golden ear

Chapter 206 Can you buy it in museums?

Wu Tianyuan was taken aback, and asked, "Private museum?"

"No, a public museum!" Tajir said proudly: "A public museum at the national level!"

Wu Tianyuan was a little surprised and said, "Can public schools also buy it?"

"Haha, you are OUT!" Tajir laughed, finally had a chance to hit Wu Tianyuan and said, "Why not? It seems that you don't know much about the operation mode of foreign museums, do you?"

"You know that there are many museums in the United States and the United Kingdom, such as the Metropolitan Museum of New York, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Whitney Museum. In the United States, there are museums similar in size to these museums. There are thousands of large and small museums, and not all of these museums belong to the state, and a large part of them are private museums or joint-stock museums.”

Tajir explained: "There are so many museums, of course we need excellent exhibits, but there are so many good antiques, and it is obviously unrealistic to buy them all with money, so the industry of antique brokers was born."

Wu Tianyuan suddenly understood that unlike those museums in China, most of the museums in China are public and state property, so every year the state allocates money to the museum staff as salaries and museum maintenance funds.

"Museums like the Metropolitan Museum of New York, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggen Khan Museum, and the Whitney Museum seem to be large in scale, but in fact most of them belong to the private property of the rich. Even some of them are state-owned. , the state only owns part of the equity of these museums.”

"Most of the other shares belong to the rich, and they have to consider the issue of operation. Therefore, in addition to the work of collecting and maintaining those historical objects, most foreign museums also have to consider a very important The question, then, is how to survive?"

"And they make a profit, basically there are several ways, one part is by donations from rich people who are interested in this kind of thing, the other part is by tickets, or selling some souvenirs to tourists, and the last part is by auction."

Wu Tianyuan suddenly realized that basically every year these museums will eliminate some collections and replace them with new collections to attract tourists and enthusiasts to pay for admission.Sometimes they will exchange with other museums, or regularly swap exhibitions to each other's venues, which is why they are willing to cooperate with Tianyuan Museum!

More often they simply choose to auction off part of the collection to maintain the operation of the museum.This frequency will be one or two years.And sometimes, in order to attract more people to spend money to buy tickets to watch, they change the frequency of the collection in the museum faster, basically once a year.

Especially for those large museums, except for some town hall treasures, almost all other low-end antiques are allowed to circulate.They even organize auctions in their own museums every year.

After listening to Tajir's explanation, Wu Tianyuan suddenly became enlightened, as if he had opened a new door, and said excitedly: "Does that mean that as long as you have enough money, you can buy treasures in public museums?"

"Theoretically yes!" Tajir nodded and said, "However, the actual operation is very complicated. First, a huge amount of money is required, which is the most basic requirement. Second, it is even more important to have connections! People who own public museums are all top rich people, and even the heirs of hermit families, the last thing they need is money!"

Wu Tianyuan nodded, needless to say, the last time I used Napoleon III's love letter to blackmail Yang Shouzun back, this is a living example.It seems that one still needs to have an important bargaining chip or a strong background in order to be eligible to negotiate with others.

Tajir suddenly said mysteriously: "There are a lot of tricks in the channels for them to buy new collections. In order to maintain profitability, these museums can't participate in those large auctions every year, and go to the auction venue to fight with those rich people. .”

"So sometimes they will send some people out to collect scraps, and they will even use some shady means to obtain some collections. For example, the incident of cultural relics in Iraq was quite violent a few years ago. In fact, those museums must have no Thinking about it, the U.S. government will take these things seriously, so they will buy those Iraqi goods from those U.S. soldiers or contractors."

"If they knew that the U.S. government would elevate this matter to a high level that affects the government and issues of principle, I am afraid they would not be so blatant in the acquisition. It is precisely because of the behavior of these museums that the antique market was born. Such a group of thieves or brokers who specialize in working for them."

Wu Tianyuan suddenly thought of Black Fox. He is an international thief and a real expert in the industry. It seems that he really wants to chat if he has time, and find an opportunity to cooperate more.

"The general situation is that museums know that some people have some very good antique treasures in their hands, and this person has no background. Then they will first send someone to the door to try, and they are willing to give a price that is higher than the normal price, but it is definitely higher than the auction price. At a much lower price, come to buy the treasure in that person's hands."

"But if that person doesn't agree with their offer, they won't force it, but in a few days, some thieves will visit that person's house. If you're lucky. They might just steal things without hurting anyone, If you're unlucky, maybe they'll kill your family while stealing something."

"Then your things will be sold by those thieves at the price agreed with the museum. These things will first lie in the basement of the museum for a few years. Maybe after a few years, somewhere inconspicuous, an unknown Then it will be bought by the staff of those big museums at a low price, and then it will be exhibited by them in a fair manner."

"What if someone finds out and sues them?"

Tajir smiled slightly, took a sip of wine and said: "The legal departments of these museums are not vegetarians. They will fight 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. Many museums in the United States have the most collections of Chinese treasures.And most of these things were obtained by them through deception.Some were snatched from China by the British and the Eight-Power Allied Forces. Later, they had to borrow from the United States during World War II, and then they took the United States to mortgage them to those banks. After that, the British never got back. "

"There are also some in the 20s, when those bandits in the United States went to China to collect them in the name of archaeology. Back then, they played this trick in China, specially buying some traitors and scum to steal , to rob, or even rob tombs, and then buy these things from those people at a low price and ship them back to the United States. For example, Lu Qinzhai is the biggest cultural relic smuggler.”

"Okay, since you all play like this? Then I'm welcome!"

Wu Tianyuan was relieved for a while, and today he tore off the ugly mask of the original public museum nakedly. It seems that I am using high imitation to deceive people or is it a high-tech means?

He let go of all his guilt at once, and many plans emerged. He would not be able to do house robbery, but he could still do it with a little trick!
"It was through the relationship of a big Italian family that I bought the entire armor museum for 8000 million US dollars, and the handover will be completed next month. By then, my cold weapon collection will be upgraded to another level!"

Seeing Tajir's complacent look, Wu Tianyuan remembered that there are thousands of private museums in RB and the UK, as long as they have money, they are all possible acquisition targets.But now the mere 20 billion in hand is not enough to see, it seems that we still need to make money to have the ammunition to destroy the enemy!

(End of this chapter)