Collecting of snuff bottle:

1. The Shape of the snuff bottle should be shapely and sightly. The snuff bottle’s shoulders can be compared to “Beauty’s shoulders”. So its line must be elegant, and charming.
2. As usual, the snuff bottle should have intact its caps and little spoon to make it original.
3. The Color of the snuff bottle should be bright.
4. Integrity:- The snuff bottle needs intact without shatter or fade.
5. Carve technique:-It need has a fine and aesthetic feeling.
6. Paint technique:- It need be fine and neatness, also has a certain art characteristic.
7. Bottle wall:- Its outer wall need level off and smooth, it also has high transparency, and has no sand eye and veins.

How to Identify Snuff-bottles::

Zhao Ruzhen, a connoissueur of Qing Dynasty in his book “ Appreciate The Snuff Bottle” advise the following two points on collecting curio:

• Identify its genuineness or fake
• Identify whether it is classy or plain or inferior

According to him, the normal method for curio’s appreciation is to identify its genuineness, after that only to identify whether it is classy or not.
However, for collecting snuff bottle, he advise the need to look at its classiness before identifying its genuineness. This is because for snuff bottle’s rareness, one only see its material, painting and is not able to see which period it was made and its artists name.
A superb snuff bottle is one where the material is rare and the paint technique is superb. On the contrary, if the snuff bottle material is common, and paint technique is common, even if it was made during Kangxi and Yongzheng Period, it has not much a value.

How to maintain snuff-bottle:

Experts advocates the following on the maintaining of rare snuff bottles:

1. Remember that all snuff bottles cannot stand strong sunlight hence put it into glass counter, etc
2. Note that jade snuff bottle fears sweat and alkali.
3. Do not rinse or clean the snuff bottle with any chemical detergent. You should wipe it with soft white cloth after appreciating it.
4. Do not taint it whether when spraying insecticides,etc
5. Pine stone snuff bottle should not be placed near lampblack or steam as they are quite delicate materials. Also avoid high temperature, otherwise the pine-stone snuff bottle will change its color.

• Glass
• Different types of Jade(jadeite),
• Crystals like agate, precious stones such as tourmaline, even ruby matrix, amethyst,
• Porcelain.

Snuff bottles have a variety of shapes. The Chinese snuff bottles represents the microcosm of the craftsmanship of Chinese artisans.

Snuff bottles are the Chinese equivalent of the snuff boxes that evolved in the Western World. Both were used as containers for powdered tobacco. Tobacco was originally brought to Europe from the Americas and the powdered variety became known as snuff. It was subsequently introduced to China, probably by Portuguese traders.

Later Jesuit missionaries were known to have presented the Emperor with an elaborate snuff box and a quantity of snuff. The Emperor delighted in this gift but soon found that snuff could be better preserved in the traditional Chinese medicine bottles. He had equally elegant snuff bottles made for himself and members of his family. Soon snuff bottles became a status symbol for the nobility and in time for the entire population.

{ See article on how to collect,identify and maintain snuff-bottles}