The dusty, yet shiny world of antiques and collectors in Bangladesh

A brass candle stand, with six posts for candles, would perhaps be the item that would immediately catch your eye. The posts are held overhead like a torch, by a serene-looking Renaissance woman. Flocks of hair flow on her forehead, and her gown — with an intricate lace hem and ribbon details — also flows, as if she is standing on a windy hill, as a torchbearer for the way-finders. 

I took time to observe her because she seemed an outsider among her neighbours — Nepali kukri, Chinese ceramic pots with ferocious dragons, metal mirrors and hookah stands, Rajasthani rattan chairs, vintage saucers and cups, crystal chandeliers, Indian glass lanterns, and dark wooden showcases with intricate flora and fauna curved on them. 

Inside Hossain Handicrafts on the first floor of the Gulshan DCC market, a shelter for antique immigrants, the torchbearer lady seemed timid, tired and grimy from the black overlay that had accumulated on her over time. 

"She is from France," Robiul, one of the shopkeepers, said. "We have collectors in the neighbouring areas, especially in Gulshan, that bring us these artsy items. Foreigners and well-to-do families reside here. Whenever they move, they tend to sell off things that they no longer wish to carry. And they also prefer to redecorate their homes often," he explained. 

That is how the French torchbearer ended up in the store.  

Robiul pointed towards the twin ceramic pots on the top shelf. They got it from a Chinese man who had resided in Gulshan for 10 years. "After working here for 10 years, when he was leaving for China, he sold these heavy pots to us," Robiul said. 

Shaheen, another shop owner there, sells vintage furniture. One particular piece caught my eye — a mahogany wooden door panel with a black finish. The details included five-petal flowers, vines, twisted hemming, and peacocks. 

"This item is not an antique. We took inspiration from an antique piece and made a copy of that. I will sell it for Tk50,000 to Tk60,000. But if it was a real antique, it would have cost more than Tk1 lakh," Shaheen said. 

Shaheen also showed me a brand-new glossy gramophone in his store and said that the design might look old but it's actually made in China. 

So these shops do not focus on authentic antiques only, but rather they are curio stores — a mix of beautiful things belonging to different periods and countries. "We inspect if it is of quality, good material,  price, and whether it looks old and artsy. If it is an authentic antique piece, that's a bonus!" Shaheen further said.

Foreigners from high commissions and embassies and international NGO offices are the main customers at these stores in Gulshan. But these days, especially after the Holey Artisan attack in 2016, sales have decreased and mostly Bangladeshi people visit the stores to buy artsy pieces for decor. 

Apart from these handicrafts and furniture stores in Gulshan, antiques can be found on the ground floor of the Sakura building in Shahbagh. And currently, antiques are sold and bought on online pages and groups as well, although the authenticity of these products are not beyond doubt. 

But the antique collectors of the country prefer to collect things that have a history or a personal touch, and that have proper documentation. 

The ship of Theseus paradox 

In 1994, GKM Lutfar Rahim Lultu, who worked for an NGO back then, went to Satkhira for a field visit. At the end of the visit, he was sitting at a tea stall, when dusk poured upon them under the crimson sky.

"Suddenly, I was mesmerised to see all kinds of lamps being lit around me. As that area did not have electricity, the locals used "Kupi" (oil lamps) at night. What I liked the most was the designs of those lamps; some had an oval pot for oil, some had handles with floral designs, and some were plain. I had an epiphany — someday these lamps will not be used anymore," Lultu recalled. 

From that tour, Lultu collected a couple of local lamps and also stories about them. "Some lamps had been in a family for two generations," Lultu said. 

Currently, he has century-old gramophones, hookahs, vintage cameras, lamps, etc., in his collection. 

"Being an NGO worker, I was never rich. But one way or another, I managed to gather up the amount to buy these pieces. It is not about money actually, it's about passion," he said.    

Then there is Shadiqul Bashar, who was in the sixth grade in 2005 when he saw a British coin — for the first time — at a local grocery store in Bogura. There to buy candy, a young Bashar found a glass bowl in which the shop owner kept all his changes. In that pile of jingling metal changes, was a British coin. 

The shop owner had inherited the coin from his father, like a memento. "Something struck me that day. That was a piece of past in that pile of present. And there are hundreds of tokens of history out there, scattered," Bashar said. 

From that day, Bashar started collecting all sorts of things: match boxes, coins, paper currencies, and gradually, antique cutlery, inkpots, surma pots, and so on. 

He showed me a pocket surmadaani, a pot used to carry surma powder (eyeliner), made of brass in the shape of a scaled fish. It could fit in your palm perfectly. This was also an ancestral possession that someone had sold to him. He has a peacock lamp in his possession as well. The brass lamp has a yellowish residue on it, probably due to moisture. 

One of the most fascinating things that Bashar showed me was a pair of Shashanka gold coins from 590 and 625 CE. Shashanka was the first independent king of a unified polity in the Bengal region, called the Gauda Kingdom. 

The gold dinars featured the Hindu god Shiva resting on his carrier Nandi, the ox, and Jaya (victory) written in Brahmi Lipi in the lower field on one side of the coin. On the other side of the coins, we see goddess Laxmi sitting cross-legged on a lotus and small elephants splashing water on her with their trunks. 

At first, I couldn't believe those were real Shashanka dinars. But as I cross-checked with the World History Encyclopedia, I was sure. 

"I bought the pair of coins for Tk 10,000 from a man whose ancestors might have found them beneath the earth and have guarded them for ages. The man that sold them to me needed money," Bashar said. 

As I spoke with the antique collectors, I realised they are after stories and histories, more so than building a curio shop. According to the collectors, collecting these antiques is almost like an act of patriotism for them. As Bashar said, "We don't want our items to be smuggled abroad. We collect these so that the beautiful tokens of our past stay within the territory of Bangladesh."

It reminded me of the famous paradox of the ship of Theseus. According to the myth, the Greek prince Theseus returned to Athens after a successful mission in Crete and the Athenians decided to store the ship that carried Theseus as a token of courage. But as the days passed parts of the ship began rotting, they needed to be replaced. The Athenians replaced each plank of the ship with a new piece of wood every time it began to rot.

Now the paradox is that there would eventually come a time when all planks were replaced, and no plank would be from the original ship. Does this mean that the Athenians still have the same ship as that of Theseus?

Philosopher John Locke's theory suggests that it is our memory that links us through time to our past selves. It is the journey that makes something special. 

So rather than picking an old but beautiful piece from a souvenir shop, the collectors prefer pieces that have a story, a journey. 

But the antique collection process is still very fairly scattered in Bangladesh. As there are no official auction houses, collectors have an unofficial network through which they swap, exchange, and sell their prized possessions. 

There hasn't been any survey on the actual number of antique collectors in the country or the categories or the number of antiques that are available.  

Bangladesh Numismatic Collectors' Society (BNCS) has 250 life members and according to Amalendra Saha, the president of the society, there are around 7,000 currency collectors all over the country. 

The same goes for philatelists. According to the Bangladesh National Philatelist Association, there are more than 300 philatelists in Dhaka alone. 

But there are no such clubs or associations for antique collectors. 

Bashar said collecting antiques can be risky too. "I am a member of BNCS, so it is safe for me to keep rare and expensive gold coins from the Sultanate and Mughal periods. But if I possess a blackstone sculpture, there is no safety, because anyone can barge into my home and accuse me of smuggling it."

This is the reason collectors often organise exhibitions by themselves and sometimes collaborate with local collectors. "The goal of these exhibitions is to show the government that we are not hiding anything. Or that I do not possess any illegal items," Lultu explained.  

Collectors mostly prefer sturdy metal artefacts because they decay slowly. 

Asma Ferdousi, keeper (current charge) of the Department of Ethnography and Decorative Art at the National Museum of Bangladesh, said the weather of our country is not appropriate at all for restoring fragile objects like paper, fabric, or textile for many years. 

"The muslin or other fabrics that are kept in the national museum, if you touch them, they will just crumble into dust. So you will not find any antique collectors that work with antique fabrics," she said.

Antique vs vintage vs retro

According to the antiquity act of 1968, ancient or antique means artefacts that belong or relate to any period prior to the preceding 100 years.

And antiquity means any ancient product of the human activity, movable or immovable, illustrative of art, architecture, craft, custom, literature, morals, politics, religion, warfare, science, or of any aspect of civilisation or culture, any ancient object or site of historical, ethnographical, anthropological, military or scientific interest.

So for 2023, artefacts that were made or used before 1923 are considered antiques. 

Vintage, on the other hand, means artefacts that belong to the period prior to the preceding 30 to 40 years, preferably to the years 1970-1980 for us.

And retro is something that is not older than a decade or two. 

Hunting down authentic antiques through online bidding

Apart from peeking into family heirlooms, and selling or exchanging antique items among each other, the collectors participate in international auctions, and international swaps (especially for currency and stamps). Bangladesh has auction platforms for mortgages, land or assets, currency, and stamps but not for artefacts. So the collectors bid on online auctions, mostly hosted by Indian auction houses. 

"For Bangladeshi collectors like us, we are interested in collecting things that represent the history of the subcontinent. That's why we prefer Indian auctions for collectibles," Bashar said.

Virasat Auctions is a popular auction house among antique collectors in the country. However, paying the money and collecting the artefact is another ball game altogether. 

"Bangladesh does not have Paypal, so we cannot bid from Bangladesh directly. We bid through our friends that live abroad. So when they visit Bangladesh, we collect the thing from them and pay the money back," said Azad Rahman, another antique collector.   

Spotting fakes without carbon dating 

Documentation is a crucial factor for identifying antiques. That is why most collectors prefer collecting coins, notes, stamps, or something that has some kind of lettering or inscriptions on them; reading the scripts or lettering makes it easier for them to authenticate the era.  

We spoke to Dr Md Mozammel Hoque, professor at the Department of Archaeology at Jahangirnagar University. 

"Up until the 1950s, the evolution of design and patterns was pretty stable. It took time and precision to come up with a brilliant design and every decade or era had a signature style. So, as we excavate some place, or find some artefacts, we can guess the era it belongs to by observing and cross-checking the patterns and design," he explained.

But artefacts found after excavations need carbon dating.   

"When we excavate some place and find any antiques — it could be a metal coin, lamp, or brick — we need to find coal or some earthy material with those. Because metal cannot be carbon-dated, we need coal, trees, plants, and animal remains; as well as human artefacts made from wood and leather because these items are generally younger than 50,000 years." 

But there are no carbon dating labs in Bangladesh. So they have to send the samples to India. Otherwise, they focus on the design, patterns, and curving instruments used to define the era that the artefact belongs to.

"For example, the blackstone sculptures of the Pala period have certain motifs which were created using certain metal instruments. As an archeologist, I can replicate that, but if you try to copy it, you will be caught," Professor Hoque said.