Posted on 10/31/2013 2:38:59 PM PDT by ClaytonP
Wang Zonquan made headlines in July when it turned out that his Hebei museum housed some 40,000 fake artifacts including a "2000-year-old piece of Qin dynasty armor" that was made from plastic. Now Wang is in the headlines again because he has, apparently, died of an "anger-induced heart attack."
The Telegraph reports the entire weird, quirky, and ultimately quite sad story:
Among the numerous gaffes reportedly committed by curators was including artefacts they claimed were more than 4,000 years old when the pieces in question were inscribed with simplified Chinese characters that only came into widespread use last century.
At the time, Wang Zonquan and his colleagues at the museum launched a somewhat half-hearted defence of their collection.
Wei Yingjun, its chief consultant, told The Telegraph he was "quite positive" that at least 80 of the 40,000 objects on display were genuine.
Mr Wang, who was 68 at the time of his death, attempted to dodge criticism by claiming that "even the gods cannot tell whether the exhibits are fake or not."
Ultimately, the humiliation appears to have been too much for the elderly museum owner.
On Monday morning, a specialist website called "Chinese Collectors" announced that the "famous collector" and "outstanding entrepreneur" had died of a heart-attack. The website said Mr Wang had left this world "filled with anger and the sense of having been wronged." [...]
Mr Wei, the museum consultant, confirmed that his heart-broken employer had died at 7am on Monday. Three days earlier Mr Wang had applied for permission to reopen the museum, Mr Wei said.In this author's humble opinion, Wang should have abandoned the whole 'museum' thing ages ago, and turned his gallery into an international counterfeit art expo. No word yet on what's going to happen to the "artifacts."
Kind of like the Obama coins from Franklin Mint?
Ah so.... “2000-HOUR-old piece of Qin dynasty armor”
Huh. How do you suppose they figured out it was fake?
80 of 40,000 would have been good enough for the guy
Or Banksy before you can cash in on ebay.
Made in China.
Where’s Captain Obvious?
The “Made in China” tag.
Silly man. He let his possessions possess him. Sad.
Back when I had a TV I liked to watch the Japanese version of “antique roadshow”. It was always a hoot when these geezers would trot out their genuine, no doubt, you betcha, guaranteed gen-yew-wine Chinese Ming vases that they got for a measly ¥5,000,000 — only to have the experts look at them and inform them they bought a cheap factory-made imitation.
No fools like old fools...
Plastic very expensive back then.. Sorry he popped his cork
"Plastic?" It's even more rare than we thought!
You would think he would have been tipped off by the Nike "Swoosh" logo on the breast plate of the armor.
You mean the ginsu knife ISN’T from the Ming dynasty?!?
It’s sad when people get so obsessed with possessing objects and don’t bother to understand what they possess. I have a few fun items, which are genuine, and I know enough to know how to tell.
The nearly pure gold Roman coin inscribed in Greek letters: “Gaius Julius Caesar - 43BC”, with a Rome mint mark, Caesar’s portrait on the obverse, and elephant images celebrating his successful Parthian conquest 7 years earlier on the reverse is my favorite, although it needs a good cleaning again because it tarnishes quickly. [Don’t bother telling me that I made a mistake - there may be more than one, or two . . . or five in that description.]
...wasn’t this on CSI?...stolen fake museum pieces?
Wang was wonged.
Wow! 40,000 fake objects. Even though fake, that’s still work and effort that people went through to make it, not knowing if anyone would ever bite on them
I agree, they should have made it an exhibition of forgeries and maybe even roped examples from Western Europe!
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