Chapter 1009 1109. Auction
When taking the car back to the hotel, Nie Wei was still thinking about Huang Jiazhu.
In Nie Wei's view, this collector simply found the wrong person to show off to.
Perhaps what he did is a very common behavior in the collecting world. Everyone exchanges their collections with each other to satisfy their inner desire to show off. After all, 'wealth does not return to its hometown, it is like walking at night in brocade clothes'.
But he found Teacher Wang Jin, which was wrong.
Although Wang Jin is the top watch expert in the country, his life is actually completely different from that of these collectors.
Teacher Wang's lifelong career is to repair clocks and study the craftsmanship of clocks in the Bauhinia Museum. He represents the "worker" among scholars, farmers, industry and commerce. He is the representative of the inheritance of the Chinese craftsman spirit, and the Bauhinia Museum behind him is even more representative. The inheritance of Chinese historical civilization.
Huang Jiazhu is the "merchant" in "Scholars, Farmers, Industry and Businessmen". He is just a businessman. His collection is firstly to satisfy his own desires, and secondly, it is a business.
The two are incompatible, so how can we compare them?
I have something that the Bauhinia Museum does not have, and I am very happy. Thinking about it now, Nie Wei feels how ridiculous this old gentleman said it.
The watch fair will last for three days in total. There will be hundreds of watch factories and collectors, bringing out nearly a thousand exhibits for exhibition and exchange. Nie Wei followed Teacher Wang Jin with a camera crew and watched the exhibition for three days. , all feel that their knowledge in watches has greatly improved.
Many young men secretly had the idea to go back to Kyoto and meet their girlfriends, colleagues, etc., and they must take the opportunity to show off. Thinking about the surprised and adoring eyes of their friends, they felt secretive just thinking about it. It's so cool.
There will also be a small auction on the last day of the exhibition.
Wang Jin did not attend. Although the auction focused on watches and clocks, this was not a circle that Teacher Wang Jin was familiar with. On the contrary, Nie Wei easily obtained the pass and was arranged by the organizer to the best position in the auction venue.
Because this is a game for the rich, and Nie Wei is the richest among the participants.
At the scene, Nie Wei saw Huang Jiazhu again, but this time he did not come over. He just nodded to Nie Wei from a distance, and Nie Wei also nodded politely, which was regarded as a greeting.
After all, the exchanges in the past few days were not very pleasant, and there was really nothing to talk about when they met at this time.
The auction started soon. In the auction of watches, the items sold were naturally clocks, mostly pocket watches and wristwatches. There were no large watches. Nie Wei saw two Chinese watches in the auction brochure. Small desk clock.
Among these auction items, there were two things that caught Nie Wei's attention.
One was a Cartier diamond women's watch. Nie Wei planned to take a picture of it as a gift to Shu Chang. Nie Wei had even thought about what to say when giving the gift.
"I want to share our time with you." Nie Wei thought numbly in her heart and raised the corners of her mouth slightly.
The other item is a pocket watch, which is also the treasure of this auction. Interestingly, it has a lot to do with the golden pocket watch that Huang Jiazhu showed them before.
The piece of Huang Jiazhu was given by the Queen to her daughter, and the piece auctioned on site was given by the Queen to her son.
The appearance of this pocket watch is very similar to Huang Jiazhu's, but it is slightly larger. Compared with Huang Jiazhu's small and exquisite one, this one looks more majestic.
"Does the Queen like to give pocket watches to her children?" Nie Wei held the auction brochure and asked Wu Nanxiao, who accompanied him to the event.
As an expert officially hired by the Bauhinia Museum Research Institute, Wu Nan is not as experienced as Wang Jin, but he is more than enough to answer Nie Wei's questions.
"Indeed, pocket watches are one of the favorite gifts of the British royal family, just like our previous emperors who always liked to reward silk and silk."
Nie Wei nodded, expressing understanding.
The women's watch that Nie Wei wanted to give to Shu Chang was auctioned in the fifth order. The starting price was 500,000 Chinese coins. When the price rose to 800,000, Nie Wei raised his placard for the first time, but directly put the watch The price was raised to 990,000. People around saw Nie Wei's determined attitude and stopped following the price, allowing Nie Wei to easily get the watch.
Among them, the two clocks that Nie Wei paid attention to were also auctioned for 750,000 and 1.09 million respectively.
The transaction prices of other watches range from tens of thousands to two to three hundred thousand.
Nearly two hours passed at the auction without anyone noticing. Fifteen collections were auctioned, and the last one left was the golden pocket watch given to her son by the Queen.
The starting price is 1.8 million, making it the only clock with a starting price of over 1 million today.
However, many people at the scene saw that this starting price was not very expensive. When the auctioneer announced the start, someone immediately raised a sign to increase the price. In less than thirty seconds, the price of this pocket watch exceeded 2 million, and it was held People are still coming and going, one after another, with no tendency to suspend their bids at all.
Nie Wei was not in a hurry. According to Huang Jiazhu's original introduction, he spent nearly half a million dollars to get the gold watch that the Queen gave to his daughter, and that was in 2005. Now this watch is worth It can't be cheaper than Huang Jiazhu's pocket watch.
Five minutes later, the price of this watch had exceeded three million.
Ten minutes later, the speed of alternating bids finally began to slow down, but the value of this watch had exceeded four million Chinese yuan, slightly exceeding the price of the watch in Huang Jiazhu's collection.
Seeing that it was almost time, Nie Wei finally raised his bid card for the second time.
"Mr. Nie bid 4.5 million yuan. Is there anyone else bidding?" Seeing the bid card in Nie Wei's hand, the auctioneer asked excitedly.
I thought he was indeed a wealthy man. Those who bid before were all 30,000 or 50,000 yuan, and the most was only 200,000 yuan. But Nie Wei didn't bid, but he bid 500,000 yuan, which was completely unreasonable.
In the eyes of the auctioneer, Nie Wei was a rookie in the auction industry, the most rookie, but for the auctioneer, he liked super rich rookies like Nie Wei the most, because such people usually created amazing results for him.
But the next second, he was not feeling well.
Because after Nie Wei raised his card, no one else raised a card at the scene. For a while, the scene that was originally noisy due to fierce bidding became very quiet.
"Is there anyone bidding for this 18K gold pocket watch from the British royal family? In 2005, Mr. Huang bought a pocket watch of roughly the same style for $497,000. This year, Sotheby's has sold it for more than $1 million." The auctioneer's forehead was covered with sweat when he said this.
You know, in their auction expectations, this gold pocket watch from the British royal family would be sold for about $6 million to complete the task.
But since Nie Wei called out the price of $4.5 million, no one at the scene actually bid, which was a full $1.5 million difference from their expected price.
Thinking of this, the auctioneer couldn't help but look at Huang Jiazhu. In his opinion, the person who wanted to buy this gold pocket watch the most was not Nie Wei, but Mr. Huang.
In fact, in the auction forecast today, the final buyer of this collection would also be Mr. Huang.
Because Mr. Huang loved his gold pocket watch very much, and he would bring it with him every time he attended a watch exhibition, and show it off to the people around him every time.
It was because they were targeting Huang Jiazhu that they dared to estimate the price of six million.
But what the auctioneer didn't expect was that after Huang Jiazhu made eye contact with him, he seemed too lazy to even move his shoulders. He just sat there and glanced at him before shifting his gaze and chatting with someone beside him with a smile.
"Four and a half million once."
"Four and a half million... twice."
"Ask again, is there no one raising the price again?" The auctioneer gritted his teeth and asked. Unfortunately, although there were a lot of rustling exchanges at the scene, no one raised a sign.
And Nie Wei kept staring at him with deep eyes, which also put him under great psychological pressure.
"Four and a half million, three times, congratulations, Mr. Nie Wei." Although he wanted to delay it, the auctioneer shuddered when he met Nie Wei's sight, and immediately dropped the auction hammer.
He was also afraid that if he delayed too much, he would offend Nie Wei.
As the hammer was finalized, the people sitting around Nie Wei also congratulated Nie Wei. Nie Wei responded politely to everyone. He knew very well that he could get this gold pocket watch at a price of 4.5 million, which was completely the face given to him by the people at the scene.
In fact, everyone present had their own little tricks in their hearts, but most of them had the same idea. Nie Wei was determined to win. No one at the scene could compete with Nie Wei financially. The richest among them was worth less than one-tenth of Nie Wei.
Since it was obvious that they could not compete financially, it would be better to sell Nie Wei directly to save face and make a good relationship, which was better than driving up the price. It would be cheaper for the auction house but offend Nie Wei, which would be a loss.
The pocket watch bought by Nie Wei was the last piece of film, and the auction was basically over. Although the final outcome was not perfect, the transaction volume and price of the entire auction still satisfied the person in charge of the auction.
When everyone was leaving the auction venue, the person in charge of the auction even found Nie Wei and gave him his name tag, thinking that if Nie Wei had anything to auction in the future, he could give it to them to handle, and guarantee that the highest value of the items could be auctioned.
Nie Wei didn't believe the person in charge's solemn words. This auction house was not even the top one in China, and the top auction houses in the world didn't dare to make such a guarantee. Why could he?
Of course, Nie Wei would not expose the person in charge's bullshit in person, and politely took his business card, which made the person in charge think that Nie Wei was moved, and turned back to be excited for a long time.
At the gate, Nie Wei met Huang Jiazhu again. Huang Jiazhu, who was standing at the door, greeted him and walked over. It was obvious that he was waiting for Nie Wei here.
"Mr. Nie, I like the last pocket watch you bought. You know I have one that the Queen gave to my daughter. The one you bought was given to her son by the Queen, and it can be matched with the one I have. So, if you are willing to transfer this pocket watch, I am willing to pay 50% more than your offer to express my sincerity."
"Sorry, no, I am ready to donate this pocket watch to the Bauhinia Museum." Nie Wei refused cleanly, and the subsequent explanation made Huang Jiazhu stunned. Nie Wei even forgot to say goodbye.
When Nie Wei was about to disappear at the corner of the corridor, Huang Jiazhu came back to his senses, and then shook his head with a bitter smile.
"This young man really holds a grudge."
If Nie Wei heard him muttering this, he would definitely laugh. He really didn't target this old man. Although there was a little bit of his fault, when he saw the pocket watch, Nie Wei really just wanted to take a picture of it and give it to the Bauhinia Museum.
Soon after Nie Wei returned to the hotel, the escort team of the auction delivered the gold pocket watch to Nie Wei's room, and after confirming it, Nie Wei directly gave the gold pocket watch to Wang Jin.
"Teacher Wang, this one in my hand was given by my wife, and it's not easy to donate it to you, so I took a picture of this pocket watch."
"Nie Wei, I was joking, you don't have to..."
"Take it, Teacher Wang, just treat it as a gift from me to your museum." Nie Wei did not allow Wang Jin to refuse, and directly asked him to accept it. Wang Jin nodded to Nie Wei with relief and did not refuse again.
That night, Wang Jin reported to the museum that Nie Wei had donated a gold watch that Queen Victoria had given to her son. The response was prompt enough. In less than an hour, the official blog of the Bauhinia Museum published a thank-you letter to Nie Wei for donating the gold pocket watch, which really caused a heated discussion among netizens.
Most netizens expressed their support for this. Of course, there were also a very small number of people who thought that Nie Wei was stupid and had a lot of money, but such people were basically drowned by the saliva of netizens, and not even a wave of splashes was made.
Amid the praises of the media and netizens, the stocks of Nie Wei's listed companies also rose a little, and the value of the harvest was far more than the 4.5 million Chinese yuan that Nie Wei paid.
Nie Wei returned to Kyoto at noon the next day, but Shu Chang was still on a business trip, so Nie Wei's gift could not be delivered for a while.
However, Nie Wei received an invitation from his alma mater, Beijing Electronics, on the day he returned to Beijing.
The content of the invitation has a lot to do with Nie Wei. Previously, Nie Wei funded the construction of a comprehensive experimental building for Beijing Electric Power University. The groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for tomorrow. The school will naturally not forget Nie Wei, who contributed money. After learning that Nie Wei is also in Kyoto, the school immediately sent out an invitation.
After receiving the invitation letter, Nie Wei first asked Luo Kai about his schedule for tomorrow, and only replied to the school after confirming that he is free.
Nie Wei is also looking forward to this new building donated to the school.
Thanks to Fantasy Paradise and 0773 for their generous support.