The barber shop that Brother Yu patronizes is located near the Wanwanzhuang old bus station.
In the 1980s, an ancient city tower was built here in Lingling, and many lanterns would be lit up on New Year and festival nights. In February of last year (2002), an antique market was established on the street east of the ancient city building.
First there was the Baiwanzhuang Antique Street, and then there was the Lengshuitan Antique Market. Nowadays, Baiwanzhuang has declined, and there are only a few shops left that specialize in selling tourists. However, when Brother Yu and I went there, it had just been established, and it could be said to be lively.
extraordinary.
Wearing hats and masks, we entered the market and the crowds were noisy.
I visited a few stalls at random, and the proportion of genuine and old products was quite high, but they were all common products and of little use.
"Boss, how do you sell this copper incense burner?" I asked.
"Xuande furnace, an old replica of the late Qing Dynasty, if you want it, I'll give it six hundred yuan."
"That's not expensive. How about three hundred? Let me ask you if there is any shop here that specializes in selling ancient coins?"
"Yes, go to the end and turn left, go up to the second floor, and that's the shop in the middle. The boss is very awesome. Not to mention other places, this is the shop in our Yongzhou antique store."
The stall owner gave me a thumbs up.
I put down the stove and walked towards the inside of the market. The stall owner behind me called me: "Hey! I've packed it for you! Three hundred!"
I turned around and said I didn't want it anymore.
When I went up to the second floor and walked to the middle, I looked up and saw a wooden plaque carved from an old chicken wing with three words written on it.
"Meiqian Pavilion".
Push the door open and enter.
"Whatever you two want, feel free to take a look, I'm eating."
A spirited old man in his fifties or sixties was eating with a bowl in hand.
There are several large scroll jars on the ground, filled with copper coins, all tied in series with thin wire ropes.
There were some rare copper coins placed in the glass display cabinet. After a quick glance, I saw that there were two-fold Jingkang Tongbao, ten-fold Kaiyuan Tongbao, Basiba Wen Dayuan Tongbao sample coins, Qianlong Tongbao mother coins, etc., all of which were equipped with exquisite mahogany wooden boxes.
.The most amazing thing is to see a Xianfeng Xingyue Qianmu embryo, which is of top quality. It seems that this small shop has a lot of secrets.
"Hello, do you accept copper coins here?" I asked.
The old man held the bowl and turned around and said: "I won't accept the ordinary ones, let's take a look."
"Pata."
I took one out and pressed it on the glass cabinet.
The old man slowly stopped stretching his chopsticks, put down the bowl, took my copper coins in his hand and looked at them carefully.
After a minute or two, the old man put down the copper coins casually, continued to pick up the bowl, and said while eating: "It's okay, how much do you want to sell it for?"
As soon as I saw him like this, I knew that this old man was just pretending. He wanted to, and he was just pretending to be nothing.
"How much do you give?"
Actually, I don’t know the exact value. When I looked at Quanpu before, I only knew that it was money from the Qing Dynasty. Quanpu was rated as “rare”, so I thought it could be worth “8,000 to 10,000?”
"How much will you give..."
"This copper coin of yours has a large diameter. It is an old Manchu coin cast by Huang Taiji in the early Qing Dynasty. It is very rare."
"However, yours is a modern imitation. If it's an imitation, I'll give you 15 yuan."
I was stunned.
It turns out there are people darker than me, and they are indeed peers.
Fake? I want to slap this old man to death. I took it out from the cave wall myself. How could it be fake? Impossible.
Brother Yu laughed when he heard this. He adjusted his mask and said, "Yunfeng, you got such a big copper coin. It turns out it's only worth fifteen yuan."
I said with a dark face: "Take a closer look to see if it's real or fake. Others offered me tens of thousands of dollars, but I didn't even sell it. It can't be fake. This was passed down from my grandfather's family."
"Did I pay you tens of thousands of dollars? Is it true?"
"It's passed down from our ancestors... Your elder worked in the palace?"
Brother Yu and I turned around and left.
The man called me again: "Young man! Wait!"
"I'm not trying to trick you. I've never seen this money before. I don't feel very good about it. Wait a minute. How about I let my granddaughter take a look? She happens to be here."
Pushing the door open and entering the inner room, it turns out that the outside is not big, and it leads to another store with several rooms.
There were three people in the back room, two men and one woman.
The two men were carrying backpacks and had dusty faces. I saw dirt on their shoes and trousers.
The woman was estimated to be around 27 years old. She wore gold-rimmed glasses, had long hair hanging down her shoulders, and had very fair skin. She was lowering her head and clicking on the computer quickly.
She moved her fingers up and down, pressing very fast, and all she heard was: "Add three plus five plus six plus seven, return to zero, return to zero, return to zero, return to zero..."
At this speed, I feel like the calculator will explode in the next second.
"Forget it."
The woman raised her head, adjusted her glasses and said: "3334 pieces, half of the Baoquan Bureau, Baoyuan Bureau and Baode Bureau I will give you a higher number, the total..." She pressed the calculator again and said
: "Total 86995."
"As per the old rules, I'll round it up and give you 86,000."
"Hey, Sister Mei, you've wiped out the zeroes and put things in order again. You know it's not easy for those of us who work on the front line. It took a lot of effort to build a cellar. Sister Mei, please give us enough."
The bespectacled woman frowned and said, "Sell it or not? Don't waste my time. I'll give you the highest price. If you don't sell it, leave."
"Sell, sell! Hey..."
"Okay, let's go find Xiao Li and get the money."
I thought to myself, it turned out that these two people were Zaihua (a first-line treasure hunter).
"What's wrong, old man? Who are these two people?"
"Meimei, you're done. That's it. They have money that I can't understand. Please show me if it's real or fake. Can we accept it in our store?"
"Oh? What money? Take it out and let me see."
I put the big copper coin on the table in front of her again.
"Old Manwen's Tian Congqian..."
She exclaimed in surprise, looked back and forth for two minutes and then said: "This is not fake, this is real, and it's not ordinary Tiancong money."
"Old man, Tiancong coin is the only coin in the Qing Dynasty that was not minted using the foundry method. It can be said to be the same as one coin. Tiancong has no mother coin, but there is such a coin. This coin is over 4 centimeters in diameter, and the hole can be seen through it.
Xiu Dao, this is the tribute money from Huang Tai Chi Tian Cong Tong Bao."
"Where did you two get that?"
Yahe, I thought to myself that this Meimei is awesome, so I started using it for a minute or two, talking about one thing after another. I didn’t even know how much money it cost.
But this woman seems very honest.
The sample money was the first version. After the Ministry of Industry produced it, it was shown to the emperor. The emperor thought it was okay and started making small coins based on the sample money.
Tiancong money is extremely special, there is no mother money.
Later Qianlong Tongbao, Daoguang Tongbao, etc. all had mother coins, and the process of making copper coins was as follows.
First, find a calligrapher to use wood or ivory to carve out the money-like pattern. This is called ancestral money. After the style is determined, the ancestral money will be burned.
The craftsman from the Ministry of Industry looked at the appearance of the ancestral coin and used a sharp carving knife to carve a copper coin on the brass. This is the carved mother.
Other craftsmen took the carved mother and cast it in sand. After the first coin was refined, it became the mother coin.
Finally, these mother money are distributed to various counties and cities, and a large amount of mother money is used to mint sub-money.
According to the current market price, an ordinary Daoguang Tong treasure is worth 5 yuan, a mother coin is worth 20,000, and a carved mother coin is probably more than 200,000.
Just listen to this woman say: "I accepted it, how much do you want to sell it for?"
I looked at each other and said, "Boss Mei, I can see that you are an honest businessman, and I am also an honest person."