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You don't need to be a chair professor, but ...

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It's a frosty Beijing morning but the Gaobeidian traditional furniture street just off the Jingtong Expressway is buzzing with the sound of circular saws. There is the smell of sawdust as carpenters apply their tools to everything from classically inspired opium beds to full-length screens weighed down with heavy decoration.

Sellers have flung open the doors to their cavernous emporiums and the first of the day's buyers have started the daunting task of sifting through thousands of items in search of just the right altar table.

This is the more affordable section of the perennially popular antique furniture market and, if the number of shops is any indication, the appetite for the traditional product is as robust as ever. But the enthusiasm for the sector is also increasingly reflected in pedigreed pieces at the top end of town.

Last October a Qing dynasty imperial carved throne went under the hammer for HK$85.78 million in Hong Kong at a Sotheby's auction. The price for the 'magnificently carved' piece from the Qianlong period was nearly triple Sotheby's pre-sale upper estimate.

Antique furniture has generally been one of the more conservative quarters of the Chinese art world. Chiang Oi-ling, proprietor of the Hong Kong-based Oi Ling Antiques, says when she entered the business about 15 years ago, pieces made from the most coveted of hardwoods, huanghuali (yellow rosewood) and zitan (purple sandalwood), were mainly bought by buyers in Hong Kong and overseas who were not willing to pay excessive prices.

'A lot of the big collectors from Shanghai and Beijing had left the mainland and were residing in Hong Kong and abroad, and they would not pay crazy prices for anything. They would only pay for something if it's worth it,' Chiang said.

Things have changed, with some less discriminating buyers entering the market, 'flashing money'.

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