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Chapter 262: 256: Spending Money is a Reflection of Value – Part 1

“This… this…” a middle-aged man stammered, almost dropping his jaw in amazement. His eyes widened as he took in the haphazard array of furniture and paintings, along with boxes made of wood scattered around the warehouse. From the packaging, they could tell that these boxes contained porcelain.

But the amount of porcelain… was it too… too overwhelming? Could it be that a porcelain factory in the country had directly shipped everything here after production?

Matthew Chan was stunned. Finn Lewis had mentioned it was a batch of cultural relics, but Matthew had assumed it would be twenty pieces at most. He was utterly unprepared for the sheer volume of antiquities present. In fact, even Finn himself hadn’t anticipated this many.

Leaving aside the porcelain from the ancient East Dynasty and the previous few dynasties, the greatest number of items was the porcelain pieces produced by royal kilns in 1837 that Finn had purchased later on. He had bought each set based on the amount a wealthy family would use.

He had entrusted them to Glorious Lucas, never expecting that the quantity required by a wealthy family would be so immense!. There were all varieties of plates, saucers and bowls, even sets of vases, liquor pots and others. Each set contained exactly 400 pieces! In other words, a wealthy family would need 400 pieces of porcelain! And Finn had purchased a whopping 10,000 sets! Can you imagine the amount of porcelain here?!

Thankfully these plates and bowls didn’t take up much space. They were arranged just like modern porcelain inside each wooden box, with a hundred or two in each. Otherwise, if it weren’t for this, it would be unknown whether the warehouse could hold the four million pieces of porcelain, not including the over 30,000 pieces of former dynasty porcelain that Glorious Lucas had acquired!

“I’ll have to trouble you all to appraise these items. They were all salvaged from several sunk ships.” Finn said with a smile. There shouldn’t be any problems with these artefacts since Finn had paid close to 40,000 points to treat them already. His points balance now stood at 900,000.

After hearing Finn’s words, a few older appraisers set to work immediately. The closest items were a full set of furniture kept outside. One of the older gentlemen simply touched the table and chairs, confidently declaring, “This is Huali wood, good quality wood from Yaizhou at that. The style suggests it is from the Qing Dynasty.”

The other appraisers gasped upon hearing this, drawing in a breath. Huali, known to be even more expensive than expensive Zitan wood currently, because, while Zitan wood is still produced in India albeit in small quantities, Huali is effectively extinct.

Almost all Huali wood that remained is from the previous dynasty, the Western Dynasty. Even if one were talking about the raw material, it’s valued at roughly 7 million per ton. This is for general quality Huali only; Finn’s furniture is all of exceptional quality. Most importantly, they’re all antiques! Just this set of furniture, a square table and six chairs, is valued around 150 million!

There was also a wooden bed next to it, made purely of Huali wood, along with matching stools, among other items. There were dozens of such sets! At the time, Glorious Lucas had mentioned that these Zitan and Huali wooden tables and chairs could furnish two entire estates! How large is an ancient estate?

And would the estate spoken of by Glorious Lucas be a normal abode? It would surely be the residence of a wealthy family. As the old man continued his evaluation, the emotions of all present fluctuated.

“Old sir, how is it?” After the evaluation, Finn immediately inquired of the elderly man.

The old man gave a bitter smile and shook his head. “I can only roughly estimate the value; it’s likely to be between 40 and 60 billion.”

Matthew Chan, overhearing this figure, couldn’t help swallowing hard. 40 to 60 billion? Only for these pieces of furniture? How much would the remaining items be worth?

“Is this blue and white porcelain?” Suddenly a gasp broke the silence. Hearing the term “blue and white,” everyone turned their gaze in that direction. There, another elderly appraiser was studying a large blue and white porcelain vase that was almost as tall as a man. Upon seeing the pair of porcelain vases, everyone’s eyes widened.

Blue and white! Ancient blue and white porcelain pieces are rare, especially the real masterpieces. And such a human-sized piece is almost unheard of! At least, in this appraiser’s memory! In 2005, an ancient blue and white porcelain vase, only the size of a flower vase, sold for nearly 300 million Flame Nation coins at auction!

That was ten years ago! What would today’s price be? And the price of this pair of large vases! Almost all of the appraisers gravitated over, each waiting silently for the final result to come out, their eyes fixed on the pair of porcelain vases. After about ten or so minutes, the old appraiser, his face flushed with excitement, declared, “It’s an ancient blue and white! Definitely, an ancient blue and white, such as has rarely been seen before! With its size and level of workmanship, its price cannot be estimated!”

“If a price had to be estimated, just this pair of porcelain vases would likely be around 50 billion Flame Nation coins,” the elderly appraiser confidently stated.

With the elderly appraiser’s words, everyone felt somewhat numb. Some people subconsciously looked toward Finn, and Mathew Chan also stared at Finn with a stunned expression on his face. The furniture and just one pair of vases were valued at 100 billion Flame Nation coins? Possibly even more! This was just an estimate! According to the old man’s words, these things should be regarded as priceless treasures! Any of the Flame Nation’s museums would consider them invaluable treasures!

Only Finn watched all this with a calm smile on his face. He knew that the total value of the items here reached 157 billion Federal coins, a full 1 trillion Flame Nation coins! Watching these frenzied appraisers, Finn felt a smirk creeping up inside him. When he finally manages to steal back France’s Louvre Palace, won’t all the world’s appraisers go mad then?

What would happen if another Mona Lisa’s smile appeared? Finn was already eagerly anticipating this, but he knew now was not the right time. He estimated it would be some time before he had the opportunity. However, this was likely a one-time deal. Finn doubted he would be able to transport antique relics back in the future, and even if he could, he would only be able to carry a few select pieces, not on a large scale like this time..