Newly rich mainlanders push antique prices through the roof

Forget about investing in Hong Kong property. Prices for top-quality antique Chinese furniture have increased fourfold in five years, bid up by newly rich mainlanders.

Prices are rising steeply not only because mainlanders are paying more but because sellers are withholding supply in the hope of even higher prices.

In the process of inflating the market - and transforming it with their enthusiasm for 'imperial' furniture - mainlanders are also ensuring that Hong Kong's role as an antiques market is likely to grow.

At Sotheby's auction in the city in October last year, an unidentified Shanghai businessman - understood to be mainland stock investor Liu Yiqian - paid an astonishing HK$85.7 million for a rare Qianlong-period zitan dragon throne. It was a record auction price for a piece of Chinese furniture. The throne was made for the 18th century emperor - the fifth during the Qing dynasty - out of zitan, purple sandalwood.

To many industry insiders, last year's auction was a landmark event, a record sale that showcased the rise of mainland collectors with an extravagant taste for rare imperial pieces. It also broke a record set by the April 2008 sale of a zitan three-railing bed, also from the Qianlong period, which fetched 32.48 million yuan (HK$36.89 million) at Beijing's China Guardian Auctions.

Ma Weidu, founder of the Guanfu Museum in Beijing, the mainland's first private, non-profit antiques museum, who is also a well-known collector of antique Chinese furniture, said prices for top pieces had increased too much, too fast.

Ma said he had planned to bid for the imperial throne and set himself a bidding limit of about HK$40 million.