Passion for history drives antique machinery collector
- By Chen Xia
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E-mail China.org.cn, April 11, 2017
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Antique milling machine collected by Tang Shigang. [File photo] |
In 1989, Tang graduated from Chongqing's prestigious Sichuan Fine Arts Institute and became a college teacher. He quit his job in 1995 to engage in trade of outdated machinery. It was then that he resumed his childhood passion for collecting machine tools.
Tang came across his first item for collection in 1997 when he was doing some business with a scrap dealer. The machine had been gathering dust in a corner of the scrapyard for a long time and was due to be melted down. However, Tang felt it looked extremely graceful, unlike simple modern ones.
"From the perspective of an artist, this machine is exceptional," Tang said. He bought the machine for 9,000 yuan, which was a big sum at the time, later discovering that it had been a milling machine imported from Germany via Hong Kong in the late 1880s.
In 2007, Tang found an antique American lathe at an auction. It had been imported to China during the Qing Dynasty. Tang believed it was invented by an American engineer named Stephen Fitch in 1845. The lathe was highly automatic, leading the world’s technology at the time.
Its owner had intended to dismantle it if it wasn’t sold. After negotiation, Tang did a deal for it with the former owner in exchange for a 20,000-yuan modern machine.
Tang said he had spent almost all his earnings from his business on collecting machines. He now plans to open a museum to display them and raise awareness of China's industrial heritage.
“These outstanding machines were abandoned, dismantled and eventually melted down amid the progress of productivity and the advancement of machines,” Tang said. “But they are priceless.”
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