Starting My Treasure Hunting In England

This time Liang En and the others found a total of seventeen oil paintings, eleven of which were from the works of well-known Eastern European writers such as the Hungarian oil painter Munchakz or the Czech expressionist painter Bohumil Kubista.

The most famous among them should be two prints from Mucha, but considering that Liang En owns a large number of Mucha's works and has mastered the artistic level of this art master, it is not too shocking to him.

. As for the other six oil paintings, in addition to three oil paintings by Van Gogh, there is also an oil painting by Rembrandt, an oil painting by Monet and a traditional Chinese painting by Qi Baishi of China.

"How come there are Chinese paintings here?" Looking at the lifelike ink shrimps on the painting in front of her, Jeanne asked with some confusion.

Because traditional Chinese paintings became famous in the international market only after the mid-1990s, and before that, Europeans did not value these Far Eastern artworks.

In fact, Westerners are very realist. Except for the artistic works of their own country, they are not very interested in the artworks of non-native civilizations.

Therefore, the prices of non-Western artworks in the international market are often directly linked to the country's economic conditions. The other party's raising the prices of those works is not because of appreciation of these arts, but purely to make money.

For example, with the development of China's economy and the recovery of Russia's economy, Chinese and Russian artworks have gradually been fetched sky-high prices. However, a few decades ago, these items may have only been a few tenths of their current prices.

So it is a bit strange to find a traditional Chinese painting from China in a bank safe from more than half a century ago, because it was not popular at that time.

"I think this should be understandable." After hearing Joan's question, Liang En thought for a few seconds and then gave his own answer. "

After all, there will always be people who are interested in foreign cultures, and Qi Baishi was a famous commercial painter back then, so it would not be difficult to buy such a Chinese painting as long as the owner of the painting was willing to pay. "

"As for the other party's choice of Qi Baishi's works, it was very simple. After all, Qi was one of the most famous Chinese painting masters in China at that time, so it was easy to attract people who didn't know anything about this aspect to buy paintings from him."

Therefore, there are now many Qi Baishi's works in Europe and the United States, so it is not surprising that Liang En can find his works this time.

Especially when Qi Baishi was alive, the Czech painter Chitil, who was a diplomat stationed in China, worked part-time as a teacher at the BJ Art College and got to know him, and even took his paintings to exhibitions in Europe.

In other words, the first stop for Qi Baishi's paintings to enter Europe was Czechoslovakia. Therefore, it is not surprising to find Qi Baishi's paintings in the Legion Bank in Czechoslovakia.

"This painting can probably be sold for 300,000 to 400,000 euros in China." After careful inspection, Liang En found that the artistic level of this painting was indeed not low.

The only problem is that this painting is a standard commercial work, so the price is always a little lower than some high-quality works. After all, there is still some difference between real high-quality art and mass-produced commercial works.

After checking the paintings, it was lunch time. Because there were a lot of people here these days, the Bundeswehr simply drove a dining truck up. Lunch was much better than the convenience food eaten a few days ago.

For example, today's lunch is stewed pork knuckle with sauerkraut. Although eating it with sauerkraut is a bit greasy, eating this in the mountains in winter will warm you up quickly.

"Wipe your mouth." When everyone had almost eaten, Liang En took out a handkerchief and handed it to Joan. Joan had eaten a lot today. For someone with a lot of activity like her, if I can't survive without eating enough.

"Thank you." Joan took the handkerchief, wiped her mouth, and stuffed it into her pocket. Just as she was about to say something, she saw Fan Meng walking over with a large leather gun holster.

"Liang, look what this is?" Fan Meng opened the holster as he spoke, then held the barrel of the gun and handed the entire holster over.

At this time, Liang En discovered that this gun was different from the current holster. There was a triangular wooden board on one side of the leather holster, which looked like the butt of a rifle.

"Ruger P08 pistol?" After holding the handle and pulling out the pistol, Liang En pulled the bolt to make sure it was safe and said, "No, this is not an ordinary Ruger pistol."

The Ruger pistol basically became synonymous with German pistols in World War II. Although this type of pistol had been withdrawn from the front line due to the cumbersome production and maintenance difficulties at that time, everyone in the Allied forces at that time hoped to obtain such a pistol.

This phenomenon has also been presented in various literary, film and television works in later generations. For example, when the 101st Airborne Division attacked a German 105 howitzer position in the American TV series Brothers, the soldier Malachi rushed into the hail of bullets with a pistol, and ended up picking up the gun. But it's just a pistol-shaped pneumatic horn.

What was even worse was that another soldier, Huber, luckily picked up a Ruger. He liked the gun so much that he kept it in his pants pocket. The Ruger later went off, severing his femoral artery and killing him.

Although this is the content of a TV series, it actually happened in real history. Even a Ruger pistol in poor condition in the United States can now be sold for tens of thousands of dollars.

As for the pistol with a long barrel and a scale on the barrel in Liang En's hand, it is a famous artillery type pistol. It was produced during World War I. The output was about 20,000 pieces, which is considered among the mass-produced Luger pistols. Treasure.

This gun can actually be regarded as the predecessor of today's PDW (Personal Defense Weapon). When the Ruger P08 first became the standard equipment of the German Army, the Germans began to think about how to arm these artillery.

The problem of heavy artillery troops is easy to solve. After all, they will not be close to the front line and do not need large-scale battlefield maneuvers, so it is enough to carry short rifles. When the artillery is working, they can put the guns aside and fire lightly.

But field artillery cannot do this. Their small and medium-caliber artillery has a short range and focuses on direct fire. Therefore, this group of artillery is deployed on the front line with the infantry, so they must bring firearms for self-defense.

The standard Ruger P08 pistol only has a 100mm barrel and its range is too short. It is generally only suitable for officers to shoot people or pretend to be X. But carrying short rifles is a hindrance to the artillery, so they are usually piled on the side.

But the problem is that before entering trench warfare, field artillery can easily encounter enemy cavalry head-on. It is unrealistic to grab the short rifles piled on the side when the cavalry rushes over.

To give the simplest example, when a group of British troops raided the German camp at the beginning of the movie War Horse, the Germans had no time to grab their rifles from the side and fight back.

So the Germans began to wonder whether they should get a lightweight weapon that was between a pistol and a short rifle, but could be carried with them, had a stock, and could shoot at least 100 meters.

So Ruger shortened the barrel of the original civilian Ruger carbine pistol to 200mm and named it Lange Pistole 08 (or LP08), and threw it to the light field artillery, which is what Liang En is holding. This one.

As a result, the First World War turned into trench warfare, and artillerymen were often killed by enemy artillery. These pistols were ultimately useless.

However, the subsequent trench warfare caused everyone a headache, so starting in 1915, the Germans began to tentatively invest in the elite breach force of stormtroopers.

This kind of troops that rush into trenches and fight at close range especially need automatic loading weapons, and then a lot of artillery Ruger was requisitioned by the Storm Commandos.

By 1916, the Stormtroopers felt that the Ruger's 8-round magazine was too few, so they asked the military to prepare a 32-round snail-shaped drum magazine. But after the fully automatic MP18 submachine gun came out in 1918, the artillery Ruger also ceased production, and the snail-shaped drum was inherited by the MP18.

On the other hand, the Ruger artillery was also equipped with the Air Force in the early days. After all, when the First World War started, everyone didn’t know how to fight in the air. It was normal to use various weapons, such as pistols. Historically, bricks and darts were really used. The boss.

But after the machine guns came to the sky, they quickly fell out of favor. However, after such a torment, not many Ruger artillery pistols were left, and today they are all treasures.

Therefore, a pistol like the one in Liang En's hand with a complete set of accessories is expensive. More importantly, because of its rarity, there is almost no market for it. Therefore, he plans to keep this pistol for collection and does not intend to exchange it for banknotes.