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BEIJING — China is trying hard to revive interest in its ailing stock market, but some investors are instead shelling out big money on an asset they can hold in the palms of their hands — walnuts.

With more traditional investments like stocks and property offering only small, or sometimes negative, returns over the last few years, a market in so-called “cultural playthings” has sprouted up, sending prices for large walnuts, for instance, into the tens of thousands of dollars.

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Look how well these have aged. Playing with these kinds of walnuts isn’t for ordinary people

Once the toys of China’s imperial court, the walnuts — which when rotated in one’s palm are thought to stimulate blood circulation — are making a comeback among the wealthy, some of whom see them as not only a place to put their cash, but as a distinctly Chinese status symbol.

The bigger, older and more symmetrical, the better, says collector Kou Baojun in Beijing, who owns over 30 pairs of walnuts, most of which are over a century old and have taken on a reddish shine from years of polishing in the palm.