Wu Tianyuan was stunned for a moment and asked, "Private museum?" ”

"No, public museums!" Tagil proudly said: "A public museum of national level!" ”

Wu Tianyuan was a little surprised and said: "Can the public also buy it?" ”

"Haha, you're out!" Tagil laughed, and finally had a chance to hit Wu Tianyuan and said, "Why can't you?" It seems that you don't know much about the operation model of foreign museums, right? ”

"You know there are a lot of museums in the United States and the United Kingdom, like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum. In the United States, there are thousands of museums of all sizes, and not all of these museums belong to the state, and a large part of them are private museums or joint-stock museums. ”

"There are so many museums, of course, you need excellent exhibits, but there are so many good antiques, and if you buy them all for money, it is obviously not realistic, so the antique broker industry was born," Tagil explained. ”

Wu Tianyuan suddenly understood that unlike those museums in China, because most museums in China are public and are national property, the state will allocate funds every year to the staff of the museum as salaries and funds for the maintenance and operation of the museum.

"Museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenkhan Museum, and the Whitney Museum in New York may seem like a big one, but most of them are the private property of the rich. Even if some are state-owned, the state only owns a portion of the shares in these museums. ”

"Most of the other shares belong to the wealthy people, and they have to take into account the operational issues. Therefore, most foreign museums, in addition to collecting and maintaining those historical objects, also have to consider a very important question, that is, how to survive? ”

"And they make a profit, basically there are several ways, part of it is through donations from wealthy people who love this kind of thing, part of it is through tickets, or selling some souvenirs to tourists, and the last part is through auctions."

Wu Tianyuan suddenly realized that basically every year, these museums will eliminate some collections and replace them with new collections, so as to attract tourists and enthusiasts to spend money to enter to watch. Sometimes they swap exhibitions with other museums, or they regularly exchange exhibitions on each other's venues, which is why they are willing to cooperate with the Celestial Edge Museum!

More often than not, they simply choose to auction off a portion of the collection to keep the museum afloat. This frequency will be one or two years. Sometimes, in order to attract more people to spend money to buy tickets to come in and watch, the frequency of their change of collection will be faster, basically once a year.

Especially for those big museums, in addition to some treasures of the town, some other low-end antiques are almost all allowed to circulate. They even organize auctions in their own pavilions every year.

After listening to Tagil's explanation, Wu Tianyuan suddenly brightened, as if opening a new door, and said excitedly: "That is to say, as long as you have enough money, you can buy treasures from public museums?" ”

"Theoretically, yes!" Tagil nodded and said, "But the actual operation is very complicated, and the first requires a huge amount of money, which is the most basic requirement. The second is to have connections, which is even more important! You must know that the people who can own public museums are all top rich people, and even the heirs of hidden families, and the last thing they lack is money! ”

Wu Tianyuan nodded, needless to say, the last time he used Napoleon III's love letter to blackmail back the head of the sheep, a living example. It seems that you still have to have important bargaining chips in your hands, or a strong background, to be qualified to negotiate with others.

Tagil suddenly said mysteriously: "There are a lot of channels for them to buy new collections, and in order to maintain their profits, these museums can't go to those big auctions every year, go to the auction hall and fight those rich people." ”

"So sometimes they send some people out to collect scrapes, and even they will use some shady means to get some collections. For example, a few years ago, there was a lot of trouble, the Iraqi cultural relics incident. In fact, those museums must not have imagined that the U.S. government would take these things seriously, so they would buy those Iraqi objects from American GIs or contractors. ”

"If they had known that the U.S. government was going to elevate this matter to a level of government and principle, I'm afraid they wouldn't have made such a blatant takeover." It is precisely because of the behavior of these museums that such a group of thieves or brokers who specialize in working for them were born in the antique market. ”

Wu Tianyuan suddenly remembered the black fox, he is an international thief, a real master in the industry, it seems that he really wants to talk about it when he has time, and find an opportunity to cooperate more.

"It's usually that museums know that there are people who have some really nice antiques and they don't have any background. Then they will first send someone to the door to test it, willing to offer a price higher than the ordinary price, but definitely much lower than the auction price, to buy the treasure in the man's hand. ”

But if the man did not agree with their offer, they would not force it, but in a few days some thieves would visit the man's house. If you're lucky. They may only steal and not hurt anyone, but if you're unlucky, they'll kill your family while stealing something. ”

"Then your stuff will be sold by the thieves at the price agreed with the museum, and it will lie in the basement of the museum for a few years. Maybe in a few years, somewhere, somewhere else, at an unknown small auction, it will be bought by the staff of the big museums at a low price, and then it will be openly exhibited by them. ”

"What if someone finds out and sues them?"

Tagil smiled slightly, took a sip of wine and said: "The legal department of these museums is not a vegetarian, they will fight a lawsuit with you for five or seven years, and finally settle with you at a low price, but that thing, you definitely don't want to go back!" ”

Wu Tianyuan understands the unspoken rules of museums, and many museums in the United States have the largest collection of Chinese treasures. And most of these things were obtained by them through cheating and abduction. Some of them were taken from China by the British and the Eight-Nation Alliance, and later they had to take loans from the United States in World War II, and then they were taken to the United States to mortgage them to those banks, and then the British never wanted to go back. ”

"There are also some in the twenties of the last century, those American robbers at that time, in the name of archaeology, went to China to collect and scrape. Back then, in China, they played this game, specially buying some traitors and scum, stealing, robbing, and even robbing tombs, and then buying these things from those people at a low price and shipping them back to the United States. For example, Lu Qinzhai is the biggest smuggler of cultural relics. ”

"Okay, since you're all playing like this? Then you're welcome! ”

Wu Tianyuan was relaxed for a while, and today he nakedly tore open the ugly mask of the original public museum, it seems that Lao Tzu I use high imitation to deceive people or do I have high-tech and high-grade means?

He let go of all the guilt at once, and a lot of plans came out, and he wouldn't do it, but he could still drip with a little means!

"It was through the relationship of a big family in Italy that I spent 80 million US dollars to buy the entire armor museum, and it will be handed over next month, and then my cold weapon collection will be upgraded to a new level!"

Looking at Tagil's smug appearance, Wu Tianyuan remembered that there are thousands of private museums in Japan and the United Kingdom, and as long as there is money, they are all targets that can be acquired. However, now that there are more than 2 billion in hand, it is not enough to see at all, it seems that it is still necessary to make money before there is ammunition to destroy the enemy!