Wall Street Legend

"Not bad...just not bad?!"

Neil, an appraiser from the British Museum, almost collapsed when he heard Ye Dongqing's words.

His salary is considered very good in London, and with the professional knowledge he has accumulated, he can occasionally make some extra money, such as helping others identify items, going to stores to pick up missing items to earn the price difference, etc., and sometimes participate in small At the auction, pick out some good stuff that no one else has recognized.

Over fifty, as time goes by, Neil Appraiser's total net worth has exceeded 10 million pounds, most of which are in the form of collections. If you want to buy a high-end apartment in London or a villa near the suburbs, then It must be enough. As for the house on Kensington Palace Garden Street, the old man doesn't even dare to think about it.

It was a street built with money, and all the people who could live there were billionaires. Thinking of Ye Dongqing's age, he felt deeply desperate, and reminded him in a helpless tone: "If you even look at the houses on Kensington Garden Street, If not, then there will be no house in London that can satisfy you. I mean the kind that can be sold to the outside world.

I have been in London since I was born, and I believe I am right. It is very cost-effective to live in or invest in London. Land prices in London have been rising recently, and there is no shortage of wealthy people who want to settle in this city. "

This was not the first time he came to London. Ye Dongqing probably knew where Kensington Palace was. He had gone to some popular attractions in the past, so he would not look at houses specifically. He politely replied: "Thank you for your suggestion. I will seriously consider it. Now Let’s go look at the things first. I only want the most collectible ones. Please help me select them. If the price is right, I will consider buying all the fine products.”

When Mr. Beckenbauer heard this, he was so excited that he snapped his fingers and said, "Yes! We have to confirm it before others! Then let's go and see it now!"

Neither Neil the appraiser nor the head of the branch of Tamsui Investment Group in the UK knew who this guy was yet. Ye Dongqing had no intention of introducing him. He just treated him as a friend who came with him and entered the villa together...

The decoration is pretty good, with a sense of vicissitudes left over by the years. Even the best oak wood will lose its luster after being stepped on for a hundred years. Even if it is clean, it feels like it is covered with a layer of dust.

It seems that it has not been renovated for some years. A piece of the stair railing has been broken. There is an oil painting hanging on the wall. Judging from the clothes he is wearing, Old Neil can recognize it at a glance as a portrait of Navy Marshal Seymour. He points to it and whispers Ye Dongqing: "My painting skills are not yet there. I just don't know if the painter is famous. I can't guess who it is until the research is done. But it is worth at least ten or twenty thousand pounds. Young people no longer remember this naval man in history." Marshal, he doesn’t have very outstanding achievements.”

In other people's homes, Ye Dongqing looked a little weird when he said that his ancestors were not doing well. He was afraid that people from the Seymour family might hear him and kick him out. Are you selling the portraits of your ancestors? Today we are mainly looking at some aged masterpieces, and they are not my ancestors, so even if I could buy them, I wouldn’t want them!”

There were a lot of things. Someone picked out more than two hundred items and placed them randomly on the coffee table, dining table, and wooden shelves.

Ye Dongqing is an outsider. Everything he sees looks like the real thing. It feels like a Chinese porcelain exhibition. Blue and white plates, colorful glazed bottles, three-color horses and so on are surrounded by the group of people who came in first, wearing white gloves and knocking on them. I touched it and found that the magnifying glass was never put back in my pocket.

"Mr. Beckenbauer, so what's going on today? You're just looking at something, and you can't take it away even if I pay you a price?"

"Of course... no, I will talk to the owner of these things for you. As long as the price is right, you can move them back to your home at any time!

Look, what a beautiful three-color horse, it must be one meter high. If not in such an old family, where can you find something similar? "

At this time, all he could think about was how to get Ye Dongqing to buy more things so that he could earn the commission paid by the seller. As soon as he entered the door, Mr. Beckenbauer started praising him as if he was in his antique store. Originally, he had asked people to take a look at it in advance today. After all, there were a lot of things and it would be difficult to read them all in one day. However, he and the Seymour family had known each other before and thought it would probably be fine.

"It is indeed a fine antique. Even one of this size is rare in the British Museum."

Appraiser Old Neil had a calm expression and was not tempted by these things.

Think about it, as the chief appraiser of the British Museum, he has access to the more than eight million items in the warehouse. Things that others think are precious are already boring in his eyes, and there are too many in the collection room. , the exhibits on display for tourists are less than one percent of the inventory, and there are precious cultural relics from all over the world.

There are so many in a museum, but they will not be sold easily to the outside world. Otherwise, if such a huge scale flows to the market, the entire collection industry will collapse. Take Picasso's works as an example. There are hundreds of pieces hidden in the warehouse of the British Museum, among which There is no shortage of fine works. Looking at the entire market, how many Picasso works are traded every year? Very few.

It’s not that there is really a shortage of antiques, but there is a shortage of high-quality antiques, and the National Museum helps, which reduces market liquidity and leads to a relatively large bubble. It’s okay when the world order is stable, but as soon as there is a disturbance, the value of antiques drops immediately, while gold does. Do it the other way around.

Ye Dongqing knows this, so he is not interested in ordinary goods. Even if he buys it and puts it in those private collection rooms, it will not make him or his guests feel amazing. It is better not to buy it. Yesterday, I heard Mr. Beckenbauer say that there is Good stuff, I just took the time to come over and take a look.

Seeing these people still standing beside him, he said: "Please help me go and take a look. As long as it is high-quality, rare and valuable for collection, I think you two have stayed at the Sotheby's auction house for so long. You must be very experienced, right?”

*********

Horses from Tang Sancai and large blue and white jars with cloud and dragon patterns from Yuan Dynasty.

The appraiser Old Neil walked around and told him that these two pieces were the most valuable, and there were also some calligraphy and paintings. No one was proficient in these areas, so few people paid attention to them.

Hearing this, Ye Dongqing went to see it by himself, which was almost as if he was blind. Just as he was standing next to a painting of flowers and birds, staring at the inscription carefully, a yellow man in his thirties came over and asked him in English: "The Japanese ?”

"Chinese, what about you?"

"Hey, compatriot, your family is from Yanjing? I have never seen anyone so arrogant abroad. They have a fleet of luxury cars and hire a bunch of foreigners as bodyguards!"

He extended his hand enthusiastically and the other party introduced himself: "My surname is Niu, just call me Xiaoniu. I am just thinking about starting a small business, which is not worth mentioning."

This is really treating Ye Dongqing as the second-generation ancestor of a family with great hands and eyes...