May 18th is the day of the special auction of cultural relics from the "Suarez" shipwreck.
Alfonso Gonzalez sat in the auction box with anger, staring at every move on the auction floor with resentful eyes.
He is the agent of the famous Spanish consortium Inditex Group.
Speaking of the company Inditex Group, the Chinese may not know it very well, but when it comes to some of the brands it operates, everyone basically knows it - the fashion brand Zara, which is very popular among the middle-class and petty bourgeoisie, is owned by the Inditex Group.
Business.
Companies operating in the fashion, luxury, cultural, tourism and entertainment industries have always needed public image and exposure the most.
Therefore, after the news about the "fight for the ownership of cultural relics of the Suarez shipwreck" was fully exposed in newspapers, television and other media in Spain,
Inditex Group has launched an emergency plan, hoping to buy back these precious cultural relics with money after the relevant departments fail to apply for arbitration, and promote the "patriotic" selling point of Inditex Group to the public.
This is similar to how after the Notre Dame de Paris burned down, the well-known French luxury goods consortium operating the Donkey brand made a high-profile announcement to donate hundreds of millions of euros to help rebuild Notre Dame de Paris.
Same time, same place.
There was also a consortium representative from Philippine Telecom who had a similar status to Alfonso Gonzalez in the venue. Their purpose was similar, but their financial resources and motivation to pay were slightly worse than those of Spain.
All the protagonists of Fengyunjihui were present, and the auction officially began.
…
On the stage, the auctioneer wielded a small hammer and tried his best to spell out the selling points of batches of goods in a rhythmic manner.
"The 001 batch of Mexican Eagle Oceans are all minted in 1560. Don't underestimate this batch of silver coins. Although the Mexican Eagle Ocean is the largest silver coin in the world, there are very few of it in the year 1560 -
As we all know, the silver mines in Potosi, Peru, were discovered in 1545. Starting in the 1550s, Peruvian silver was shipped to the Viceroyalty of Mexico for minting. The local mint in Potosi was only established in the mid-17th century.
stand up.
Therefore, the vast majority of Mexican eagles existing in the world are silver coins from the 17th century or even later. The collection value of the 1560 coins in this auction is much higher than other Mexican silver coins on the market. They symbolize the Spanish's influence on the entire
Initial control of Latin America…”
At the end of the day, these words were blown to the Inditex Group and the boss of the Zara brand: This is the glory of your Spaniards’ conquest of the Americas. Why don’t you buy it back at a high price to bridge the gap between Spain and Spain?
The national pride of the people?
"Okay, guest No. 16 has made a bid, and the base price is US$15 per peso!"
"Guest No. 4, $16 per peso. No. 7, $18."
…
"28 U.S. dollars, is there anything higher? 28 U.S. dollars per peso once... Ah, guest No. 7 over there raised his sign again, 30 U.S. dollars per peso! Once, is there anything else? Twice, three times, deal!
"
As the auctioneer's hammer fell, people from Spain's Zara won a good start and bought the silver coins at a price of 30 US dollars per peso.
If sold according to the price of silver itself, 1 peso of silver is only worth 6 to 7 U.S. dollars. In general, Mexican Eagle Oceans with worse vintages can only be sold for 10 to 12 U.S. dollars. These early Eagle Oceans sold for 30 U.S. dollars. The key is
The amount is still so large, obviously because the patriotic sentiments of foreigners are being exploited.
This batch of 1560 Eagle Ocean is worth over 100,000 pesos! So this single lot has a turnover of over 5 million US dollars.
The silver coins that can be auctioned this time are at least more than 1 million pesos, so there will be more relatively worthless commodities from many years waiting to be shipped.
The struggle continues, but it is not as fierce as it was at the beginning.
The auction house obviously knows how to keep pace. Every time it auctions a few silver coins, it will mix in some Tumbaga gold masks and Mayan gold sun disks with higher cultural relic value...
The harvest feast continues.
…
In another dark box in the auction house, Gu Kun, Van Bilson, and lawyer Miss Sophia sat together, drinking champagne and celebrating their victory.
"You Dutch people are really masters of rhythm. We Easterners should really learn from this aspect of rhythm." Gu Kun humbly admitted his shortcomings and gave Sophia a toast.
Sophia drank it without hesitation. Due to the effect of the alcohol, her face was a little flushed. She did not hide her humility when speaking, but showed off proudly: "I asked you not to hide it and take out all the lots. This decision
It’s really wise, isn’t it?”
"Wing Ming Ming Ming, compared with your suggestion, my initial plan was really stupid." Gu Kun was also very pragmatic and admitted sincerely.
As mentioned before, Gu Kun's initial plan was to rent a C130 transport plane and bring a container of goods to the Netherlands to sell.
There were still more than ten tons of good stuff, but he was afraid that he wouldn't be able to sell them, and that releasing too much at once would cause the market to fall, so he stayed in Lan Fang and didn't bring any.
However, with the huge success of the hype and rhythm some time ago, and after Sophia suggested that he find a few shills to disgust the Spaniards, Gu Kun's initial plan revealed its shortcomings.
"If you hire a shill, it is inevitable that some bids will be fake and raised too high, and the Spaniards will not take over, resulting in a loss in your own hands. Instead of letting the shill lose the auction deposit and raise your sign and not buy,
It's better to buy it directly.
In this way, you don’t have to select some of the goods to sell, but just take them all. In the end, the fake part will collapse and fall into your own hands. You can take it back to collect it yourself or open a museum.”
This was Sophia's original solution to the problem of "overacting in child care".
Gu Kun was quite skeptical at first, so he asked a little more: "But if you buy it yourself, you still have to pay the auction house a transaction commission? Isn't the transaction commission more expensive than the auction deposit paid by the sitter in advance?"
Auction deposits are generally only one or two percentage points, while transaction commissions are as high as 15%, and even half after large discounts. The reason for this design is that the auction house prevents "after looking for Toto to collapse, pretend to buy it for real"
"——Because you faked it and really did it, you still have to give money to the auction house.
Just like those illegal businesses on Goudong, as long as you provide a certain percentage of commission to the platform, then you will also be swiping orders, and the platform can turn a blind eye.
Faced with Gu Kun's concerns, lawyers Van Bilson and Sophia showed mysterious smiles at that time: "Do you think that the auction house said it would collect the deposit in full, and that there would be no refunds due to false accounts under the table?
Is that so? As long as you can expand the scope of the auction objects and allow him to earn more overall, these black accounts can be discussed in detail in private."
Gu Kun was stunned when he heard this.
In his previous life, he still didn't understand the darkness of capital. In comparison, all he earned was hard-earned money!
Damn, those rhythm masters are so dark!
So he half-heartedly agreed: take all the catches and go through the motions, pat them symbolically, hit them with rhythm and excessive force, and then take them back for display/collection!
The auction house secretly gave him some fake accounts and discounted the commission. Anyone who ends up with his left hand instead of his right hand is guaranteed to have a commission lower than the auction deposit!
As a result, Gu Kun used shills to raise prices so brazenly that he achieved today's exaggerated gains.
…
"Boss, the results seem to be calculated. 1.63 million silver pesos were all auctioned. In the end, 1.22 million were sold, and 410,000 were lost. I have to buy them back myself. The total transaction price of the silver coins was 22.8 million US dollars."
"Tombaga, Inca roses, and Mayan gold sun discs, a total of 4.8 tons were auctioned, including 350 kilograms of gold-containing products. The total transaction price was US$38.5 million."
"The auction house actually collected commissions totaling $4.6 million."
As the auction ended, Van Bilson reported these data to Gu Kun for review.
There are two other things that he didn't mention, that is his own commission, which is about one-third of the auction house's and more than 1.5 million US dollars.
Sophia's legal fees were even lower, about $1.1 million.
However, considering that they set up a trap to stir up trouble and drive up the transaction price in a rhythmic manner, this commission is definitely a good deal.
Gu Kun's total income was 61.3 million U.S. dollars. After deducting 7.2 million (460,150,110) costs, the after-tax net income was 54.1 million U.S. dollars.
However, Gu Kun felt that he had earned the money without any regrets.
Every pore of the fashion and luxury industry is filled with dirty blood that seeks to gain attention by any means necessary.
Who knows that the wealth in this industry is not created, but defined by seniority? Being famous means being valuable.
He was just pushing the boat along, not letting the dirty black blood flow to the black soil he controlled and decompose into nutrients and fertilizer.
"Give me the money to make money. You can also publicize yourself. It's better than actually burning down a Notre Dame de Paris. Alas, I'm such a compassionate person. In order to let Western capitalists have an advertising effect on their own nationals, I have to make more money."