Treasure hunt begins in England

Chapter 78 The Worthless Torii Ingot
After getting Liang En's permission, Fan Meng quickly cleaned up the old newspapers.Then, there were pieces of gray-black metal ingots glowing with metallic light inside. "Oh—this seems to be silver."

After lightly picking up two pieces and touching them, Fan Meng showed an excited expression on his face.But when he turned his head, he found Liang En frowning holding a piece of silver.

At this time, Liang En had already measured the size of this thing with a small tape measure, and found that each silver ingot was basically 6cm long and 3.5cm wide.It is 1.5cm thick, and there are many scratches and black oxidation marks on it.

"Boss, this is money." Looking at Liang En's expression, Fan Meng showed a puzzled expression. "And I think these things should be old antiques."

In Fan Meng's view, this kind of old precious metal ingot should fully meet the definition of a treasure, so it is completely impossible to understand why Liang En is not excited at all.

Liang En was speechless looking at the excited Fan Meng, but since he was his assistant, he had to explain it at this time, so that Fan Meng would not fall into the pit one day.

"This thing is called the archway ingot, also known as the public assessment silver and the saddle ingot. It is named for its shape that resembles the ancient archway building. It was cast in the Guangxu and Xuantong years of the Qing Dynasty, and it took more than [-] years until it was withdrawn from circulation at the beginning of the Republic of China. The main It circulates in the southwestern region of China."

"Because of the implementation of "abolishing the two and changing the yuan" in the early years of the Republic of China, a large part of the silver was recycled and recast into silver dollars, and there are not many left today."

After hearing what Liang En said, Fan Meng was even more confused.Because according to Liang En, this kind of silver ingots called archway ingots has a short release time and a small range, so the number of remaining silver ingots is small.Then it should be worth more.

"I remember that you know Chinese, so you can see what the characters are written on it." Seeing Fan Meng's confused look, Liang En smiled, and then pointed to the words on one of the pieces of silver.

Don't look at Fan Meng's appearance, which is a combination of Chinese and Western, but he was forced by his father to learn Chinese since he was a child.So he still knew the stamps on these silver ingots, so he quickly read the Chinese characters on the silver ingots.

After "Guangbao Tongxu Tianbao Dibao" recognized those messy Chinese characters, Fan Meng also frowned.Because these words not only make no sense at all in terms of content, but also the frame structure of the words is very bad, just like children's graffiti.

"Because these are not silver coins minted in China at all, but imitations from Southeast Asian countries." Liang En directly revealed the answer.It turned out that although the southwestern border of China was remote, it had prosperous international trade.

In the border trade between local merchants and neighboring countries such as Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos, the circulation rate of silver dollars is not high, and a large amount of silver is still used as hard currency in trade.

Therefore, the silver ingots in various provinces of China, including the archway ingots, which have been withdrawn from circulation, have been transformed into international trade currencies, and even finally regarded as a local legal currency.

In this way, in addition to obtaining a large amount of silver ingots through trade, those Southeast Asian countries will also cast a batch of silver ingots in accordance with the traditional Chinese silver ingots for international trade and local circulation.

However, due to the differences in language, culture and technical conditions between countries, the silver ingots cast cannot be compared with those of China in terms of craftsmanship or writing.The casting level is rough, the color is chaotic, and the inscriptions are full of mistakes and omissions.

For example, Liang En and the others have now found that the inscription "Guangbao Tongxu" on these silver ingots is a miswriting of "Guangxu Tongbao".

As for the Tianbaodibao at the back, it comes from the traditional Chinese folk money that is used to pray for blessings and prevent disasters. It is probably printed here to allow these silver ingots to be blessed and supervised by the gods.

"In other words, these silver coins are just poor imitations of genuine silver ingots?" Hearing what Liang En said, Fan Meng shrugged helplessly.He'd thought he'd find the treasure the first time he worked, but that's clearly not the case now.

"Yes, because the quality of these silver ingots is obviously not as good as genuine silver ingots, and the output and stock are also very large." Liang En nodded and said. "So the price of these silver ingots in the market is equivalent to their weight in silver."

"Each of these silver ingots is five taels of silver from China in the past, which is equivalent to about 170 grams today. If placed on the market, each piece should be able to sell for about 100 pounds."

"That's not a small number." Fan Meng had already adjusted his emotions at this time. "After all, even in a place like London, the per capita monthly income is only more than 300 pounds, so 600 pounds should be higher than most people's weekly salary."

As for the reason why these silver ingots were hidden on the door frame, Liang En also found out from the newspapers that wrapped these silver ingots. The dates on these newspapers were all between May and August 1940.

That time period happened to be the disastrous defeat of the British Expeditionary Force on the European continent in the early days of World War II. Although the vitality was retained through the Dunkirk retreat, the weapons were almost exhausted. At the same time, the Luftwaffe began to bomb various cities in the UK.

For the British people, the whole country is in chaos at this time, and the flames of war may ignite in Britain at any time.Therefore, many British people choose to exchange some precious metals and hide them in order to survive that chaotic time.

The silver should have been hidden by the people who lived here at the time. As for why it was silver ingots from Southeast Asia, it is normal. After all, Britain, as the empire on which the sun never sets, robbed the whole world, so it is normal for silver from other countries to appear.

After collecting the silver, Liang En and the others began to search other places, but unfortunately, apart from the oak coffee table and silver ingots, they did not find anything valuable on the first floor.

And when the two of them went up to the second floor, they realized that compared to the first floor, the items placed on the second floor were obviously not as valuable as those on the first floor.

The reason for this situation is that compared to the public space on the first floor, the private space on the second floor will change the contents of the room every time the owner changes, so there is not much value left at all. thing.

Although it is said that the things placed on the second floor are preserved much more completely than those on the first floor because of the intact glass on the windows on the second floor, but these things from the 70s and [-]s are really unimpressive.

To give the simplest example, there is an old-fashioned TV with a large picture tube in the bedroom and guest room on the second floor, which seems to be 50 to [-] years old.But it's just e-waste.

But when the two climbed into the attic, the situation changed again.In addition to a large pile of rags, they found a box about the size of the trunk of a car in a pile of rags deep in the attic.

"This is a camphor wood box from Southeast Asia." After wiping off the dust on the box and looking at the pattern on it, and then getting closer and smelling it, Liang En looked at the box in front of him, which was surrounded by several rings of reinforced iron. Speaking of big boxes.

"Such a large camphor wood box can be sold for at least 100 pounds. More importantly, this type of box is often used to store some important items. If there is something in it, we will really make a profit this time."

After speaking, Liang En broke the big rusted lock on the box with the ax in his hand, and then opened the lid.

(End of this chapter)