Before coming, Li Du had done his homework.
According to his understanding, the most precious rosewood, the Hainan and Vietnam rosewood, were almost depleted. Basically, there was no market for them.
There was a supply of about 5,000 tons of rosewood every year. Rosewood with a length of more than six feet could be sold for between $250,000 and $400,000 per ton.
And that was just the price of the raw material. If it was carved and polished into furniture, the price would be even more shocking.
The huge profit margin attracted a large number of counterfeits into this industry. For example, there were many illegal merchants who used African Zambian Blood Sandalwood to pass off as Chinese Rosewood. There were also many people who used Mexican Rosewood and Rosewood to pass off Laotian Red Sorghum.
Li Du suspected that the furniture was fake rosewood. The merchants had held an auction here to cheat some customers, and then ran away after making a fortune.
This could explain why the merchants had left so much "rosewood" furniture behind. If they were real, Li Du didn't believe that Trump would forget to take them away.
Also, he noticed what Lil 'Rick had said at the bar last night. He had said, "Let's see if you can still be so arrogant after the auction."
This could be interpreted as saying that Rick and his son would have a bright future at the auction, and that they would not be able to get the units. It could also be interpreted as the other party knowing that there was a trap at the auction, and wanted to get rid of them!
Hans searched online and shook his head. "Not much about — oh, I found it. There's a post related to the Trump Mahogany Gallery …"
Li Du asked, "Is it a news report?"
"No, someone posted a post complaining that he bought mahogany furniture and was laughed at by his Chinese friends, saying that he bought fake furniture. They also said that many forums and news websites were in cahoots with the Trump Mahogany Gallery, and deleted a lot of posts that questioned the gallery, "Hans said.
Li Du was still frowning. He took out a small book that he had prepared beforehand: "The Past and Present of Asian Rosewood."
Hans asked, "What's wrong?"
Li Du said, "I looked through the crack in the door and saw that there was mahogany furniture inside. But I used my family's secret technique and found that these units have no value."
Hans was disappointed. "All of them have no value?"
Li Du didn't give a definite answer. He said vaguely, "No, I couldn't see clearly. Maybe I saw wrongly. I have to take a closer look."
Indeed, he began to look carefully. The little bug flew over the mahogany furniture and looked at the situation up close according to the information in the book.
The reason why mahogany furniture was so popular with the rich and aristocrats around the world was firstly because of its beautiful appearance. Most of them had natural colors such as purplish red, yellow red, scarlet, or dark red.
In addition, the wood grain of the mahogany was simple, beautiful, elegant, and fresh. Even after painting, the wood grain was still clearly visible.
On the other hand, once the fake rosewood products were painted, the color would become thick, lacking spiritual energy, and there would be no wood grain to be found.
However, Li Du could not tell. The furniture inside was purplish red, painted and waxed. He was not a mahogany expert, so he could not make a conclusion based on its appearance.
In fact, there was another good way to appraise mahogany, and that was to measure its density. Mahogany had the highest density among all types of wood. Even hardwoods could not compare.
However, Li Du had no way of touching the furniture, let alone measuring its density.
He continued reading and saw that there was a very common way of counterfeiting mahogany called structural counterfeiting.
Normally, when making the mortise and tenon structure of mahogany furniture, wooden tenons of the same material would be used. The tenons and grooves had to be of the right size.
When making mortise and tenon joints, they would use nails or glue to make it easier to join the furniture and increase the durability of the furniture.
For normal mahogany furniture, using nails and tenon joints could also increase the durability of the structure.
However, they could not be used because mahogany furniture could easily be oxidized and corroded by the nails. Glue had a stronger ability to corrode mahogany. Perhaps the durability could be increased, but the life of the mahogany would be greatly reduced.
Li Du slapped his forehead. How could he have forgotten about this? Couldn't he just let the little bug drill into the interior of the furniture?
The little bug drilled into the surface of a table, and then moved towards the table leg.
There were no nails in the table, but there was a thick layer of milky white crystals at the joint of the table leg and the table surface. This was the mark of glue.
Seeing this, he cursed in his heart. How unlucky. He might have encountered fake mahogany.
However, he was not disappointed. Even if this was real mahogany furniture, they would not be able to steal it. The furniture was openly displayed outside, and anyone could see it.
In addition to the glue at the joint, Li Du found that there were also traces of glue on the surface of the table and the table leg. The texture of the wood on the surface was different from the inside.
He checked the information book and saw that there was indeed such a method of counterfeiting. It was called "fake pasting."
Fake pasting was to first use worthless hardwood to make the furniture, and then paste a layer of mahogany wood on the outside. After being tightly glued together, one could not tell that it was fake from the outside.
Needless to say, these pieces of furniture were all fake.
Li Du let the little bug drill into the chair to take a look. The situation was the same: all the furniture in this storage unit was fake.
This discovery made him very depressed. It seemed that this auction would have to return empty-handed again.
However, he was a careful person. He suppressed his impatience and let the little bug enter the second storage unit to check the few small beds and sofas inside.
The furniture in the second storage unit was made of a purplish-black texture. From the outside, it looked like it was made of rosewood. It was heavy, exquisite, and grand.
Li Du felt that even if these things were fake, it would be good if he could get his hands on them at a low price. At least they looked much better than ordinary pinewood beds.
The little bug flew into one of the beds. Throughout the whole process, there were no traces of glue, and no signs of fake pasting. From the beginning to the end, the material was the same!
This discovery made Li Du excited. Could it be that the mahogany furniture in the Delon Mahogany Gallery was real and fake? Had he found the real thing this time?
However, what puzzled him was that the color of the outside of the beds and sofas was not the same as the wood inside. The outside was whiter, and the inside was darker.
He looked at the information book and saw another method of counterfeiting, called craftsmanship counterfeiting.
This method of counterfeiting was through bleaching. Some low-priced wood was bleached into a similar rosewood. It was a very high-end counterfeiting method.
According to the current national standard, there were five genera and eight types of wood for mahogany furniture. Mahogany referred to these 33 types of wood.
Nature was amazing. There were many types of wood that looked similar, but their properties were different.
Some of the wood looked like mahogany, but did not have the durability of mahogany. Some also had the durability of mahogany, but did not have the natural fragrance of mahogany.
In short, all 33 types of mahogany were unique. However, there were many types of wood that were similar to mahogany.
After looking for a while, Li Du vaguely guessed that the beds and sofas in this storage unit were made of a type of wood called "iron knife wood." This type of wood was often used to imitate rosewood after bleaching.
The situation in the third storage unit was similar to the second one. It was also a craftsmanship counterfeiting. The furniture inside was all brownish-red, which seemed to be made of the precious material of red rosewood.
In fact, after Li Du looked at the internal texture and color, he determined that this thing was made of Kimono wood that had been bleached and dyed to imitate red rosewood.
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