Shoushan Stone Seal - Know Yourself And Your Enemy to Ensure A Complete Victory

Read Before you bid, and bid with confidence!

1. 

ALL the stones in my auction are genuine Shoushan stones.  I personally picked them from Shoushan County, China and carved with passion and professional experience.  This is real artwork! Every seal has its own distinctive personality.  These are seals for serious collectors, not a mass-produced cat copy!  To learn more about how to tell the quality of stone seal, please Click here. 

2.

I DO NOT sell synthetic (fake) Shoushan stones, synthetic jade or agate. To learn more about the difference between genuine seal and the synthetic fakes, please Click here.

3.

I offer MONEY-BACK-GUARANTEE for EVERY item in my auction.  Please read my feedbacks, and bid with confidence! 

Seal Description

Up for bid is a Shoushan stone seal with Chinese calligraphy carved on the bottom.

The script on the bottom of the seal chop reads “Zhi Ji Zhi Bi, Bai Zhan Bu Dai”in Chinese, means Know yourself and your enemy to ensure a Complete victory. This is a saying from The Art of War.

This seal is a great piece to be added to your collection - The eight Chinese characters in this seal takes up MERELY the size of a dime!

Some Background Info of This Seal...

The Art of War was written 2,300 years ago by Sun Tzu.   A great Chinese military genius, Who lived in pre-China’s war era (476 to 221 B.C.), where a few hundred wars were fought non-stop between the separate warring states.   The essence of his ideology is that the triumph over conflicts and true victory can only be won by strategy.  

The Art of War has 13 chapters.   The sentence, which summarize its chapter 3 – Attack by stratagem, is “ Thorough study of yourself and your enemy will lead to a complete victory, if you only know yourself but not the enemy, you share victory and defeat (with the enemy).  If you know neither, you will succumb in every battle”.

Some other classic words in this chapter include such as “The best strategy to attack the enemy, is to take the enemy’s country whole and intact, rather than shatter and destroy it; capture the entire (enemy) army, rather than killing their personnel… Therefore, to fight and win 100 combat out of 100 is not the best (strategy); subdue the enemy troops without bloodshed is the best (strategy)…  Therefore, the best way to win a war is by using strategy, followed by using diplomatic, the inferior is to use force.  The use of force should be kept as the last resort, and only use when all the available choices have run out..…”.

About Storage Boxes

This Shoushan stone comes in an optional nice silk storage box for better protection. Each box is molded to stone's unique shape for perfect fit.  I prefer to store them in boxes, as these precious stones are quite fragile.  That is, unfortunately, the nature of the beast.  Please see SHIPPING section for details.

Authentic Shoushan Stone, Exquisite and Unique Art Creation

I GUARANTEE that all the stone seals in my collection are genuine Shoushan stone.  I personally picked them from my hometown, Shoushan Village, Fujian, China.  Every piece is unique. I offer money back guarantee for all items in my auction!!! Therefore, bid with confidence!!!

Shipping and Return Policy

I charge $4.85 flat fee for shipping worldwide. If you win more than one auction, please add $1.50 for each additional item.  The storage box is a FREE gift from me.  However, I do charge $3/each box to cover the shipping fee, as they are bulky and won't fit in the small box/envelope provided by Postal Office.  Please let me know after winning the auction, if you need box to go with the stone.

If the item you receive is not as described, or you are not happy with the item, you can return it within 3 days after receiving it, for a refund of final price plus shipping fee.  That is the TOTAL amount you pay if you win the auction!  

Payment Methods

I accept Paypal, cashier’s check, money order, and personal check.  For payment using a personal check, shipment will be sent out once the check clears bank.

About Shou-Shan Stone

As the national stone of China, Shoushan Stone is smooth in textures, rich in assortments, gorgeous in colors and fantastic in shapes. The stone contains a large amount of microelements, which are beneficial to human body.  Shoushan village in Fujian Province is the only place in this world that produces Shoushan Stones.   

How do I tell professionally made seal from cat copy?

To judge the quality a seal is probably won't be as difficult as learning Chinese.  But it does take quite bit experience.  The following is a simplified way to take a bite into it:  

First sign to look for: cat copies look strikingly similar to each other (i.e. appearance of seal stone, layout of Chinese characters in it), since they can be mass produced.  Professional carvers, on the other hand, spend a great deal of time to conceive how each Chinese character will lay out in a seal.  Sometimes, they may already have idea in their mind, before they go to look for suitable stones to fit in.  As a result, every professional seals have their own distinctive character, you can have several hundred of them, and none may even look similar to each other!

In a professional-made stone seal, strokes that make up a Chinese character is full of energy.  Each stroke is thinner in some portions and thicker in others.  This is similar to Chinese calligraphy written on paper.  Weak, flat, lengthy and lifeless strokes all over a seal, looking like a bunch of "scattered chopstick",  indicates sloppy work. 

In a professional-made stone seal, words are organized in a way that the whole seal give a harmonized feeling, all strokes in a Chinese character is evenly spread out in the seal.  it has a "gravity" point around the center of the stone, a cat copy, in contrast, gives "unbalanced" feeling. 

If you read Chinese, and are interested in some further reading, here are some good articles in the web.  Sorry, I did tried, but unable to find them in English.   

Article 1                    Article 2

If you want to learn how to use your stone seals (especially important for those used in Chinese painting!), the following is a good article.  Believe it or not, getting a nice seal impression on paper can be a bit tricky sometimes. 

Article 3

How do I identify a real seal from synthetic (fake) ones?

Synthetic stones looks remarkably consistent in color and texture (i.e. uniform color all over, no hair lines, no spots), a sign of being "unnatural".  They also lack individual character, tend to lose "taste" of art over time. I back up the quality of my stones and carving with Money-Back Guarantee.  So, bid with confidence!

Synthetic stone, agate or jade are "perfect" in shape and color.  Because synthetic stone can be made with a mixture of processed stone powder and epoxy resins, which are "glued" together using heat.  Synthetic agate or jade is made of epoxy resin that was infused with dye to create brilliant color.  Chinese scripts on these counterfeits can either be carved onto, or simply be molded from a matrix already containing Chinese characters.  Since these synthetic materials contain epoxy resins and dye, they are susceptible to oxygen and light.  Over time, they will discolor and become distorted in shape.  Such counterfeits have no collecting value whatsoever.