Reborn in 1977

Chapter 690 These I Don't Want

Stepping into the antique shop, Chen Fan's first reaction was that it was too crowded.

Looking at the antiques of later generations, each item was displayed as if it deserved its own room, complete with bulletproof glass, as if the value couldn't be shown any other way.

But looking here, the items in the cabinets were alright, although a bit crammed, densely packed, and stacked several layers high, at least they were locked in a cabinet.

It was the items on the tables that were truly unrestrained.

Large and small porcelain pieces were piled together, like a street stall, just like the antique replica shops in tourist areas of later generations, obviously fake at a glance.

But the vast majority of the items here were real.

The reason for saying 'vast majority' was that it couldn't be ruled out that there were no fakes here at all, right?

Chen Fan picked up a small porcelain jar, and without looking at the base mark, he judged that it was a Northern Song Dynasty official kiln porcelain, and couldn't help but twitch his eyes.

Northern Song Dynasty official kilns have always been treasures in the collector's world in later generations, with prices starting in the millions.

The one in his hand, with the jar and lid complete, the glaze crystal clear, and the painted patterns on the jar body clearly visible without any damage, was a masterpiece among official kilns.

If it were auctioned off in a few decades, it would be worth tens of millions, but it was just placed on the table?

Zhou Yali leaned over and whispered, "Little brother, how do we buy?"

Chen Fan pursed his lips and smiled slightly, then looked at the salesperson, "Comrade, how are the things here sold?"

Asking how things are sold while facing a room full of antiques?

Faced with such an outrageous question, the salesperson was not angry, and immediately made a gesture, "Please look this way."

Following the direction he pointed, the salesperson stood next to a counter and smiled, "These are all fine folk kilns, the price is cheap, the lowest…"

He picked up a bowl, "For example, this bowl only costs 5 yuan, which is only a few times more expensive than buying a new bowl."

Then he pointed to other things, "There are also 8 yuan, 10 yuan, and 12 yuan ones, choose as you like."

Seeing that Chen Fan and the others were just looking and not speaking, he raised his hand and pointed to the other side, "Please look at the porcelain over there, those are all official kiln masterpieces, and their historical value is relatively high, such as the five famous kilns of the Northern Song Dynasty, Ru, Guan, Ge, Jun, Ding…"

Chen Fan's eyes widened instantly, "Which one is the Ru kiln?"

The salesperson was stunned for a moment, coughed twice, "There is no Ru kiln, would you like to look at the others?"

Chen Fan's mouth twitched slightly, but in the end, he didn't "cut" it out, mainly because he was afraid of being beaten.

At this time, an old comrade in the counter came over, laughed and said, "This comrade is really joking, not to mention that Ru porcelain is rare and extremely difficult to acquire, even if there is one, it would be a national treasure-level cultural relic that is prohibited from leaving the country, and our shop cannot sell it."

Chen Fan took a deep breath, turned his head and looked around, then turned back to face the old comrade, and smiled, "So, the items in the antique shop have both a lower limit and an upper limit?"

The lower limit is to try to ensure authenticity. When you buy something, they even give you an antique receipt, which is different from the art receipt you get when you buy antiques in later generations.

The upper limit is naturally based on national regulations. Anything that is not allowed to leave the country cannot be found here.

The old comrade understood what Chen Fan meant and nodded in agreement, "That's right!"

Chen Fan smacked his lips, "If I want to buy first-class cultural relics, where should I go?"

The old comrade took a deep breath, thought for a while, cupped his hands and said, "If there is a place where first-class cultural relics are sold, please let us know, comrade, our shop will immediately send someone with a large amount of money to go and ensure that national treasures are not lost."

Chen Fan was speechless, were they messing with him?

He immediately put his hands on his hips, pondered for two seconds, then raised his hand and pointed, "What's the price of these porcelain pieces?"

The old comrade smiled and said, "Antiques are priced individually. All items in our shop are priced by experienced industry experts, and we treat everyone fairly."

As he spoke, he took down a large red plum vase and placed it on the counter, "For example, this Qianlong large red tangled branch thin-mouthed plum vase is priced at 220 yuan."

Then he took down a Northern Song Dynasty Ge kiln, gently placed it next to the plum vase, "This celadon glaze ear vase is priced at 280 yuan."

Zhou Yali leaned over, looked carefully, and whispered, "Is this porcelain from a thousand years ago, 280 yuan, so…"

Then a big hand covered her mouth.

She turned her head and looked, "What are you doing?"

Chen Fan looked at her, "Are you trying to say it's expensive?"

Zhou Yali blinked, and instantly understood, immediately pushed his hand away, straightened her back, stood up straight, and nodded with a serious face, "So expensive."

The expression was a bit exaggerated.

Liu Juan and Ma Lan behind her were nodding repeatedly, "It is indeed expensive."

A vase is equivalent to one year of their income, how could it not be expensive?!

Chen Fan had a serious face, with his arms folded, thinking about how to bargain.

Thinking about Wang Shimin's landscape scroll only costing 1200 yuan, Shen Zhou's colored landscape scroll 800, Bada Shanren's flower and bird axis 800, Wen Zhengming's landscape axis 1200,…

Thinking of this, Chen Fan gasped, and looked at the room full of antiques again, indeed so cheap!

The old comrade heard Zhou Yali say it was expensive, but he was not angry, and calmly took out a stack of receipts from the counter, spread them out on the counter, and said after opening them, "Here are the shop's purchase orders, please take a look."

Chen Fan and Liu Juan leaned over, looking at the position pointed by the old comrade.

Well, the Qianlong plum vase selling for 220 yuan cost 200 yuan to purchase, and the Northern Song Dynasty Ge kiln celadon glaze ear vase selling for 280 cost 250 yuan to purchase.

The selling price was indeed a conscientious price.

In fact, this difference between the purchase price and the selling price is the normal situation in the current society.

No matter what the commodity is, the selling price is determined according to the purchase price plus a certain percentage.

It will not be until next year, that is, 1979, that this pricing convention will be broken.

For example, the backpackers from Hong Kong mentioned earlier, when they traveled and stayed in the mainland before, they paid as much as the price listed on the door, just like the comrades in the mainland, 5 mao to 1 yuan for a shared bed, and 1.5 to two or three yuan for a single room.

But in 79, when they traveled to Beijing and stayed in a foreign-related guest house, the price was ridiculously expensive.

For example, the listed price was 2 yuan per bed, but for them, it was 20 yuan.

It was many times more expensive than the normal price, and they certainly didn't agree, so they asked the waiter for the reason.

As a result, they said that they were responding to the policy, carrying out business reforms, and implementing differentiated price management.

Anyway, you foreign guests are all rich, so the price is uniformly increased!

Who would be willing to do this?

Moreover, these backpackers are basically Hong Kong workers. Although their wages are higher than those of ordinary workers, with a monthly salary of more than 2,000 Hong Kong dollars, they don't have much money because of the high prices in Hong Kong and their frequent travels.

Every penny they spend in the mainland is planned in advance.

If the accommodation fee increases here, what about other places?

As a result, there was no way. Even though it was the first day of the Lunar New Year and the temperature was only 5 degrees below zero, they had to wear down jackets and thick cotton-padded jackets, and more than a dozen people squeezed into the corner of the wall outside the hotel for a night. As soon as it dawned the next day, they ran away quickly.

Chen Fan deliberated for two seconds, then knew that now was the cheapest time for antiques ever, and from now on.

In the Republican period, a Qianlong plum vase cost thousands of silver dollars, really not as cheap as now.

So, once you pass this street, you won't find this shop!

He immediately slapped Zhou Yali on the shoulder and said seriously, "Don't miss it when you pass by, buy it!"

Zhou Yali blinked, "How do we buy it?"

Chen Fan turned his head and looked around. The items in the store were mainly porcelain, which accounted for almost half of them, and the rest were basically miscellaneous items.

Ancient coins, jade, calligraphy and painting, pottery, bronze, and other miscellaneous items.

"Yes, antique shops also have calligraphy and paintings, but they are different from Rongbaozhai. Rongbaozhai mainly deals in modern calligraphy and paintings, and its products are mainly writing brushes, ink sticks, paper, and inkstones, supplemented by other antique items. The calligraphy and paintings in antique shops are basically ancient paintings."

After looking around, Chen Fan quickly made a decision.

He ignored the folk kilns and slowly walked past the other counters, while saying to the saleswoman from the beginning, "This one, this one, this one, this one... please pick them out for me."

After picking out a dozen items, Chen Fan pointed around again, "I don't want these. I want all the rest."

The five salespersons in the shop were all stunned and stared blankly at him.

The old comrade was, after all, an old comrade, and reacted first, staring at him and asking, "You mean, you want all of them?"

Chen Fan rubbed his hands and said with a smile, "I don't want the pile of folk kilns, and I don't want the dozen or so items that were picked out. I want all the rest. Please calculate how much it will cost."

The old comrade gasped, pinched his chin, and said, "Little comrade, are you kidding me?"

Chen Fan turned to look at Zhou Yali, "How much money did you bring?"

Zhou Yali didn't even need to count, and said seriously, "I have one hundred thousand US dollars here, and my dad has another fifty thousand. Is that enough?"

As she spoke, she took out her wallet from her bag and pulled out a thick stack of traveler's checks.

Chen Fan looked at the old comrade, "One hundred and fifty thousand US dollars, is that enough?"

The old comrade looked at the familiar traveler's checks, and his heart trembled.

He could be considered to have seen the world. When foreign leaders came to visit, some people would take out tens of thousands of US dollars to sweep the goods.

But one hundred and fifty thousand US dollars?

This wasn't a question of whether there was enough money, but that there weren't enough goods in the store.

After taking a few breaths, he finally recovered and quickly said, "Please wait a moment, I'll ask the manager to come out."

After a while, the store manager walked out quickly. After asking again about buying so many antiques and confirming that the guest really had the money to pay, he didn't say a word and greeted the five people in the store to start counting.

In fact, it was easy to calculate. The items in the store all had a list, with records of how much came in and how much went out each time. All that was needed was to remove the items that Chen Fan didn't want and calculate the rest.

Two people counted, two people calculated on the abacus, and one person kept records.

In less than an hour, all the items were inventoried.

The manager sent the copied list of items to Chen Fan, "Comrade, please take a look. There are a total of 578 antiques here, including 298 pieces of porcelain, 62 pieces of pottery, 27 paintings and calligraphy, 60 pieces of jade, and 131 pieces of other miscellaneous items such as ancient coins and bronzes.

The prices of these items vary, with the most expensive being a painting scroll from the Ming Dynasty, worth 2,600 yuan, and the cheapest ancient coins, costing only two yuan each. Of course, there are also rare items, costing hundreds of yuan.

The total value of 578 items is 138,720 yuan, and the current exchange rate to the US dollar is 1.5771, so the total is 87,958.9 US dollars."

Zhou Yali muttered softly beside him, "Less than 88,000 US dollars to buy so many antiques, it seems quite cost-effective."

Liu Juan and Ma Lan, on the other hand, had blank stares and blank minds.

In just a little while, tens of thousands of dollars had been spent?

After the manager finished speaking, he handed the list to Chen Fan, "Please count them yourself."

Chen Fan was not careless either, holding the list in his hand and counting the sorted items.

In less than a quarter of an hour, he turned around and smiled, "Not bad, not a single mistake."

It must be said that it was indeed an antique shop, and the variety was indeed complete.

Although there were no national treasure-level treasures here, the coverage was wide enough, from the Three Kingdoms period to the modern Republic of China, which was perfect for people like Chen Fan who needed research and collection.

As for the fact that any item here in the future would be priced in "tens of thousands", Chen Fan didn't care much.

He didn't plan to sell them for small money... cough cough, although it was also quite cool to look at things worth billions, they couldn't be used as money, so it was good to just collect them and look at them.

These young people were busy packing the items. Waste newspapers, straw stalks, and other anti-collision materials were readily available, and it was more convenient to put them all in a large box than to pack them separately.

Chen Fan was sitting next to them, chatting with the manager.

The manager asked curiously, "Are you buying so many cultural relics to take back to the United States?"

Zhou Yali waved her hand and said seriously, "Ah, yes, to take back."

Chen Fan smiled silently on the side. His little cousin was not bad, she knew how to say polite things.

He couldn't take them away, nor would he take them away. He would put them in the basement when he got back, and when the attic was set up with antique shelves, he would put them all on display.

Then he would buy a few more times, collect things from the past five thousand years, arrange them in chronological order, and it would be quite cool to look at.

We don't compare collections with people like Ma or Wang, there's no need for that, we just collect them for fun.

When the Ningjun Prince's Mansion is renovated in the future, we'll put them all there, and that'll be about it.

After chatting with Zhou Yali for a few words and satisfying a little curiosity, the manager asked Chen Fan again, "Comrade, I can understand why you don't want the folk kilns. There are very few fine products in the folk kilns, and the store doesn't have them for the time being. Everyone wants fine products when it comes to antiques, but..."

He pointed to the dozen or so items that Chen Fan had picked out and asked in confusion, "Why don't you want those?"

Chen Fan glanced at it and smiled, "Oh, there are a few duplicates, too similar, and the quality is slightly inferior, so I don't want them. As for the three pieces placed separately in the corner."

He smiled meaningfully, "I can't see them clearly, so I don't want them."

As for the folk kilns, there are indeed many valuable and fine products. The price of some folk kiln porcelain is even higher than that of the official kilns. It's like Gu Jingzhou's Zisha teapot, it depends on which master made it.

Unfortunately, there weren't any here, otherwise he wouldn't have left them all behind.

Can't see them clearly?

The manager's expression changed immediately when he heard this, and he took a deep look at Chen Fan. His interest in talking was instantly gone, and he immediately waved to the old comrade, walked over, and picked up the porcelain vase to look at it.

The two of them discussed something in a low voice while looking at the three porcelain vases.

Chen Fan sat aside, drinking the tea that the manager had asked someone to make, and waited quietly for them to pack the boxes.

After a long while, the manager came over, but didn't mention the three porcelain vases, only said with a smile, "Comrade, you have good eyes. May I ask which unit you work for?"

Chen Fan smiled, "Jiangnan Provincial Writers Association."

The manager was slightly stunned, the Jiangnan Provincial Writers Association?

Looking at his appearance of about twenty years old, he couldn't help but frown and think.

He suddenly thought of a piece of news he had heard a few days ago and immediately asked in a low voice, "Are you Chen Fan?"

Chen Fan smiled and nodded lightly, "You flatter me, I am indeed."

Verifying the guess in his mind, the manager couldn't help but let out a long breath and said with emotion, "So it really is Writer Chen. I heard a few old friends talk about how Writer Chen apprenticed to Mr. Xu to study history and literature, and then first studied the appraisal of cultural relics at the Jiangnan Provincial Museum. A few days ago, he went to the National Museum, and in just two days, he mastered the treasures in the museum.

I originally thought they were exaggerating too much, but after seeing you today, I know that what they said is true. Seeing is believing!"

After re-acquainting himself, the manager became three points more enthusiastic and took the initiative to talk about many gossips in the Beijing antique circle, which were not easily known to outsiders.

After chatting for a long time, after all the items were packed and boxed, the manager arranged for a truck to deliver the goods before saying goodbye to Chen Fan and the others, watching the two cars leave one after the other.