The next day, Stuttgart, Germany, Neckar Street, Nagau Auction House Headquarters. The front desk lady saw someone walk in and greeted her habitually in German: "Good morning, do you have an appointment?" ”

Xiao Yifei couldn't handle such complicated German, so he could only ask, "Do you know English?" ”

Thankfully, this is Germany, not France, and the front desk immediately asked in English.

"There is an appointment, I have an appointment with Marx of the numismatic stamp department at 10 o'clock."

"Okay, I'll let him know right away."

Nagel is not as well-known to ordinary people in Asia as Sosby or Christie's, but the auction house, founded in 1922, is one of the four largest auction houses in Germany. Its business is mainly concentrated in Europe, and it is also one of the well-known and established art auction companies in Europe.

Because its headquarters is in Stuttgart, it was selected by Xiao Yifei. Xiao Yifei finally decided to exchange it for "pocket money" is gold coins. Xiao Yifei believes that the things in the space are the easiest to forge the origin, and the least likely to make mistakes are gold coins. So he took some photos of the gold coins yesterday and sent them to the numismatic stamp department of the Nagao auction house.

After a while, a 2-meter-tall man walked out of the elevator, saw that Xiao Yifei was the only one in the waiting area, and knew that he was Xiao who had an appointment with him, and walked over enthusiastically.

"Shaw, good morning."

"Good morning, Marx."

"Let's go, let's go upstairs."

The two of them came to a small conference room, and the secretary brought them coffee.

Marx began to speak: "Xiao, you said you have gold coins that you want us to auction?" ”

"Yes, the gold and silver coins left by my ancestors have a few foreign gold coins in them, and I brought them over on this business trip to Europe."

"I took a look at the photos you sent me, our company is very interested, can you show me the real thing now?"

Xiao Yifei took out 15 gold coins from his pocket, which were all packed in a small ziplock bag.

Marx first observed the gold coins one by one through the plastic bag, and he put aside the 12 small "Napoleon" gold coins after a few glances, while he looked at the other three large gold coins for a long time, nodded, and said to Xiao Yifei: "Xiao, I think these gold coins are good." Let our appraiser check before making a final conclusion. If you are willing to put these gold coins in our company for auction, then our appraisal is free. If you don't want to auction us, you'll have to pay an appraisal fee of 50 euros per coin. ”

"As long as your reserve price and handling fee are reasonable, I will definitely put it in auction with you. Or I'll go to Cologne and find Christie's. ”

"Thank you for your trust in us, then I'll go and ask for an appraiser."

After a while, Marx led two men in.

"Shaw, this is Ben, this is Colin, and the two of them are experts in the identification of gold and silver coins in our company. Their conclusions are authoritative, and those collectors in Europe recognize their conclusions. ”

"Ben, Colin, good morning, I'll trouble you."

"No, thank you for trusting our company. So let's get started. ”

Ben and Colin took out their magnifying glasses and carefully observed the gold coins. Like Marx, the small Napoleonic gold coins were quickly let go by them, and the three large gold coins, each of them, they had to spend a lot of time, looking at them over and over again, weighing them carefully, and from time to time the two of them would discuss a few words in a whisper. After coming to a conclusion, the two of them wrote a few sentences on a piece of paper.

When they identified the last one, the voices of the two people discussing involuntarily became louder. Marx listened for a while and then joined in the discussion.

"Shaw, that's right, this gold coin is different from the previous ones, it's a British gold coin, called the Edward III Great Gold Coin, nicknamed the Double Leopard Gold Coin. It was the first large gold coin to circulate in England after centuries of silver coinage. There are only three surviving pieces, so they are very valuable. I need to know the details of how you found the gold coins now, after all, it's too sensitive. ”

Xiao Yifei didn't know that the gold coins he took out casually were so precious, so he asked, "How precious?" ”

Marx was depressed, but he could only answer Xiao Yifei's question first: "Let me tell you this, the third one was auctioned by Spinker in 2006 for a reserve price of 150,000 pounds, and the Global Coin Fund spent 460,000 pounds to buy it." The rest of your gold coins are very ordinary, and the most expensive one is just over 20,000 euros. But the value of this one is too high, so our company needs to know the origin of the gold coin, I hope you understand. ”

Xiao Yifei nodded, those few are 30,000 euros, plus this 460,000 pounds, that is 500,000 euros, which is too powerful.

"Then if I tell you the source, your company won't reveal it, right?"

Marx could only return to Xiao Yifei again: "We have strict confidentiality measures to ensure that it will not be leaked to buyers and the media. ”

Xiao Yifei thought for a moment: "Okay, I believe in you. These coins were dug out of the ground by renovating the house in our hometown. At that time, along with many domestic gold and silver coins, it was packed in several sealed ceramic jars, and there is certainly no question of provenance. ”

Marx translated his words to Ben and Colin. Several people discussed for a while before Marx said to Xiao Yifei: "Xiao, we think what you said is true, there are no traces of your gold coins buried in the ground, there are no traces of rust, and there is very little wear and tear in circulation." It seems that it was carefully collected by your ancestors very early. We have also ruled out the possibility that these are the three that appeared before, and this is the fourth gold double leopard coin in the world. ”

“so？”

Marx was stunned for a moment, then said: "The double leopard gold coin, with a face value of six shillings, was in circulation from December 1343 to July 1344. The reserve price we have set for this coin is 400,000 euros, and you can rest assured that after a few rounds of bidding, it will definitely exceed 500,000 euros. ”

He picked up another gold coin and introduced it to Xiao Yifei: "This one is not a French gold coin, it is a 1712 Spanish Seville gold coin, the last one was sold for 30,000 euros, and our estimated reserve price is 20,000 euros." ”

Then he picked up a gold coin: "This is the French gold louis, this kind of gold coin is very ordinary, the reserve price of the auction is 1,000 euros, and we estimate that the transaction price is also at this price." ”

Finally, he pointed to the dozen or so small gold coins and said: "These gold coins don't need to be auctioned, this is the largest number of Napoleonic gold coins in the world, you can use them directly without exchanging them, even if they are auctioned, they will be unauctioned." In addition, there are shops outside that are buying, and it used to be less than 100 euros per piece, but in the recent economic crisis, this thing is appreciating in value, and now it is almost 120 euros. ”

Xiao Yifei watched him introduce slowly, and he could tell from the attitude of these people towards the small gold coins just now that they were worthless. However, the reserve price of the three large gold coins far exceeded his expectations, and the dog walker found 1,400 gold coins, which were worth tens of millions of dollars, and the average one did not even have 10,000 yuan. He only had 15 gold coins, and they were almost $700,000.

The next thing is logical, Xiao Yifei is too lazy to find an outside store to exchange, and the 12 Napoleonic small gold coins are directly purchased by the auction house for 110 yuan and 1 piece. And the three large gold coins need to sign a contract to be auctioned.

Xiao Yifei made a phone call to William, and after knowing that Xiao Yifei wanted to find a lawyer temporarily, William recommended a law firm. After a few phone calls, a lawyer took a temporary employment agreement for Xiao Yifei to sign, and then it was the lawyer Justin, whose name means honest and fair, who checked the contract of the auction house.

In fact, this kind of contract is generally a standard contract, and there are no major loopholes. However, Xiao Yifei did not know German, so it was safer to find a lawyer.

Soon the lawyer nodded and indicated that there was no problem with the contract, and the two parties signed the auction contract.

According to the contract, at the beginning of next month, next Sunday, they have a regular auction in Berlin. Two of Xiao Yifei's coins will enter the auction. The precious British Double Leopard will be auctioned at a big auction next month, at the end of the year.

The reason why the auction process arranged by Nagao was so complicated was that he was afraid that he would be too hasty, and that the precious gold coin of the Double Leopard would not reach the desired price. This is not for Xiao Yifei's sake, but because the auction house also charges commissions according to the percentage of the auction price, and the higher the auction price, the more income they make. And if a high-value item does not fetch the desired price, it can also be a big problem for the reputation of the auction house. This is categorically intolerable for Nagao, who claims to be a well-known old auction house in Europe.

Xiao Yifei came to Deutsche Bank with a check for more than 1,000 euros selling Napoleon's gold coins, and quickly completed the account opening and account entry procedures.

Deutsche Bank AG, Germany's largest bank and one of the world's leading financial institutions, has long opened a branch in the magic capital, and Xiao Yifei will be able to easily conduct deposit and withdrawal business after returning to China.

It's been a great week. It took 2 days for Xiao Yifei to complete the work, it is said that he can return to China now, William knew that Xiao Yifei's gold coins would not be auctioned until Sunday, he took the initiative to call China and said that he still needed Xiao Yifei to stay in Germany for a few days, under the pretext that their company wanted to carefully accept the project, and Xiao Yifei stayed here to facilitate communication between the two sides. So Xiao Yifei was given a few days of free time, and he made full use of this time to clean up the space and throw all the dangerous items that should be thrown outside the space.

After a few days of watering, the two pots of flowers in the space seem to have changed, the experimental group seems to be more delicate than the control group, and the leaves seem to be more verdant.

Sunday's auction went well, with both coins fetching a total of 50,000 euros, but Xiao Yifei only got more than 40,000 euros after paying 20% of the tax. The auction house commissions are as high as 20-30%, but fortunately this commission is paid by the buyer. The deal gave Xiao Yifei his first taste of the power of German taxation.