Mao Mania has had an unexpectedly crazed revival since 2000 throughout China. Mao badges, posters and plates emblazoned with Mao’s portrait, busts and even alarm clocks with red guards holding Red Bibles waving from each tick clamber for attention in many of Chengdu’s markets.
One Mao aficionado in Sichuan claims to have 18,000 collectibles – a veritable museum of Mao memorabilia. Along with Mao’s godlike status some claim he can bring good luck and offer protection, like the destitute peasants who bought Mao talismans en mass after last year’s catastrophic floods. To the people of China, Mao represents a golden age of stability and political ideology.

The following extract from Mao Sells Out, by Maria Cheng, (AsiaWeek May25,2001, Vol.27, No.21), well describes the current quest for Mao collectibles.

"Even capitalist roaders now want to own Mao memorabilia. But beware of fakes and the price of chasing a passing fad.
These days, Chinese peasants aren't the only ones with a Mao token or two left over from China's 1960s Cultural Revolution. Obsessed China watchers and Asian collectors have been hoarding communist kitsch for years. But nowadays, westerners are joining the market — and driving prices to unforeseen heights. "There's an enduring fascination with Mao memorabilia because it was produced during one of the most powerful propaganda campaigns in history," says Marsha Malinowski of Sotheby's, who organized the April Internet auction. Many of the 150 lots sold at significantly higher prices than the appraised values. "People are willing to pay for Mao," says Malinowski, adding that 90% of the buyers were Americans. "He's obviously still a popular figure to foreigners."

So popular that Malinowski is convinced collecting Mao paraphernalia can be a good investment. "Depending on what you buy, Mao items could really appreciate in value," she says, noting that a Mao poster with the slogan "Yankee Go Home" fetched more than $2,000. Back in 1971, when it was printed, the poster would have cost the equivalent of a few cents. A statue showing two peasants straddling a blazing rocket, issued to push Mao's space program, was sold for $3,680. "You want to make sure you buy original pieces manufactured during Mao's reign," says Malinowski. "Imitations lack historical authenticity. And they are often really garish." Scenting big money, some enterprising people in China are manufacturing knockoff Mao ceramic busts, posters and other items for sale to unsuspecting foreigners.

So how do you decipher the authentic from the fake? You can tell the real collectors because they're the ones looking for the cheap, shoddy stuff. "Real Mao kitsch is not quality merchandise," says Tom Gold, a China scholar at the University of Berkeley, who has several dozen Mao badges in his own collection. "China was very poor [during Mao's time] and the goods it was churning out were made of the cheapest thing people could find, like scrap metal. Chinese leaders were too preoccupied with cranking out more and more Maos [to further his personality cult] to bother with how it was done." He says collectors should acquire Mao ceramic busts, posters, pins and other propaganda items because they like them, not primarily because they hope their value will appreciate.

Some people's collections already have soared in value. "I collect Mao strictly as an investment," says Marc Faber, a Hong Kong investor who started buying Mao souvenirs in the 1970s. "There's no admiration involved." When he began his collection, he paid "virtually nothing" for badges that are now going for the equivalent of $13 a piece in the backstreets of Beijing. In the past three years, Faber hasn't added anything to his stash of 340,000 badges, 3,000 posters and several dozen porcelain Mao-related items. "It's getting too expensive," he says.

Some fear a price fall: A deluge of dusty Mao items can saturate the market when word spreads in China about the big sums foreigners are paying for them. But these days, even hip Chinese are getting in on the action, and prices are more likely to keep going up. These more discerning collectors may seek out rare busts of doomed leaders, like Mao's would-be heirs, including Lin Biao. But no other leader, past or present, is likely to eclipse Mao. "Other Chinese leaders don't even compare," says Gold, "Mao is it." At the moment, so are the well-preserved reminders of his rule."

Chinese Propaganda Poster
Stefan Landsberger's Chinese Propaganda Poster Pages is a site dedicated to Chinese political propaganda posters as they have been published since 1949 until the present day.

Mao Zedong
In order to fully understand the modern history of China, it is indispensable to study the father of the People's Republic of China --Mao's history. The following network resource list attempted to provide a tool for historic scholars, Asian study students and researchers. The list also tried to provide a sketch of Mao's life for people who are interested in and know a little bit of China, Mao Zedong and W.W.II, etc.. The network resource list included most of the information found in the internet about his personal life, his thought and theories, his poems and publications, his friends and enemies, the historic event he initiated and participated, his pictures and voices etc.. The network resource list also presented the summaries of the resources, and further information search sites as well.

Chairman Mao Badges & Ephemera

Badges of Chairman Mao Zedong
Written by Bill Bishop in 1996, this is a most thorough treatment of Chairman Mao badges.

Special Love for Mao
A public servant in the Futian District Government holds a collection of over 10,000 Chairman Mao badges. From the Shenzhen Daily.