Starting My Treasure Hunting In England

"Why do you have a lot of boxes related to Freemasonry here?" Obviously, the stall owner knew what he was selling, so Liang En simply stepped forward and asked directly.

"This is what I found when I was cleaning out the attic left by my grandfather." Hearing Liang En's inquiry, the young stall owner who looked honest looked at them and said, "It was only later that I found out about this and Freemasonry related.”

"Oh, that's it." Liang En nodded. Of course, he believed at most 1/10 of what the stall owner said. After all, antique dealers all over the world are good at deceiving people in this regard.

The reason why I believe 1/10 instead of not believing everything is because Liang En just observed the box and found that except that the material of the box is indeed Xibei goods, the overall structure does look exquisite enough.

This kind of exquisiteness is not just about the workmanship, but also the overall design. The most special thing is that the Masonic pattern on this box looks very harmonious with the box as a whole, and it doesn't feel like it's just imposed on an empty box.

In other words, there is either a master craftsman or an original prototype behind this thing. Otherwise it would be impossible to have such a harmonious box in appearance.

Compared to a master craftsman, Liang En felt that the other person should have an original model. Because if there was a master craftsman, then this place wouldn't be filled with boxes of all sizes.

Thinking of this, Liang En immediately checked the stall. After using a [Detection (N)] card, he quickly followed the white light and focused his attention on a dusty box.

The appearance of this box is not much different from other boxes. It is made entirely of lead, with just a layer of gold plating on the outside. And because someone might be using a knife to scrape off the gold, it looks mottled and unremarkable.

It is precisely because of this feature that the owner of this pile of boxes placed this box in the corner of the stall. It doesn't look like he attaches much importance to this box.

This is good news for Liang En. It shows that the owner of the stall does not have the ability to distinguish these antiques at all, and naturally he may sell some truly valuable things.

Thinking of this, Liang En pretended to look around the stall, then pointed to the lead box and said. "Your box is quite beautiful, but why did you scrape off the gold plating on it?"

"Well, I did this when I was a kid." The stall owner in his twenties scratched his hair and said with some embarrassment, "I wanted to scrape off the gold on it, but my father was raped because of it. Beat him up."

"Haha, everyone has done some things that make people laugh or cry when they were young." Liang En smiled, then picked up the lead box, "This box of yours shouldn't be expensive, right?"

"You can take the 30 pounds. After all, this is a box I had when I was a child. Maybe it is really related to Freemasonry." The stall owner said after thinking for a while. Generally, things sold in the UK are clearly priced, and there is no bargaining.

But this flea market is an exception. So after bargaining several times, Liang En bought the lead box for 25 pounds.

"Is this a treasure?" Fan Meng asked softly in Chinese after the two people left the stall. Because in his impression, Liang En would find something valuable every time he made a move.

"It's hard to say, but I think this box should not be a simple imitation." Liang En said and opened the box, only to see that there was nothing inside.

Thinking about it, if there was really something in the box, the seller would have discovered it long ago, and it would not be Liang En's turn to buy the box at such a cheap price.

But when the two men went to a deserted place and carefully examined the box, they made a new discovery.

"Do you think the bottom of this box is a bit thick?" After touching it with his fingers several times, Liang En turned to Fan Meng and asked.

"Let me see." After hearing this, Fan Meng took the box and touched it with his hands, but because his hands were rough, he didn't feel much wrong.

"I think this box is relatively normal. After all, these metal boxes are basically thicker at the bottom. Do you feel wrong?" After touching it for a long time, Fan Meng returned the box and said helplessly.

"I absolutely cannot feel wrong. The bottom of this box is indeed thicker than a normal box." Liang En shook his head and said, "And more importantly, the bottom of the box is actually welded."

"What's wrong with the welding?" Fan Meng continued to look at Liang En with confused eyes. He didn't know why Liang En was so interested in the processing method of this box.

"This box is only as big as a palm. Normal people should use casting as the easiest way." Liang En opened the lid of the box and pointed to the welding marks on the bottom of the box.

"What's even weirder is that the other party also specially polished the welds to disguise the thing as if it was cast. If there is no secret hidden, there is no need for normal people to do this."

After putting away the box, Liang En and the others continued to wander around the small flea market. It's a pity that there really isn't much worth their money in today's market, so they just left the market with this lead box.

However, they found a lot of things worth buying in markets other than the flea market. Because what is sold in this market is mainly a variety of unique snacks, and they come from various countries.

Except for a few items whose ingredients were basically unclear, Liang En and the others tasted more than ten kinds of barbecue. Even though they only ate a little bit of each of these barbecues, the total amount was not small. .

After eating and drinking enough, Liang En and the others went directly to Pierce's shop, and then started to disassemble the lead box that didn't look very special with the help of the tools left in his warehouse.

Compared with steel or even copper, this kind of box made of lead is obviously much easier to disassemble. So using a chisel, a saw, a hammer and pliers, Liang En quickly removed the bottom of the box.

"Look, the bottom of this box is really not normal. The other party used two pieces of lead and stacked them together." Liang En said to Fan Meng and Pierce, who came to watch the excitement, and at the same time opened the two pieces because they were stuck together. Lead pieces that stick if left too long.

"There are words and patterns here." After Liang En cleaned off the rust on the surface of the lead sheet, Fan Meng saw at a glance that there were a series of patterns and words carved on the lead sheet.

"This seems to be a map." As Liang En gradually cleaned up, more and more patterns were revealed. Soon Pierce realized that the pattern of circles within the lead looked like a map.

"If it's a map, this map shouldn't have a long history." After taking a rough look, Liang En shook his head and said.

"After all, this kind of contour map only appeared in the 18th century, and its large-scale application did not even become popular until the 19th century. In other words, this map has a history of only more than two hundred years at most."