If, as this account seems to imply, the Tz´ŭ Chou factories were in low water at the end of the Yüan dynasty, like many other potteries at this time, they managed to retrieve their fortunes, for they still carry on an unbroken tradition to this day.[232] The ware is in general use among the common folk of Peking and Northern China,[233] and is still decorated (though coarsely) in the antique style with free and sketchy painted designs in dark brown and maroon slip, the body being greyish white, with creamy crackled glaze. This is, of course, only one kind out of many, but the traditions have been so closely preserved that from this type alone it is easy to identify many Tz´ŭ Chou specimens among the early wares which have lately come from excavations in China. The quantity of pottery produced at Tz´ŭ Chou in the last nine or ten hundred years must have been enormous, but as the post-Sung wares do not seem to have appealed to Chinese connoisseurs, little has been heard of it until recent times, and the stray specimens which did find their way to Europe were either unclassified or grouped with Corean specimens in deference to a mistaken Japanese opinion.[234] Now, however, considerable interest has been taken in the ware by Western collectors, and a plentiful supply is forthcoming, so that it is possible to make a comparative study of the different types, and to appreciate the varied and clever decorative methods of the Tz´ŭ Chou potters. But the conservative nature of the wares will always make it extremely difficult for us to fix the exact period during the many centuries when any individual piece was made, and the early dates assigned indiscriminately, though perhaps excusable on account of the archaic character of the painted decoration, should be accepted with caution.