Auction (2)
“A few years later, every grapevine that produced that vintage was cut down. They’d been struck by disease. So the wine from the vintages made before then is worth whatever people are willing to pay.”
“Wow. Still, six hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a single bottle of wine is…”
James and Colt’s conversation drew Jake in as well.
“You know your stuff, Mr. James. The vines were replaced in 1947 after mite damage. Romanée-Conti from the 1945 vintage is an extremely rare wine, with only six hundred bottles produced that year. It’s made in the Romanée vineyard in Burgundy, France. It’s called Conti because the vineyard once belonged to Prince Conti, the nephew of King Louis XV of France. Hence, Romanée-Conti.”
“……”
No matter how he looked at it, Colt still couldn’t understand spending six hundred and fifty thousand dollars on a bottle of alcohol.
“Wine is just a little…”
“Haha. Let’s look at the other items too. There are quite a lot of jewels and works of art in this auction.”
Colt hurriedly flipped through the pages of the pamphlet to look over the lots. But there wasn’t a single piece of art he wanted to buy. The starting estimates were all at least several hundred thousand dollars.
“Oh, here’s a meteorite. Heh.”
It seemed Colt had only been scanning the pamphlet to find the meteorite he himself had submitted.
“The estimated hammer price is... seven million. Too cheap. Heh heh heh.”
Colt was hoping his meteorite would sell for far more than the estimate, the way a vintage wine might.
“Cheap, huh... heh.”
James flipped past the wine section too and looked over the other auction items. Then a rare book caught his eye.
“...Jake, what is this?”
Jake looked at the pamphlet page James held out and answered. It showed a collection of old books. They hadn’t been listed when James had looked through the pamphlet before.
“Ah. That particular book appears to have been produced sometime in the fifth to sixth century. We recently acquired it from an Englishman. He said he found it at a local flea market... and I heard he bought it for very little.”
A flea market... I bought Master’s book at an antique shop for a dollar too.
“The problem is, there’s no way to interpret the text.”
“It says the estimate is ten thousand dollars. Do you really think it’ll sell for that?”
“Ah. The opening bid is set lower than that. Scholars who study ancient scripts, or maybe a research institute, are likely to go for it, so there’s a chance it could go for less than the estimate. Of course, if someone really wants it, the price could climb.”
“...I said I can participate in the auction too, right?”
“You want to buy this old book?”
“……”
James nodded, his eyes burning as he looked at Jake.
This is a script only I can recognize.
James could tell from the pamphlet introducing the book. It was the same script as the first magical book his master had left behind. It was his master’s book, just like the old volume James had bought in America for one dollar.
“Haha. Then I suppose I’ll have to step in. What’s your maximum?”
“One million.”
“!!”
James intended to spend as much as one million dollars on a book whose estimate was only ten thousand.
“You’re willing to spend a million dollars on it?”
“I have to win it, no matter what.”
“Whew. That shouldn’t be too difficult. In my estimation, nobody else seems likely to go past a hundred thousand.”
The auction soon began, and James waited for the other lots to be snapped up and disappear. The only thing he wanted now was the book his master had left behind.
“Jimmy.”
“What.”
James didn’t even turn at Colt’s voice, staying focused on the auction.
“You like that old book?”
“...I’ll explain later.”
“……”
Anything James couldn’t explain in front of other people was usually something related to magic.
“...Col.”
“Colcol.”
And then the old book James had been waiting for finally came up.
“The opening bid is one thousand dollars, with increases of one hundred dollars each time, but...”
“Keep it going. Until everyone else drops out.”
“Understood, James.”
Following James’s instruction, Jake raised the numbered paddle and began bidding. There were other competitors, but as Jake kept lifting the paddle, they began to lower theirs one by one.
“Once it passed five thousand dollars, the minimum bid increment rose to one thousand dollars, but...”
“I said we could go up to a million. Keep bidding.”
“Very well.”
By the time the auction price reached twenty-three thousand dollars, nobody else was raising a paddle. It was more than double the estimate, but to James, who had already decided he could go as high as one million, it was cheap.
“This item goes to Guest Number Seven!”
Bang.
That was the moment the old book dropped into James’s hands.
“Got it!”
“……”
James clenched both fists in delight, but Jake only looked puzzled, since the book didn’t seem especially valuable to him.
“Ahem. I wanted to win something at one of these auctions too. I just picked the cheapest thing.”
“Haha. So you were bidding for your first experience. It may have been a bit expensive, but compared to the things still coming up, it’s nothing.”
“That’s right. I’ve got my meteorite, after all.”
“……”
What Jake had meant by the things still coming up was not Colt’s meteorite, but King Arthur’s gold coins and crown.
“Ah, it’s starting now.”
The meteorite Colt had given James was brought out neatly sliced open, so the inside could be shown.
“Ha. They cut it so nicely and clean.”
“A twenty-one-kilogram metal meteorite! As you can see, its condition is excellent. Analysis has shown that it contains a significant proportion of unknown material, and its preservation is also superb.”
The meteorite auction quickly reached its estimate.
“Seven million! Raise the bid by five hundred thousand!”
After several more paddles went up, Colt’s meteorite was sold for the handsome sum of thirteen million dollars.
“Hk.”
Colt was clamping a hand over his mouth and hunching over. If he let his joy show here, people might realize he was the owner of that meteorite.
James then slapped him on the back and said, “Congratulations, Colt. You blew right past the estimate.”
“Ahem. All thanks to you, James.”
Colt spoke with his excitement hidden, but the corners of his mouth kept trying to spread wider and wider.
“Let’s have a drink later.”
“Sure. Hk. Heh heh. I keep wanting to laugh. Heh.”
The auction that followed was for artworks, and near the end of the event, the gold coins of King Arthur that James had submitted appeared.
“This item is King Arthur’s gold coin, which might have been today’s star lot.”
It had been edged out by the crown that came after it, leaving the coin as an unlucky runner-up.
“The opening bid is five hundred thousand dollars, and each bid goes up by twenty thousand dollars.”
As soon as the auction began, paddles shot up all over the room. People were holding phones to their ears while raising their paddles, each one competing as though unwilling to lose.
“Two million! I’ll raise the bid by one hundred thousand!”
As the price climbed, more than half the bidders dropped away, but the auction was still blazing hot. The bidding only began to slow once the coin passed five million dollars.
“Five million! Raise the bid by five hundred thousand!”
One person lifted a paddle. Another immediately answered with one of their own.
“Six million on the board. Anyone else?”
Then someone else raised a paddle.
“Six and a half million!”
And the same bidder raised theirs again.
“Seven million!”
“……”
Maybe because they had raised their paddle so decisively twice, the others no longer dared to bid. They figured another raise would be useless if they still couldn’t win the lot.
“If there are no more bids, I’ll count down and close the auction. Three. Two. ...One! King Arthur’s gold coin is sold for seven million!”
Bang.
When the auction for the first coin ended, Colt tapped James on the shoulder.
“Well bought.”
“For a coin, anyway.”
The second and third coins also sold for six and a half million dollars and seven million dollars, bringing the coin auction to an end.
“Wow. So that’s twenty million altogether?”
At Colt’s words, Jake added, “The other two coins were sold separately for five million each, so the total is thirty million five hundred thousand dollars.”
That was because two of the coins had been sold directly, rather than through the auction, to the British Museum and the Vatican.
Then the lights dimmed, and the item concealed beneath white silk came forward under a spotlight.
“The star of today’s auction!”
As the certified auctioneer for Sotheby’s pointed, the shimmering silk cloth was removed and the lot beneath was revealed. This was the main event of the day.
“King Arthur’s crown!”
Every light came up, and the glittering crown showed itself in full. Built entirely of gold and set with a huge gemstone, it captured the gaze of everyone in the room.
“The opening bid is...”
King Arthur’s crown was extraordinary right from the start.
“Fifty million dollars!”
And the pamphlet didn’t even list an estimate. They had been debating the estimate until just a moment ago, trying to settle on fifty million dollars.
“The bid increment is five million dollars!”
The moment the auction began, a storm of paddles went up. Even at the high price, the line of bidders kept growing, paddles rising competitively as though no one intended to give in. A few reporters took photos of the spectacle.
“One hundred ten million... one hundred fifty million! Increase the bid by thirty million!”
The bidders never took their phones from their ears, continuing to raise their paddles.
“Three hundred million! Raise the bid by forty million!”
Even then, there were still bidders left, and Jake quietly explained to James and Colt, who were both absorbed in the auction.
“The Louvre, the Vatican Museums, and Britain’s British Museum are still in play. And...”
They were the most famous museums in the world.
“The Smithsonian and the Metropolitan Museum in the United States are bidding too.”
“……”
It wasn’t only museums.
“There are also calls coming from the Arab world, and a few more from Europe. There’s still plenty of room for more bids, James.”
“...He just called one billion dollars.”
“Already?”
Jake also stopped explaining and started focusing on the auction.
“One billion dollars! Raise the bid by fifty million!”
Only three participants remained, and they didn’t seem at all bothered by the soaring price.
“One billion fifty million! One point one billion, one point two billion!”
They were lifting their paddles so fast the auctioneer could hardly keep up.
And after a long stretch of relentless bidding, the auction produced a sum unprecedented in its history.
“...One point five billion dollars! Raise the bid by one hundred million.”
That was an auction where one bid moved one hundred billion won.
“……”
Colt was just staring with his mouth open at the climbing hammer price.
“Close your mouth, Colt. A fly’ll get in.”
“You’re still calm seeing that?”
“If I get excited here, it’ll look like I’m bragging that I’m the owner.”
“...Ah. Right, I should be careful too.”
The auction, which had been running hot, began to cool only after the crown reached one point seven billion dollars.
“One point seven billion dollars! Any more bids? One point seven billion dollars!”