After hearing Chu Chen's explanation, Lin Shengfu suddenly understood. "Oh! So that's how it is. You mean using the glass-cutting method to verify jade objects isn't reliable?"
Chu Chen replied, "Exactly. It's just like the glass cutters we usually use. You can't say the synthetic diamond mounted on one is jade, can you?"
"That's true!" Lin Shengfu said with a laugh and nodded. When he looked at his jade monkey again, a trace of displeasure flashed in his eyes. It was hard to tell whether he was unhappy about giving the jade monkey to his friend, the expert who had appraised it, or both.
Chu Chen said, "President Lin, I think your friend might have been cheated too."
"What do you mean?" Lin Shengfu asked hurriedly.
Chu Chen replied, "Although Hetian water stone looks rather similar to Hetian jade, its main component is still quartzite. Therefore, a legitimate testing institution couldn't possibly identify it as jade. So if your friend gave you a national-level appraisal certificate, then the certificate must be fake."
Lin Shengfu thought carefully for a moment, then said with a laugh, "I remember that appraisal certificate was indeed an official national one. It seems my friend was probably cheated too. He's usually a very shrewd person, yet he was still deceived. I guess you really do have to be careful when buying antiques and the like!"
Chu Chen deeply agreed. Antiques had great potential for appreciation, and appraisal programs had sprung up on television like mushrooms after rain. While this had introduced antiques as an investment channel to the general public, it had also given scammers opportunities to exploit. All kinds of scams had appeared one after another.
Over the years, Chu Chen had seen quite a few different scams, and many of them had been carried