Lesson 28: Unit 55 ANTIQUES AND AUCTIONS

Lesson 28: Unit 55 ANTIQUES AND AUCTIONS

David: Today we look at antiques.

Kevin: Like this one.

Natalie: And we go to this place. Christie’s an auction house in London.

Kevin: This used to belong to my grandmother. And I think it belonged to her grandmother before that. Now it belongs to me. I inherited it. It’s an antique, and it’s quite valuable. But, to be honest, I don’t like it, and I don’t know what to do with it. What do you think?

Natalie: Well, if you don’t like it, sell it.

David: Yes. I wouldn’t keep it unless I liked it.

Kevin: Hm, I don’t know.

Natalie: What would your sister have done if she had inherited it?

Kevin: Oh, she would have kept it. That’s the problem; my family thinks it’s very beautiful. They’ll be very unhappy if I sell it.

David: So should Kevin keep it or sell it? What would you do if you inherited something you didn’t like.

1.    I would probably sell it.

2.    I think I would keep it.

3.    If I inherited a valuable antique, I would definitely keep it.

4.    I would sell it.

5.    I think I would keep it unless I was particularly desperate for money for some reason.

6.    If I inherited a valuable antique, I would certainly keep it. If it has been in my family. I would want to keep it in my family.

A SCULPTURE FOR SALE

Sculptor. What do you think of this?

Customer: I think it’s very expensive.

Sculptor: Expensive? But it’s a work of art!

Customer: It’s too expensive. I won’t buy it unless you reduce the price.

Sculptor: Reduce the price? Never!

Customer: OK. Goodbye.

Sculptor: Wait! What would you do if I reduced the price to 9.000 pounds?

Customer: I’d say: It’s still too expensive. Goodbye.

Sculptor: Stop! What if I reduce it to 8.000 pounds?

Customer: No.

Sculptor: 7.000 pounds?

Customer: Now that’s very nice. How much is that?

Unless	I wouldn’t keep it unless I liked it.	She would have kept it.
If you don’t like it, sell it.	What would  she have done if she had inherited it?	They’ll be very unhappy if I sell it.

Mark Poltimore of Christie’s: Christie’s is an auction house, which was founded in 1766. So we have a lot of tradition in the company. Our main role is to act as an agent for our sellers, while vendors as we call them. You can bring in any item of antiquity here from dolls to pictures, to silver furniture. That’s I think seventy-seven different types of category you can bring in.

A lot of people write to us out of the blue, they send a photograph of the object in question. And they send it to us and we give them an informal valuation.

The second method is we have many clouds coming into our reception area and they bring their objects to our reception again for an informal valuation.

By and large I can judge a painting within a few seconds. I think like all these things one’s first reaction, one’s gut reaction, is often the correct reaction.

Well, first impressions: this is wonderful. It’s by this artist called Ruben Santoro, who’s an Italian artist. And I think he was born in the 1850s and he died in Naples in 1942. He specialized really in these architectural views, and here we have, I think, a beautiful view of Venice. And, I have to say, it’s one of the nicest I have seen for a long time.

What I like particularly it’s the little blob of red there, and the flowers there, and the yellow though it’s wonderfully colorful, and I think it’s commercial not only for Italians, but also Americans or anybody who’s been on holiday to Venice  it just sums it up beautifully.

Man: Have you ever wondered what it might be worth?

Woman: No, I’ve no idea. I was hoping you could tell me.

Man: Well, there have been a number on the market, and I would expect this could make al least 8.000 pounds to 12.000 pounds.

Woman: Really?

Man: Could make more if we can get the right Italians and Americans in possibly sort of up to 20.000. But it’s a wonderful picture, and it’s so unexpected to see it.

Woman: How can you tell that it’s authentic?

Man: Well, there are a number of reason. First of all the style is absolutely typical. And the quality is all there. I mean, this is quite a difficult picture to copy because it’s so sort of intricate. But perhaps more importantly is this signature here. If you look through the magnifying glass, you can see that the signature very much is part of the picture; it’s not sort of on top of the varnish and this is a good indication.

Woman: So, what’s the next step?

Man: Well, if you wanted us to sell it for you, we would include it in our next important sale of 19^th century pictures in three months time.

We take a commission from this, so we take a basic commission of ten percent, unless you are a trader you will get, if you’re in the business you get a commission reduction of up to four percent. So the basic commission is ten per cent, but if you are trader it will be six percent.

If it hadn’t been right, its value would have been considerably less.

We take a basic commission of ten per cent, unless you are a trader.

The pace is quite quick. If it’s too slow people get bored, it all sound very exciting and you should pace ourselves very slowly, but if you don’t work quickly people, literally fall asleep, and I think we do between 60 and 100 lots & R which is a pretty fast pace. And so we tend to start the sales at about eleven o’clock in the morning, and they should be over by lunch time.

The bidding does slow down, because sometimes we have banks of telephones, where people are ringing from abroad instead of actually being present at the sale. If you go to auction, there is the excitement of competition. If you have one person that is interested in your object, it will almost certainly go for the reserve price, because there is only one bid. But if there are two people, anything can happen, and that’s the excitement.

If you don’t work quickly, people fall asleep.

If you find a picture, or any antique, which you’re of or indeed you don’t know it’s  value, do bring it in to us. I think a lot of people are frightened, about coming into Christie’s or indeed coming into any sort of establishment. They don’t want to appear foolish. But you must come in because, if you don’t ask, you’ll never know whether the picture on the wall or in the attic is valuable. You should buy what you like, and if you enjoy it then you’re lucky and if it goes up in value, you’re even luckier.

If you don’t ask, you’ll never know.

WORD BANK

Belong to	Pertenecer a	To be honest	A decir verdad/para ser sincero
Bid	Pujar/ hacer una oferta	Work of art	Obra de arte
		Architectural	Arquitectónico
Bidding	Pujar/ oferta	Authentic	Auténtico
Doll	Muñeca	Blob	Mancha
Free of charge	Gratis	Charges	Precio/coste
No cost/ without charge	Gratis	Commercial	Comercial
		Commission	Comisión
Conditions	Condición
Goods	Bienes, artículos	Considerably	Considerablemente
Increase	Incrementar, aumento	Decorative	Decorativo
Inherit	Heredar	Establishment	Establecimiento
Insure	Asegurar	Foolish	Tonto/insensato
Ornament	Adorno	Impression	Impresión
Reduce	Reducir	Indication	Indicación
Second-hand	Segunda mano/usado	Insurance	Seguro
Valuable	Valioso	Intricate	Intrincado/complejo
Valuation	Tasación/valoración	Lot	Lote
Value/to value	Valor/valorar	Magnifying glass	Lupa
To be worth	Valer	Pace	Ritmo
Reserve price	Precio mínimo/precio de salida	Sum up	Sintetizar/resumir
Specialise	Especializar	Tend to	Tender a
Step	Paso	Unexpected	Inesperado
		Varnish	Barniz