hey Adawn, i understand it seems like an high price,
but its all depend what you are looking at, Chinese antiques those days worth a lot of money,
yes if you go to ebay you can find many good deals (95% of them are not real antiques) but what you pay is what you get.
those are very fancy pipes, one of them is imperial, and has the 5 claw dragon, whoever was caught in china during the Qing dynasty with an item carry the 5 claw dragon, and wasnt from the imperial family, was put to death.
The other pipes are very fancy as well, they are all marked by the artist.
i have uploaded a picture from the book "The chinese encounter with Opium" there is a similar pipe to one of mine.
i am very intrested in auctions, and been looking everywhere to see opium pipes similar to this,
but it seems like no one have it, the only place i came across with similar, are in the books or in private collection.
if you compare between the prices in Bonhams for opium pipes you can easly see that much less fancy pipes sell in prices like this.
i believe if it will get to the big auction houses it will sell for a lot more then what i am offering.
fancypants, can you please try the checkout again, since when i checked it it was working fine,
and i would love to hear some feedback about the website..
Thanks