7 p.m., 7th arrondissement, Hôtel Saint-Germain (hoTeLsaIn**eRmaIn).

Xiao Yifei walked down from the taxi slowly, and when he saw the name of the hotel, he knew that it was probably driven by a German, and Nagao chose to hold an auction here to take care of his fellow countrymen. The warm-up auction was small, with more than 50 chairs and a few telephone commissioning seats next to it. Xiao Yifei pinched the time to come, and there were already seven seven or eight people sitting in the venue. A glance at it showed that there were several Chinese faces inside.

Under the leadership of the receptionist, Xiao Yi flew to his seat. Leonard was so face-saving that he actually got him a front-row position, although it was not in the middle, but it was a good position.

Xiao Yifei looked around boredly, the last time he patronized the consignment that he was nervous about, and now it was the first time he participated in the auction seriously.

Leonard didn't know what was coming over:

"Hey, aren't you busy?"

"No, I'll just take a look."

Yes, this is the overseer, who watches over the work of his subordinates. When the auction began, Leonard did not come to the stage, but another Nagao management made a nonsense speech.

Xiao Yifei was not very interested in these Western artworks at the beginning, the author of these paintings was a person whose name Xiao Yifei had never stopped, and Xiao Yifei tried to cite them once or twice before giving up.

Seeing that Xiao Yifei had no intention of buying these Western artworks, Leonard took the initiative to chat with Xiao Yifei:

"Xiao, I don't know if you've heard about it."

"What did you hear?"

"It's the beast head of the Old Summer Palace."

"The two that Christie's was mixed up in February?"

Everyone knows the whole thing, in October last year, Christie's announced that it was about to auction the twelve beast heads of the rat and the rabbit, and after the domestic auction to prevent the auction failed, Mr. Cai came to the auction and did not pay the bill.

"Yes, now the client and Christie's are really inseparable, and Pierre even threatens to take it to court."

"Didn't it get mixed up in February, why did it start now?"

For a layman and VIP like Xiao Yifei, Leonard still patiently explained:

"There is a legal problem behind this question, which is the transfer of ownership of the lot, which is simply when the lot will be returned to the buyer. The auction law and property law of various countries have provisions in this regard, such as the United Kingdom, that is, when the auctioneer strikes the auction hammer, the lot belongs to the buyer, and then the auction house and the buyer are in debt, that is, the buyer owes the auction house the auction money, but the lot is already owned by the buyer, and it is only mortgaged as a debt in the auction house. However, some countries, such as Germany, stipulate that the ownership of the lot will be transferred after the payment is completed, that is, when the auctioneer's auction hammer is struck, there is a transaction relationship between the auction house and the buyer, that is, the buyer and the auction house have reached a transaction agreement, and the two only agree to complete the transaction with a fixed auction price, and the ownership of the lot is still in the hands of the original owner. ”

Xiao Yifei never knew that there was such a thing behind the auction before, in his opinion, the auction is not just the buyer holding up the card and the auctioneer knocking on the auction hammer.

"If the law is like the law in the UK, if the buyer does not pay, but the ownership of the lot has been transferred to the buyer, it is equivalent to the buyer mortgaging the debt of the lot to the auction house, so the auction house must always recover the auction money, and the auction result cannot be easily canceled. Your compatriot, Mr. Cai, was chased by Christie's for more than a year before paying off the auction price. ”

"If the law is like the law in Germany, when the auction hammer is struck, the two parties have reached a transaction agreement, so although your compatriots said that they will not pay at the beginning of March, the auction house must wait for a period of time to confirm that the money has not been received to confirm that the buyer will not pay, especially this kind of auction of tens of millions, it takes time for the buyer to raise funds, so after the auction, the two parties will generally negotiate the payment time and re-sign a specific contract. In addition, this kind of cross-border transaction also involves the issue of customs exit and entry, and the procedures may be delayed for a long time. If the auction house hastily determines that the transaction has failed and cancels the transaction between the two parties, it will have to pay huge damages in case the defendant goes to court. ”

"This waiting time is generally three months to six months. The auction house can only declare the transaction collapsed if it is sure that it has not received a single transaction payment. At this time, the auction house has many ways, for example, he can sue the buyer to recover the payment, but the auction house will usually choose to contact the buyer with the second highest bid to see if he is willing to buy the lot with his own bid. If the second buyer is unwilling, then the auction house can only negotiate with the seller to compensate the deposit and return the lot. ”

Since Leonard said just now that the seller of the beast's head and the auction house had a quarrel, it must be that the second-highest buyer is not willing to buy it, and the seller does not accept the way to return the lot.

"What if the buyer doesn't accept the return?"

"There is also the option of the auction house to buy the lot at the reserve price. However, this reserve price is generally lower than the advertised valuation. ”

Xiao Yifei did discover this problem, he did not pay attention to the first auction of gold coins, and later when auctioning the clocks, he found that the estimated price told by the appraiser during the appraisal was different from the price on the auction agreement signed, and the estimated price announced was significantly greater than the price on the agreement during the preview and publicity. And the greater the value of the lot, the greater the difference between the two estimates. At the time, he thought that everyone was exaggerating, but now that he knows, he must have been told the reserve price, and the estimate announced to the public is the estimated transaction price.

"Is this reserve price an auction to deal with this situation?"

The old man shook his head slightly:

"It's not. To be honest, this kind of auction without payment is rarely encountered now, and most of the encounters are unsuccessful auctions caused by no one responding to the price. This low reserve price is not only for the purpose of dealing with the unsuccessful auction, because the unsold contract stipulates that if the transaction price is lower than the reserve price, the transaction will not be established. In addition, when the auction house returns the lot, it will also compensate a certain amount of security deposit according to the reserve price. Therefore, the lower the reserve price, the greater the probability of the sale, and even if the auction fails, the smaller the compensation amount. ”

Unexpectedly, this auction allowed Xiao Yifei to learn so much about the things behind the auction, and Xiao Yifei felt that he had gained a lot. When he turned his head to stand in the stands, he just heard the auctioneer announce:

"Okay, there is no one to bid for Lot 110, I can only announce that the auction is lost, and now we will start the auction of Lot 111."

At this time, a beautiful woman walked up from the side with an antique Western sword in both hands, put the sword on the display case, and then walked to the backstage with the original pair of antique guns on the display case.

It turned out that Xiao Yifei missed a pair of 18th-century silver flintlock pistols, which were inlaid with intricate patterns made of gold wire, which were very exquisite at first glance. The auction house estimated it at more than 40,000 euros, and Xiao Yifei's intention was to take it for no more than 50,000 euros.

What should I do? I want to buy that gun, don't go.

Xiao Yifei was at a loss to hold up the sign and open his mouth to say something. The auctioneer above is also very confused, I have seen anxious buyers, but I have never seen the auctioneer raise a sign before introducing the lot and announcing the start of the auction. Fortunately, the Leonard auctioneer next to Xiao Yifei knew him, so he could only smile and say:

"It seems that this gentleman is very keen to get his hands on lot 111, so let's start with a ...... from the 17th century."

Leonard found that Xiao Yifei didn't seem to be looking at the Western sword, so he pulled Xiao Yifei:

"What's wrong?"

Xiao Yifei could only put down the sign, oh, by the way, this is the biggest official here, so he quickly said:

"I want to buy those antique guns, why don't you have him bring them up for a new auction?"

Leonard couldn't cry or laugh, how could this be served again after all the filming was lost.

"Shaw, do you really want them?"

"I originally planned to take them for no more than 50,000 yuan, but who knew that no one would ask for them."

Leonard smiled and said:

"Shaw, we can't put it up for auction again,

Slightly disappointed by Xiao Yifei, he continued:

"I might want to congratulate you, though."

Xiao Yifei was completely puzzled, he couldn't go back on stage, why did he congratulate me?

"Can you sell me Nagao for a reserve price?"

The old man shook his head:

"No, but we can let you have a private deal with the client."

"Privately negotiated?"

"There are two kinds of private purchases, one is what you did a few days ago, entrusting us to find collectors who have collections in their hands but are not willing to go to auction, and the two sides negotiate the deal privately. One is to give unsold items a second chance to trade. And this kind of transaction is generally half of the valuation, so I want to congratulate you. ”

Hey, that's the case, no wonder Leonard wants to congratulate him.

"Okay, wait a minute, you can help me talk to the buyer, the minimum estimate is not 40,000, I will pay 35,000 euros, except for the buyer, the rest is the commission, okay."

Leonard smiled and shook his head:

"You, such a cheap lot, do you think it can be sold for half of the estimate, forget it, just treat it as our company's help."

The auctioneer finally finished talking nonsense about the Western sword and announced that the auction had begun.

Since the auctioneer said so just now, Xiao Yifei also made a full set of face-saving acts, and directly began to raise his cards, and then increased the price twice before giving up.

"By the way, what are you telling me about the beast head of the Old Summer Palace?"

"Don't you want to buy something related to China, in addition to your Sotheby's Qianlong throne and Qianlong jade seal in the near future, this thing is the most valuable."

Khan, the more valuable the commission, you can calculate.

Soon it was the turn of the items related to China, and the first thing that came up was a jade bowl carved with large, thinly cut hollow peony flowers and leaves, and the pattern on the side of the mouth was also inlaid with two moving rings. The material is made of translucent blue and white jade, and the bottom of the bowl is marked by the seal of the Qianlong Emperor. Nagao is valued at €10 to €130,000.

As the auctioneer started, several Chinese began to raise their cards frequently, and soon the price soared to 200,000 euros. At this time, only the two Chinese in the field were left to compete.

A man with elegant eyes in the front left lightly held up the sign:

"230,000."

His competitor sat behind Xiao Yifei's side, a big fat man with a fat head and big ears, he held a fashionable beauty in one hand, a sign in the other, and held a sign indifferently:

"250,000."

The next price rose to 300,000 euros in the competition between the two.

Xiao Yifei shook his head, why bother, isn't this a waste of letting foreigners take advantage?