In 2008 China Guardian’s Spring, Autum and Quarterly auctions included Chinese painting and calligraphy, porcelain and works of art, Chinese oil painting and sculpture, photography, rare books, stamps,coins,silver sycees,banknotes and bronze mirrors, jewelry and jadeite. The total amount of auction items exceeded 24,000 items this year, with a total transaction volume of 1.8 billion yuan, which is the the highest annual volume in the past fifteen years. China Guardian continued to maintain the position as Mainland China’s largest auction house.Among our proudest achievements, our sections of Chinese calligraphy and painting had a total turnover of 990 million yuan this year, making China Guardian the world's top auction house in this category, our volume in this category had already achieved half of the total from the world’s top-five auction houses in this category.
China Guardian acted as the exclusive auction partner for major Beijing institutions, including becoming the first to hold a dedicated special auction for the Olympic Games, in cooperation with the Beijing Olympic Expo. At the same time, China Guardian was also granted exclusive rights to hold an auction for the 2009 World Stamp Exhibition. This is the second time such an event has taken place, and in 1999, China Guardian also held a similar event. In 2008, Guardian also held two charitable events, first for children with leukemia and the second for disaster relief to help the earthquake-stricken area in Sichuan, which together raised nearly 64million yuan, funds which were all donated to charity.
Additionally, this year China Guardian also hosted a grand-scale exhibition of classical Chinese furniture and international symposium, and co-hosted the event, "Through Six Generations: The Weng Collection of Chinese Paintings and Calligraphic Works” with the Beijing World Art Museum. Together, this has been an abundant year of activity and academic interest for all interested in Chinese art.