Guangzhou Antique City

This guide to Guangzhou Antique City follows a dealer pointing out the small red wax seal that China's cultural relics bureau presses onto porcelain to certify it can legally be sold, and carried out of the country. It traces how this Liwan District street, open since 1997, became the only officially licensed antique market in Guangdong province, and why that single fact shapes prices up and down its hundred-plus shops. Along the way you'll hear how the same aisles hide aged fakes and dyed jade beside the genuine, unmarked and priced as if they were real. Watch closely which pieces a dealer hands over for inspection, and which stay behind glass.