The tale of the Cau Mau shipwreck involves connoisseurship, a treasure-hunting adventure suitable for television, and the legendary East India Trading Company (which itself has recently resurfaced in Pirates of the Caribbean dialogue).

Today, we'd be short on shoes, hair dryers and electronics without massive container shipments from Asia. What's surprising is that while the journey 250 years ago was infinitely more dangerous, huge cargoes made it through to English and Dutch retailers.

"In the 18th century, if it took two years to get something, it was still worthwhile doing," says Marcus Linell, Sotheby's Export-porcelain expert in London. "There was this incredible passion in Europe, and America as well, for tea and for coffee - stimulating drinks that were not alcoholic. And if you want to drink a hot drink, unless you have porcelain to drink out of, it's something of a problem."

Along the Eastern seaboard, the social life of well-to-do families revolved around entertaining, and eating, drinking and being merry in proper fashion required the latest porcelain. George Washington, for one, wrote his London agent about an expected shipment of a "Compleat sett fine Image china."

The goods - Chinese Export with figural decoration - finally arrived in March 1758 and became the best "china," a term that derives from its origin in Ching-te Chen. Pieces from the original service are on display in the new Museum at Mount Vernon; even closer is the superb Hodroff Collection of Chinese porcelain on display at Winterthur.

In addition to tea and coffee wares, Chinese factories produced punch bowls (Washington had several), serving platters, tureens for soups, decorative urns, and figurines. In many cases, the decoration and forms were designed to appeal to European taste, or even custom-made to order.

The cargo to be sold at Sotheby's Monday through Wednesday includes thousands of tea bowls, teapots, jugs, mantel vases and figural pieces, such as a rare ewer in the form of a monkey. Though many pieces were recoverable in good condition, the sale also includes lots of fascinating "sea sculptures" - nested porcelain pieces welded together by encrustations.

The sale is being held in Amsterdam because the wreck took place on the trading route of the Dutch East India Company, as the loaded junk made its way from Canton to the trading center at Batavia (modern-day Jakarta).

"Inevitably in the days of sail, shipping porcelain was a risky venture," Linell says.

"The cargo was an accidental find by Vietnamese fishermen. They pulled up their nets, and there was porcelain in them. They quickly discovered that the porcelain was valuable, and they went out day after day trawling for porcelain. In fact, they brought up 35,000 pieces."

When news of the find reached the Vietnamese press in 1998, Linell says: "The government jumped in, mounted an official salvage operation, and forced the fishermen to return what they had found." Eventually, 130,000 pieces were recovered from one ship, an indication of the huge amounts that were exported each year.

Sotheby's "Made in Imperial China" catalog (available at www.sothebys.com, along with auction information) will be an important reference for collectors. The volume contains information-filled essays by Vietnamese and Dutch scholars on the ship's route and cargo. Encouraging for collectors are the estimates for these artistic bits of history - some lots are under $500, many are under $1,000.

The trade in Chinese Export porcelain is still an active one shared by American, English, European and Asian sources. One of the best-known local dealers is Elinor Gordon of Villanova, exhibiting at New York's Winter Antiques Show through Sunday and at the Philadelphia Antiques Show in April.

London dealers Michael and Ewa Cohen were exhibitors at the New York Ceramics Fair Jan. 17-21, where they sold a fine pair of Kangxi period vases and a delightful figurine of two dancers.

The Cohens specialize in the more spectacular pieces, such as large vases two to four feet high, decorated fish tanks, and massive chargers. A current prize is a very large punch bowl, made for the American or European market, decorated with a "Four Seasons" scene copied from an Italian engraving. Price: $140,000.

Sunken treasures have turned up before, Michael Cohen says: "We ended up selling 22,000 pieces from a cargo about 20 years ago."

And it seems American and Swedish consumers had similar tastes back in the heyday of Chinese Export porcelain. "In one year in the mid-18th century, the Swedish East India Company brought in six million pieces," Cohen adds.

Such porcelain still demands a premium. But with import numbers like these, there are enough examples on today's market that every collector of 18th-century antiques can have a piece for the china cabinet.