Ca Mau (c1730)
As with many of the Vietnamese wrecks the Ca Mau was found by fishermen off the coast of Ca Mau Province on South Vietnam's most southern promontory. It was discovered in 1998 and salvaged by a Vietnamese salvage company. The wreck was a Chinese junk believed to be travelling the coastline making its way to the port of Batavia in Java and from there much of the shipment would probably have been carried on to Europe by Dutch trading ships. The cargo consisted of porcelain from many kilns across south China; much of it from the industrial complex of Jingdezen in Kiangsi province but also from the Dehau kilns in Fujian, noted for its white monochromes, and from Guangzhou (Canton) in Guangdong. From examination of the cargo the ship is believed to have sunk between 1723 and 1735.

Geldermalsen (1752) - The Nanking cargo
This was a vessel belonging to the Dutch East India Company (VOC), travelling the usual route of the tea trade between Canton and The Netherlands. It was about 40 meters in length and had been built 6 years earlier in 1746. Besides its valuable tea cargo it also carried a cargo of gold to be transhipped to its trading base at Batavia in Java, and along with these and amounting to only about 5% of its cargo in monetary terms was a large cargo of porcelain held in the lower decks to stabilise the ship. In January 1752 it struck the Admiral Stellingwerf reef near Bintan Island, near Singapore at the entrance to the straits of Malacca.

The wreck was discovered by Mike Hatcher in May 1985 and an amazing haul consisting of over 150,000 pieces of porcelain and much of the gold was eventually brought to the surface. The porcelain was from the Jingdezen region and had all been brought along the tortuous route to Canton, mainly on the backs of coolies. As it was destined for Europe, the porcelain was of a higher quality than much of the export ware from China and when it came to Auction at Christies in Amsterdam it realised a staggering total of over £10 million.

The Hatcher Junk (c1645)
This was the first porcelain wreck to be discovered by Mike Hatcher and was found in 1983 on Admiral Stellingwerf Reef about a mile from where he would eventually find the Geldermalsen. It was the wreck of a Chinese junk probably travelling from China to the Dutch port of Batavia on the island of Java. The most important find amongst the 25,000 pieces of porcelain that eventually reached the surface was a barrel shaped jar dated 1643, which was paramount in dating the wreck to around 1645. The wreck then became an important focal point for dating porcelain from the Transitional Period between the Ming and Qing dynasties. Many of the more mundane items would have been sold among the Chinese and Javanese communities of the island; however, there was a sizeable amount of better quality items including examples of Kraak porcelain which would have been destined for the auctions of Amsterdam, where they eventually arrived in December 1983.

The Tek Sing (1822)
The Tek sing or True Star was a large ocean-going junk which left the Chinese port of Amoy in January 1822. On board was a large cargo of porcelain destined for the wealthy Chinese communities around Batavia on Java. Along with the cargo were around 1,600 Chinese workers and their families looking for a new life amongst the large Chinese population on the island. They were never to reach there on this junk however as it was wrecked on the notorious Belvedere Shoals in the Gaspar Straits between the islands of Bangka and Belitung off Sumatra. The amazing story of the junk and its discovery is available on video as well in the book, The Legacy of the Tek Sing. Around 350,000 pieces were eventually auctioned by Nagel in Stuttgart and included many blue and white pieces from Swatow as well as monochromes from Yixing and Dehau.

The Hoi An (c1450)
This was the wreck of a large ocean-going junk measuring over 30 meters in length found off the coast of Hoi An province in Vietnam. It differs from many of the other wrecks discovered in having a cargo of Vietnamese rather than Chinese ceramics and the ship was believed to have been from Thailand with a Thai crew. Although first discovered by fishermen in 1993 it was 1999 before a successful salvage could be instigated. This was partly because for many years the fishermen kept its location a secret and were gradually selling off their finds, causing no end of damage to the cargo as they dragged nets across the wreck site in the hope of bringing odd items to the surface. The other reason why the salvage took so long was the depth at which the wreck sat; at between 70-80 metres it was beyond the scope of normal diving and the saturation diving techniques, with its many complications had to be employed. Eventually over 300,000 pieces were brought to the surface which were dated at around the middle of the 15th century, all of which proved to be invaluable to the study of the Vietnamese ceramic industry of the Red River Delta. Much of the cargo was eventually sold at auction by Butterfields in San Francisco and Los Angeles in October 2000.

The Diana (1817)
The Diana was a three-masted sailing ship termed a Country
Ship; these were British ships that operated independently from the English East India Company and were usually involved in the illegal smuggling of Indian opium into China. She stuck the rocks of Karang Lingtang shortly after leaving the port of Malacca on the West coast of the Malaysian peninsular in March 1817. Although by this time the European trade in Chinese porcelain had more or less disappeared because of the growth of native industries, porcelain was still being brought out of China for markets in India and South Africa. Around 24,000 pieces of porcelain were recovered by Malaysian Historical Salvage during 1993 the best of which were a number of dinner services in the blue and white Fitzhugh pattern.