threats, said nothing. Glances exchanged. Despairingly I decided to help.
“There was a silver Taureg ring I could have got for a couple of quid,” I said. It’s hard to suppress enthusiasm. I found myself rattling on, smiling at the memory. “An original Waterman fountain pen, the very first sort—the bloke would have let us have it for a go on the rifles. A pair of silver-and-glass cosmetic powder cylinders, late Victorian. They come in pairs, one for powdering each glove, see? And…”
Sidoli raised a hand. “Shtope, Loof-yoy.” Lovejoy stopped.
In the painful silence that ensued we were all thinking, some of us thoughts quite different from the rest. Everybody shuffled, eyes avoiding mine. Except for that level pair belonging to Joan.
“How many items could you’ve made something on, Lovejoy?” Dan said eventually. The assembled company leaned forward.
“Sooner or later? Ten. Three, if you mean at the next reasonable-sized town.” I spend my life being ashamed of myself. It’s another of my unpaid full-time jobs.
Sidoli gave a low moan. Calamity Sadie uttered one grievous sob. The rest exhaled despair and gin fumes.
Francie spoke to the row of somber faces. I swear three of them were in surgical shock.
She said quietly, “I told you he was honest, even if he is stupid. You wouldn’t listen.”
“Here,” I began indignantly, but Sidoli’s hand lifted to shtope me.
Big Chas had cheered up. “So we must hymns of welcome sing in strains of holy joy.”
“Are you sure that’s right?” I asked Chas. “Isn’t it: And we…?”
Big Chas frowned. “You sure, Lovejoy? It’s the Instantis adventum Deum, isn’t it, where—”
“Ask Ern,” I said helpfully. “It’s Hymns Ancient and Modern.”
“He’s off his frigging head,” Sidoli screamed. “Right! That does it! Francie, you pick a helper to put up the money and rig a punter system.”
Francie examined the faces. “Big Chas,” she decided.
“No,” Sidoli ruled. “Enough hymns in this fairground.” Eeen eess foyergron.
“I will,” Joan said quietly. Her first words all that session. Maybe all year.
“Right,” Sidoli said brokenly. He had his face in his hands. “Now get him out.” Dan jerked his head. I left.
Within half an hour the new system was operating perfectly. By that is meant that the poor public were being robbed blind. Situation normal.
In case you ever take your Sheraton cabinet to one, here are the hallmarks of the Great Antique Road Show Con Trick:
You are put into a queue and given a number (“to make sure of your place…”). The
“expert” values your great-granddad’s Crimean War medals, and off you go. Maybe he’ll even scribble the valuation on your number. As you leave, you’ll be approached by somebody apparently from the public—in the queue, just arriving, just leaving—who will say that his uncle/brother/auntie/granddad just happens to collect medals. And he’ll offer you about a quarter of the valuation marked on your number. “Good heavens,”
you cry, recoiling. “Certainly not! They’re worth four times that!” With great reluctance, the chap ups his offer, and finally, in considerable distress, offers you the sum named by the expert. You’d be a fool to refuse, right? Because the great London expert’s just valued them, right? So you sell your granddad’s medals and go on your way rejoicing with the gelt.
And the passerby takes the medals, grinning all over his crooked face. Why the grin?
Because he’s the so-called expert’s partner. The “expert” of course grossly undervalued your medals. To make it worth their while, the average markdown (i.e., underestimate) must be what crooks call “thirties.” That is, they’ll never pay more than thirty percent of the current auctionable value, not for anything. Anything higher than that is going dangerously close to a fair market price, you see.
Francie used Betty, in a little colored stumper’s booth, to give out the numbered tickets.
She herself scraped the punters, as the saying is, with two youngsters hastily borrowed from the electric generators. Joan, as she’d promised, put up the money, silently fetching the bundle of notes from her caravan in a grocery basket. She gave me her transfixing stare from those opal-gray eyes, and returned to her Devil Riding. I said thank you, nodded to Betty on her perch, and we were off.
Some things ruin pride. I told myself this crookery was all in a good cause, the preservation of Lovejoy Antiques, Inc. That and safely heading north to meet Shona McGunn. But I didn’t feel pleased with myself and my progress any more. Like I said not long since, everybody lusts. I only wish we knew what for.
« ^ »
—— 8 ——
I’m not the only fraud in and around antiques. Look at names, for instance.
“Dresden china” is really a descriptive term. The truth is there never was a porcelain factory at Dresden. The famed Royal Saxony porcelain factory started in 1709 was a distance away, at Meissen. The patron was King Augustus the Strong, whose domain took in Poland and Saxony, which is why the so-called “Dresden” mark is actually his AR
Augustus Rex monogram. There’s a further truth, too: They weren’t up to much at the beginning, mostly copying styles and adopting colors from the more sophisticated Chinese. This is why the early stuff looks eastern— robes on the figures, stiff-looking mandarins and clumsy attendants. Artistically they’re dud, not a patch on the later stuff.
But it goes big among collectors and dealers because it’s rare. The modern dementia for rarity’s a pathetic revelation of how little we know. I mean, this pen’s rare because I made it myself from hawthorn, not another like it
