The carriage slowly stopped in front of Dolphin Antique Shop.
Garon jumped down from the carriage, paid the coachman, and walked to the door of the antique shop. The door was closed, and it was unusually quiet inside.
He looked up at the shop sign, raised his hand, and started to knock on the door.
"Open the door, old man!"
"Coming! Coming!"
The door creaked open from the inside. Old Man Gregor grabbed Garon, pulled him in, and quickly closed the door.
The shop was unusually dark. There was only a kerosene lamp on the table in front of the bookshelf. Under the dim yellow light, there was a small reddish-brown hourglass. Black sand was slowly dripping down, making a rustling sound.
Garen adjusted to the light in the shop and glanced at the hourglass on the table.
"What is this? Is this your new treasure? "
The old man didn't speak. He just slowly walked to the table and sat down. The light illuminated his face, making him look unusually old and tired.
"This is a black hourglass given to me by a friend. It's used to measure time. I heard that it can measure time for a long time once it's turned upside down."
He waved the hourglass. "I've had it for two weeks, but only one-fifth of it has fallen. Don't you think that's slow?"
"It's really slow." Garon frowned slightly as he looked at the old man's face. "Old man, what's wrong with you? You don't look so good recently. "
He found a stool and sat in front of the table. He twisted the kerosene lamp, and the light suddenly became brighter.
"Maybe I'm sick …" Old Man Gregor smiled. He didn't look as wretched as before. "Tell me, why did you come here? Normally, you wouldn't come here if there's nothing. "
"I'm just showing respect to the elderly. You're a seventy or eighty year old man, and I'm worried that no one will take care of you. "Garon smiled." Oh, right, where are your children? Relatives? Why haven't I seen them? "
"Who knows?" the old man muttered, looking a little dazed. "Okay, let's not talk about this. Let's talk about you. You definitely wouldn't come here if there's nothing. "
"You really know me well." Garon looked at the old man's expression and knew that his children might have mentioned something sad about the old man, so he changed the topic. "When I came here, I wanted to ask you how to appraise antiques. Appraising antiques and jewels? Since you have an antique shop, you should know something about this, right? "
"That's easy!" The old man sat up straight and glanced at Garon from the corner of his eyes. "But …" He stretched out his hand in front of Garon.
Slap.
A stack of banknotes fell into the old man's hand.
His hands were still spread out.
Garon frowned and took out another thousand dollars and slapped it on the old man's hand.
"Old man, look carefully. This is a thousand yuan per stack!"
"I know it's a thousand per stack, but appraisal requires a long time of accumulation and experience. I've been accumulating for a long time, so it's not a big deal to charge you for your hard work, right?" Old Man Gregor slowly put away the two thousand dollars with a satisfied face. "Only two thousand? That's a bargain for you."
"Then, let me introduce you to the appraisal industry." The old man cleared his throat.
"The so-called appraisal actually refers to a few aspects of martial arts. First, identify authenticity. Second, determine the year. Third, determine the place of origin. Fourth, determine the value of the craftsmanship. Each of these four aspects requires a long time to learn and accumulate experience. Which one do you want to learn first? "
"Can we learn together? I'm very confident in myself. "
"Learn together?" The old man looked at Garon under the light and suddenly paused. His eyes seemed to be in a trance. "Learn together? Confident in yourself? Unfortunately … unfortunately, you don't have talent … "His last sentence seemed to be a murmur.
After Garon's physical fitness improved, his hearing became better. He could vaguely hear the old man's murmur, but he didn't pay too much attention to it. Everyone had secrets, and it was their right not to tell him.
"Can we learn to appraise authenticity first?"
"No problem." The old man's interest was piqued. He smacked his lips and pulled out a drawer from under the table. He took out a stack of white paper and two quill pens. Then, he unscrewed the ink bottle on the side and dipped it in.
"Appraising authenticity is actually the most difficult part of the appraisal industry. It actually depends on the accumulated experience and the time spent with antiques." He drew a circle on the paper with a cross inside.
"Do you know what this is?" He pointed at the diagram and said.
"I don't know … a circular cross window?" Garon looked at the diagram on the paper and guessed.
"This is a special mark of a master jewelry craftsman during the Great Voyage Era. If you know what this mark is, you can tell the age, level, and type of the mark from the minute details. Of course, if you don't know, you won't be able to tell anything. "
Garon nodded thoughtfully. "You're trying to tell me that to appraise authenticity, not only do I have to look at the details of the object itself, but I also have to combine it with the history behind it and some special background knowledge. Only then can I truly distinguish authenticity?"
"Oh? You're quite smart and have a good reaction. " The old man was just about to say the key point, but Garon guessed it right away. His expression was slightly surprised. "I was going to show you a high-quality imitation, a good thing that can't be identified as authentic except for the marks and symbols. I'll give you a vivid example, but I didn't expect you to react so quickly."
He paused. "Since you know and understand, then you should understand that to appraise authentic antiques, you need to understand the history, the craftsmanship of different eras, famous masters, sects, and types. Famous allusions, manufacturing styles, factories, and so on. Most of the time, combining these things to look at antiques and jewelry can make a more realistic conclusion. "
"So what I need to learn first is this background knowledge?" Garon nodded. "Are there any books that are combined?"
"There are, but just reading books won't be of much use. After you finish reading, I'll tell you about my own appraisal experience and special appraisal methods. We'll take it step by step. There are many things that aren't in the books. In the field of appraisal, other than vision, you also need to use smell, hearing, touch, and taste. So it's meaningless to just have theories. But you'll have to read the book first. "
The old man rummaged through the bookshelf and found a large white book. "This is the history of jewelry development."
He flipped through it again and took out a thicker black book. "This is the history of antiques and antiques."
He stacked the two books together and pushed them in front of Garon.
"Take it back and read it. Come back to me after you're done."
Garon looked at the two large books speechlessly. "How long will I have to read these two books? One book is probably thousands of pages, right? "
"Don't worry, take your time. Finish it within a month." The old man waved his hand. "Okay, get out of here. I'm going to close the stall and sleep."
Garon picked up the two books. "Then I'll go first. I'll come back to you after I'm done."
"Oh, right." The old man patted his head. "Weren't you asking about the book last time? Since you like that book so much, I'll give you a little thing as a souvenir. "
He reached his hand into his crotch and fumbled around. He finally found a small pendant in the shape of an open book.
"Here you go." He threw it over.
Garon caught it and looked at it. The pendant was only the size of a thumbnail. The workmanship was very delicate. It was black all over. In the center of the open book was a strange dark red symbol.
"What's this?"
"It came with the book when I bought it. Keep it well." The old man reached into his crotch and scratched it. It seemed a little itchy.
Garon felt a chill and quickly put the pendant into his trouser pocket. "Where did you get this thing? Are you disgusting? Okay, I'll go first. "
"Go, go." The old man waved his hand impatiently.
Coming out of the antique shop, Garon waited for a carriage in front of the shop for a while. For more than ten minutes, no carriage passed by. The location of this place was not very good. Very few people came by carriage. He had no choice but to walk along the street to Pennington Street with the book in his arms.
When he arrived at his uncle's floor, he looked up at his uncle's window. He saw Lombarth quickly walk away from the window, leaving the window sash swaying. It seemed that he was deliberately avoiding him.
Garon wanted to go upstairs to see his uncle, but when he saw that Lombarth was also at home, he suddenly lost interest. Ever since he had an argument with Lombarth, he felt annoyed whenever he saw this guy.
"This guy has been very quiet recently." Garon had just walked a few steps with the book in his arms when he suddenly heard hurried footsteps behind him.
"Brother Garon!" A girl's clear voice came from behind him.
Garon turned around and saw a young girl with a red face running towards him.
The girl was wearing a thin white cotton shirt with a tight waist and a pair of white jeans that perfectly accentuated the tight curves of her butt and legs. She looked like she was only 13 or 14 years old. Xiong Ou had not yet developed.
When the girl ran over, she brought with her the faint scent of a young girl. Her reddish short hair gave her a refreshing and energetic feeling.
"Brother Garon, since you're passing by, why don't you come up and sit with me?" The girl was his uncle's other daughter, Phelia. Unlike Lombarth, Phelia had always been very friendly towards Garon. Perhaps this was because Garon especially liked to play with children in the past.
"I didn't see Phelia here." Garon smiled and reached out to pinch the girl's little nose. "Why did you cut your hair?"
"I'm learning martial arts now." The girl made a basic gesture.
"Where's your uncle?"
"He's entertaining guests at home. They keep talking about complicated and troublesome things. Anyway, it's very boring. Brother Garon, why don't you come up and play with me?" Phelia waved at Garon's arm.
"It's fine. Uncle is talking about something at home. I won't disturb him."
"Also, dad heard that you've been accepted as a disciple by the White Cloud Dojo's owner. He's very unhappy because of this." Phelia lowered her voice. "Dad said that he doesn't want you to waste your time learning martial arts. Learning a little bit of self-defense is enough. You can't put all your energy into it. It's a waste of time. "
Garon frowned. "I thought uncle would be happy."
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
