香港《南华早报》3月15日文章，原题：大陆新富推动古董价格大幅上升  放弃投资香港房地产吧。由于大陆新富在拍卖中的哄抬，品质一流的中国古董家具在5年内价格上扬4倍，价格飙升不但由于大陆买家出更高的价，而且因为卖家不肯出手，期望涨得更高。

     在去年10月苏富比香港的一次拍卖中，一位身份不明的上海商人支付了惊人的8570万港币竞拍到一张罕见的乾隆年间的紫檀龙椅。对许多业内人士来讲，那次拍卖是标志性事件、创纪录销售，展现了对皇家物品有着过度嗜好的大陆收藏家的崛起。北京观复博物馆创建人马未都也是有名的中国古代家具收藏人。

     他说，顶级家具的价格上涨得太多、太快，“价值连城的拍品迟早被大陆收藏家买走，但如此短时间内价格如此陡增，恐怕是不正常的。”马说，那些急切竞购皇椅的都不是熟悉面孔，“他们不是常规收藏家，来自其他行业。”“人们从房地产或煤矿等生意中挣到钱，想要投资。但他们并不懂艺术品。”资深香港古玩经销商安迪•何（音）说，2000年以前他的客户90%是西方人，其中80%来自美国。“9•11后，情况变了。如今我的客户95%是大陆人。”他补充说，这些新收藏者个个腰缠万贯。“现在，一些顶级古玩能赚到其先前价值的100%到200%。”香港经销商何鸿永（音）从事古董家具经营40多年了，他说，大陆收藏家的崛起还对市场产生了另一种影响,“市场供应已经枯竭。人们都不出手，他们不急于打折扣价出卖任何东西。我也不急。古董价格一路飙升。还有比这更好的投资吗？”

      Forget about investing in Hong Kong property. Prices for top-quality antique Chinese furniture have increased fourfold in five years, bid up by newly rich mainlanders.

     Prices are rising steeply not only because mainlanders are paying more but because sellers are withholding supply in the hope of even higher prices.

    At Sotheby's auction in Hong Kong in October last year, an unidentified Shanghai businessman – understood to be mainland stock investor Liu Yiqian – paid an astonishing HK$85.7 million for a rare Qianlong-period zitan (red sandalwood) dragon throne.

    It was a record auction price for a piece of Chinese furniture.

    To many industry insiders, last year's auction was a landmark event, a record sale that showcased the rise of mainland collectors with an extravagant taste for rare imperial pieces.

    Ma Weidu, founder of the Guanfu Museum in Beijing, the mainland's first private, non-profit antiques museum, who is also a well-known collector of antique Chinese furniture, said prices for top pieces had increased too much, too fast.

    "Pieces of great value will be bought by mainland collectors sooner or later, but I'm afraid that such a sharp rise in prices within such a short time is not that healthy," Ma said.

    Moreover, he said those who had eagerly bid for the imperial throne were not the faces he was familiar with. "They were not the regular collectors," he said. "They came from other businesses."

   "People have made money, from businesses like property or coal mining, and they want to invest," he said. "But they don't have the knowledge about art."

   Veteran Hong Kong antique dealer Andy Hei, founder and director of the Hong Kong International Art and Antiques Fair, said that before the 2000s, 90 per cent of his clients were Westerners, 80 per cent of whom were Americans.

   "But after 9/11 (the 2001 attack on New York's World Trade Centre), things changed. Now 95 percent of my clients are mainland Chinese," Hei said, adding that these new collectors were extremely rich.

   "Some top pieces would bring in excess of 100 to 200 per cent of their previous values today," said Christopher Engle, a specialist in Chinese art at Christie's New York.

    Hong Kong veteran dealer Ho Hung-yung, who has been trading antique Chinese furniture for more than 40 years, said the rise of mainland collectors had had another effect on the market.

     "Market supply has dried up," Ho said.

    "People are not selling, and they are in no rush to sell anything at a discount. Even I'm in no rush to sell. The value of the pieces keeps going up. What other investment can be better than this?"

    Ho said that fine antique Chinese furniture could be seen as a great investment compared with other investment avenues.

    "If your company makes HK$100 million profit, you spend half of it buying antique furniture for your company and deduct the amount in the expense account. Then you make only a HK$50 million profit, and you subsequently pay less profit tax," Ho said. "But the value of the HK$50 million you have spent on furniture will definitely go up, and so has the value of your company's assets."