Help with ID

[Quinneys]

I’ve acquired what I think is a miniature opium set. I’m not sure if pieces are missing or if there are rogue bits and wondered if anyone could offer advice as to what it is, what should be part of it, is it collectable etc? It is marked MI and chinese characters on reverse of the large tray.

Thanks

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[Dan Zahn]

This looks to be a fairly complete set. The miniature set and metal parts suggest that it would have been part of a “travel kit”, but in that case there would be a box for transporting all of the pieces together.

The pieces that I would consider missing are scissors or knives for trimming the lamp wick, the chimney of the lamp, and needles for roasting opium pellets over the lamp.

 

 

 

[Quinneys]

Thanks so much Dan, I didn’t have a clue as to what should be there, it took me a while to work out that all the wee bits went with the pipes – I did at least recognise those! There’s a tiny pair of scissors and a knife/poker thing (?) in the bottom right corner of the pic – should there be other pieces or do they count? Will have google to see what a chimney and needles should look like, fascinating learning about all the paraphernalia.

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[PapaverAustralis]

“This Chinese export silver miniature set was made by Luen Wo, a silversmith from Shanghai, active c. 1900. Two pipes, two trays, a lamp with its chimney, a scrapper, scissors, a dross box, an opium box, bowls stand and two spittoons”

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[PapaverAustralis]

…and another.

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[Quinneys]

Thank you for the info and the links, the first one looks like it could be my set. Any suggestions re value?

[theOpiumPipe]

Hi Quinneys – I’m going to be shutting down these forums because there are other places for people to communicate about opium pipes, antiques, etc… sorry about that! There’s a facebook group about opium antiques where there’s multiple questions and answers a day. (https://www.facebook.com/groups/891035994641613)

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