Antique collectors in the southern province of Ca Mau have recently whispered with each other about four statues that have “odd” features. The owner of these statues, Mr. Duong Hoang Dung, in Ward 5, Ca Mau city, said that he exchanged his valuable assets for these statues from a professional antique trader last year. In the last time, he exchanged his laptop, worth VND15 million ($750) for the four statues.

The antique trader told Dung that he bought these statues from a Chinese family in the southern province of Soc Trang. This family had nine statues and they sold four of them.

Dung said that he was invited to assess the date of antiques for the Ca Mau Museum but he could not know about the date of these statues.

These are Maitreya statues which are in yellow color, only 3.5cm tall, 4cm wide, 1.3cm thick and 2.5-2.8 taels in weight. The statues have Chinese scripts on them. As a Chinese script researcher but Dung said that he could read the “Buddha” script on the front side of the statues. There are two scripts under statues but he could read only one script, meaning “metal”. There are four ancient Chinese scripts on the back side of statues, which he could not find in any dictionary.

Dung said that he bought these statues because of the “metal” script under them but according to tests by goldsmith’s shops, the gold content in these statues is only 1.5 percent. Senior goldsmiths in Ca Mau did not know what metal that these statues are made of.

Dung placed three statues at home and carried one on his neck, inside a cloth bag. He unintentionally discovered “odd” features of these statues when he washed the statue on his neck by ice at a coffee shop. He was very surprised to see that ice melted very quickly, like it contacted  a hot item. Meanwhile, the statue changed its color like a gecko.

In front of many witnesses, Dung made some tests with the statues. He placed the statues on pieces of ice, immediately the statues subsided into ice blocks. He heat them on a gas cooker for 30 minutes, they turned into violet color. When they were put back into a water bucket, they immediately turned into bright yellow and became very cold.

On May 17, some correspondents followed Dung and his statues to a welding enterprise in Ca Mau city. At the 2,000oC temperature, these statues did not melt down. They only turned into purple. The color returned to shining yellow when they were put into water.

Mr. Vu, the owner of the welding enterprise said that in his life, he had never seen such a solid metal like these statues.

Dung said that he has seen senior antique collectors and senior Chinese script researchers but they did not expose the secret of these statues.

“I wish that experts would evaluate the value of these statues and find out secrets of their secret features,” Dung said.