‘But even if things are over a hundred years old,’ says Jonjo, ‘almost all of them are pretty much worthless. Mass produced, or low quality, or simply not what people are looking for.’
‘My parents used to bring home the most wonderful things sometimes,’ says Nina. ‘Corkscrews in the shape of peacocks, a Big Ben biscuit tin, and they’d put them in the shop for a tenner.’
‘Nina is right,’ says Jonjo. ‘Almost nothing is worth anything. The easiest way to make a small fortune in antiques is to start with a big fortune and lose it. Which means that the few things that are worth something make the whole antiques business go round. Right now that might mean a Clarice Cliff dinner set or some Bernard Leach pottery. Next year it will be something else.’
‘So if you just want to make a living,’ says Nina, ‘the equation is pretty simple. If you’re selling things for a tenner, make sure they only cost you a fiver, and make sure you know what’s fashionable.’
‘What sells,’ adds Jonjo.
‘If you can do that right, year in, year out, you can make a comfortable living,’ says Nina. ‘My parents never quite worked that out. They always fell in love with things.’
‘First rule of the antiques game,’ says Jonjo. ‘Never fall in love with things.’
‘Sound advice for life,’ says Ibrahim.
‘And might that have been the sort of living that Kuldesh made?’ Joyce asks.
‘I would say so,’ says Jonjo. ‘He was at it for fifty years, knew what to look out for, had clients who trusted him and a rent he could afford. I’m sure he had quiet weeks, but that’s not a bad recipe for a healthy business.’
‘And you get the joy of working with unusual, or beautiful, or rare things,’ says Nina. ‘You’ll never be a millionaire, but you’ll also rarely get bored.’
‘And if you do want to become a millionaire?’ Ron asks. ‘How might you go about that?’
Jonjo holds a finger in the air. ‘Well, isn’t that the question of the day?’
‘Have you been to see Samantha Barnes yet?’ Nina asks.
‘It’s next on our to-do list,’ says Joyce.
‘Let me show you something,’ says Jonjo.
Jonjo delves into a leather briefcase and takes out a small velvet pouch. He then slips on a pair of white gloves, loosens the drawstring of the pouch and tips a silver medal into his hand.
‘Ooh,’ says Joyce.
Jonjo places the medal on the flat of his palm, and shows it to each of them in turn. ‘Now what you’re looking at here – please don’t touch – is a DSM, a Distinguished Service Medal, awarded in the Second World War. Been in the same family since then, but they’re putting great-grandkids through university, so they brought it in to me and asked for a valuation.’
‘This would look lovely on Instagram,’ says Joyce. ‘I mainly just do pictures of Alan. Would you mind?’
‘One moment,’ says Jonjo. ‘I asked the family what they expected the medal to be worth, and they said they had read it could be worth up to ten thousand pounds.’
‘Naah,’ says Ron.
‘I had to tell them they had been misinformed,’ says Jonjo. ‘And that actually, given the condition of the medal, and the provenance, having been in the family since it was awarded, it would be worth much nearer thirty thousand pounds.’
‘Bugger me,’ says Ron.
‘Ron,’ says Joyce.
‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ says Jonjo.
‘Very,’ says Joyce.
Jonjo slips the medal back into the bag and peels off his gloves. ‘What’s beautiful about it, Joyce, would you say?’
‘Well, it was very … shiny?’
‘I’ll tell you what was beautiful about it,’ says Jonjo. ‘And that will tell you how you become a millionaire in the world of antiques. What was beautiful was the velvet bag, and the white gloves, and the way my voice dropped a tone in reverence.’
‘I do that sometimes,’ says Ibrahim.
‘What was beautiful was the story,’ says Jonjo. ‘The great-grandchildren, the family finally deciding to sell.’
‘Well, yes,’ says Joyce. ‘That was beautiful too.’
‘But all lies,’ says Jonjo, tipping the medal unceremoniously onto the table. ‘It’s a piece of tat, knocked up in a workshop about twenty miles from here. There’s a gentleman who makes them for a living, and you have to keep a keen eye out for them. This one slipped through the net at a local auction house, and, fortunately, I was on hand to show them the error of their ways. I’ve kept it ever since to teach the exact lesson I’m teaching you – the lesson being that if you can tell a story, you can sell a five-bob bit of metal for thirty thousand pounds. And that’s how you become a millionaire.’
‘And that’s Samantha Barnes’s game,’ says Nina. ‘Forgeries. Knock-offs. Mainly artwork. Virtually every limited-edition Picasso print you’ll see online is one of hers. Most of the Banksys, Damien Hirsts. She does Lowrys, all sorts.’
‘And I suspect she’s involved in worse than that now,’ says Jonjo. ‘And Kuldesh would have known her.’
‘Known her reputation too,’ agrees Nina.
‘I read somewhere that Banksy is really the man from
Ibrahim takes this as his cue to get down to the real business of the day.
