

The reason for this situation is that the industry is too hard, and the threshold for practitioners is high.

In comparison, the salary is not attractive, and young people do not like to learn and work.

In addition, from the master's point of view, the apprentice is too laborious.

This is not like in the past, where the apprentice had an obligation to support the master.

The current apprentices are only in name, and some people don't respect their artists very much, so who likes to do such a thankless thing?

If there is an order in the factory to bring apprentices, the masters are just "soup things".

They treat young workers, you fool me, I fool you, neither hide your selfishness, nor force it, how much you can learn, just fate.

It is no exaggeration to say that in essence, it has reached the point where "people are dying, and stunts are lost".

Secondly, the higher-level units were too short-sighted and had too high expectations for foreign exchange earnings, so they seriously overdrew the goodwill of the jade industry in Beijing.

This is mainly because industry leaders think that foreign markets generally require large road goods, do not know how to do it, and do not want much for high-quality products.

Then, in order to earn foreign exchange, we should excessively demand quantity and not pay attention to quality.

The acquiring company lacked a plan for processing, ordering, and acquisition, and rushed to complete the task when needed.

If there is a slight backlog, the acquisition will be stopped immediately, and the order cost will be deducted very tightly.

The leaders of the producers, on the other hand, mechanically estimate the costs and limit the number of workers according to other industrial production methods.

Even the distribution system is very unreasonable.

There is no implementation of high-quality goods and high prices, and remuneration is given according to the value of labor.

On the contrary, it is based on the efficiency and is calculated purely according to the number of workpieces.

As a result, the treatment of old skilled workers is not much higher than that of young workers, and even suffers a lot.

For example, some masters have a heavy sense of responsibility and pay attention to the quality of their work, but they can spend time and do not pay for additional work.

Foolish young producers, on the other hand, benefit, thinking about how not to exceed the number of jobs.

Generally, it is no longer processed and refined, as long as it can meet the general standards, it is okay to hand in the work.

Naturally, the result is a lack of high-quality products in the overall market, and most of the products are not "brilliant" and relatively mediocre "work".

For example, Hong Yanwu once bought some good-looking small ornaments in the arts and crafts service department in Wangfujing and took them back to his mother to see, and also bought a few jade bracelets, planning to give them to the female relatives at home.

Although the price is expensive, almost every piece catches up with the money of Tian Huang's material, but he was cheated, and the evaluation given by his mother is really not high.

Wang Yunlin only said that the material was okay, but the subject matter was rigid and the work was far behind. Far inferior to what came before.

This is the purchase of "work".

Third, due to the monopoly of the handicraft export system and acquisition mechanism, the producer has been in a weak position in product pricing for a long time, and the income of enterprises is very low.

But because the seller controls the pricing power, it is very profitable. The contradiction between the two is becoming more and more serious.

We might as well give a practical example, according to the survey data, the Beijing Arts and Crafts Factory in 1972 produced the "Shenlu Bao Car Bottle", the factory price is 11 000 yuan.

However, the foreign trade purchase price was only 6,000 yuan, and after many negotiations, it was reluctantly negotiated to 8,000 yuan.

Later, before the price was negotiated, the products were sent to the Huacheng Export Products Fair. Referred to as "Canton Fair", the actual sale on site is 27 000 yuan.

Only then was the acquirer willing to open an acquisition order and acquire it for 8,000 yuan.

So actually, this kind of bargaining is very serious.

This causes manufacturers to have to set two price standards for the same high-end product.

But even so, if the company can't even reach the lowest price, how can it not dampen the enthusiasm of production?

For example, in the spring of 1973, there was a pair of hollow Baibao vases, and the manufacturers priced 3,000 yuan per pair according to the cost plus appropriate profit, while foreign trade was only willing to give 2,000 yuan, resulting in the newly developed products "opening and losing".

But on the other hand, it is still this pair of jade bottles, and the price of foreign trade at the trade fair is 8,000 yuan per pair. The profit was as high as three times the cost of the acquisition.

Of course, the things in the "Friendship Store" are also expensive.

For example, in the jewelry hall, the jade pendant must be more than 1,000 foreign exchange coupons, and the jade bracelet will cost more than 1,000. Larger jade carvings and ornaments with more than 10,000 pieces are also very common.

High-quality real boutiques can even be priced at hundreds of thousands to millions.

This is because it is difficult to clearly define the grade of raw materials and the level of craftsmanship of jadeite and jade. It is not like the seal stone can be clearly calculated in terms of the unit value of grams.

Even if there is a policy, the price bureau cannot control it.

In order to pursue the foreign exchange quota, the seller adopts the practice of false reporting and inflating at each level, which is naturally very "black".

But foreigners are not stupid, and people who don't know how to do it are not interested in these things.

Those who know how to do it, compared with the goods in their own hands, they naturally refuse to suffer this loss.

This is called the disconnection between production and marketing, killing chickens and taking eggs, and smashing their own signboards.

What's more, this industry, in the arts and crafts category is relatively large, with the application of electric drilling and grinding machines in the seventies, the production speed of products has become faster.

Then it is inevitable that production will exceed sales, and sales will stagnate or even decline.

In this way, isn't this industry the end of the industry? Isn't it impossible to buy good things with high cost performance? So what is Hong Yanwu still bothering about this?

Actually, I can't say that, I have to look at this matter separately.

In terms of technology, after all, there are real famous craftsmen and craftsmen in this period, and there are knowledgeable experts who are checking the quality.

The things that are made are handmade, no matter how they are, and you have to meet the basic shape and production standards.

The dragon has to be a dragon, the phoenix has to be a phoenix, and the god of martial arts has to ride a tiger to take a wit.

This is the idea and technique of some people, not the shoddy work of machines that later relied almost entirely on the machine.

The second is in terms of raw materials, the texture of raw materials in this era, on the whole, is much higher quality than in the future.

Like the Tianhuang stone in Shoushan has not been mined yet, red jade, green cui, mutton fat and Tian jade, pink hibiscus stone can still be seen.

So no matter what, at this time, it is better than the fakes that come out in the future, shoddy, just because they can't find high-quality jadeite, the merchants make up the black heart era of the concept of colorless "ice species".

It is better than unscrupulous merchants to mislead the public, deliberately avoid mentioning the well-preserved fine products handed down from generation to generation in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and talk about the ancient and inferior jade Ming ware with imperfect craftsmanship.

It is better to make up the fallacy that "ancient jade is not as good as new jade, and new jade is not as good as buying materials".

To put it bluntly, what is sold is the real thing after all.

The above two points ensure that even a "job" in this era can be appreciated and preserved.

There will never be a situation where hundreds of thousands or millions of things are bought in the future, and one day they want to change hands and send them to auction only to find that they don't accept them at all.

Third, under this system, since the old artists no longer have the hope of getting rich by skill, they will turn to seek fame and pursue the realm of skill and interest.

Most of them no longer make ordinary products, but focus on the production of special gifts for state guests.

After the reform and opening up, due to the resumption of skill evaluation and recognition activities. They all strive to create works with a distinctly personal style that reflects their artistic achievements.

Before retiring, I can win a few more awards, and I can win honors for a few factories.

Therefore, during this period, the national treasure-level masterpieces that really pursued artistic standards, immersed in personal emotions, and did not seek profit were produced one after another, like a hundred flowers competing for beauty.

If you really want to objectively describe the current situation of the jade production and marketing market, it can only be said that it is a product fault and out of touch with the market.

In addition to the proliferation of ordinary products of general quality, it is a top-level boutique beyond the imagination of ordinary people.

There are no outright counterfeit products and fakes, and there is no excessive level of inconsistencies in between.

So how to get on the last train and buy a peerless quality that will be rare in the future at a relatively affordable price has become a problem for Hong Yanwu to consider, and it is the goal he strives to achieve.

The second group has been opened, group number: 608640021

(End of chapter)