A Vietnamese man owns nearly 1,000 antique teapots with some of them decades old, even though he does not drink tea.

The collector is Nguyen Van Duong, a 40-year-old resident in Binh Duong Province, a neighbor of Ho Chi Minh City.

Duong has spent great efforts and money purchasing the teapots over the past 12 years.

Duong said he is happy when items familiar in villages in the past are present in his house.

He has also spread his hobby to his friends who shared the passion of reliving old memories.

In 2012, Duong wandered in the antique stores in Binh Duong Province and Ho Chi Minh City to seek teapots.

A corner in his house is used to display many teapots which are 70 years old to hundreds of years old.

Since the development of social media, he has mainly looked for ancient teapots on forums. After 12 years, he owns a collection of about 1,000 Vietnamese ceramic teapots.

These teapots are made in Vietnam’s renowned pottery villages, such as Van Ninh in the north and Nam Phong, Lai Thieu and Bien Hoa in the south.

Duong also collects terracotta and glazed terracotta teapots with decorative patterns featuring Vietnamese people’s lives.

A teapot and cups in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the Dien Bien Phu victory.

His most valuable teapots are Bat Trang ones which were made in the 1960s and 1980s.

Duong said his grandfather was a soldier in the Dien Bien Phu battle during the French war in Vietnam and often told him about the battle.

When he bought a Bat Trang teapot inscribed with the phrase “1954 - 1984, Ba muoi nam chien thang Dien Bien Phu” (1954 - 1984, 30 years of the Dien Bien Phu victory) and an image of Dien Bien soldiers, Duong was extremely touched and has kept the teapot as a treasure.

Duong shared that he used to raise many cats.

One of them jumped to the teapot display area and broke the “Dien Bien Phu” teapot. Duong had to give up his hobby of raising cats.

Some antique Bat Trang teapots with patterns featuring the wars in Vietnam, the new year celebration and happy families.

After four years of determinedly looking for a similar teapot, he finally found it, and it was made in his year of birth.

Duong set aside most of his house for the teapot collection, together with many other ceramic items, newspapers, and books.

His house’s yard, walls, and rooms are full of teapots with different shapes and sizes.

The collector shared that he wanted to find Vietnamese ceramic items from his childhood and then learn about the culture of Vietnamese people.

His shelves are full of ancient Vietnamese teapots.

Ancient ceramic items were often made by hand, so each teapot is a unique piece of art.

Some teapots have the shapes of fruits and animals, which look lifelike.

Besides teapots, Duong owns some 7,000-8,000 textbooks published in the 1890s-2010s.

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