"It seems that this thing should be sold quickly after returning to London." After listening to Leonard Ethan's explanation for a few minutes, Pierce had to change his previous thoughts.
The reason for identifying the box as a coffin was also simple, because the floral bas-reliefs used for decoration on the box were all chrysanthemums or white lilies. In addition, there were some seemingly cute little angels dotted around it.
"This thing can be considered an antique." Leonard Ethan looked at the carving of 1873 on the inside corner of the box, "But it is not easy to sell."
Historically, ceremonial coffins were popular among ordinary people in the Victorian Era, because they may not have had much money, but they wanted to have a decent funeral.
So, some merchants prepared such items. The family of the deceased could rent them to make the funeral more dignified. When it was time for burial, they would switch to a cheaper coffin.
Now, the one Pierce found should have been for children who died young at the time. Considering the child mortality rate in that era, the production of such items wouldn't be too much, but definitely not less.
"Indeed, it is not easy to sell." After hearing Leonard Ethan's words, Pierce also sighed. "However, there are collectors of all sorts of things in the collecting world, so I can still find someone willing to buy this thing."
Pierce was right about this point. At least in the United Kingdom, there were collectors of Egyptian wooden coffins and even mummies. A ceremonial coffin was just a drop in the bucket.
But this little item was just an extra find. For the goal of acquiring Victorian Era furniture, Pierce had already basically exceeded the lower limit he had set for himself before arrival.
Through a morning of sorting, the Victorian Era furniture he found in this room included a cupboard, a square table and four matching chairs, a tea table, a display cabinet, an oil painting by a commercial painter at the time, and a dressing table.
Other furniture, although it looks like it was from the Victorian Era, was actually just modern imitation. It was just that the two of them couldn't see this when they were looking inside through the window gaps earlier.
"By the way, what did you find upstairs just now?" After finishing talking about his entire harvest this morning, Pierce asked about Leonard Ethan's findings.
"Most of the attic contained old clothes, after all, they have to consider their house's ceiling strength." Leonard Ethan said as he took out the bag containing his spoils. "But I still found quite a few valuable things."
Then, he began to take out those things he found one by one.
Seeing the complete set of "Harry Potter" books and related books, Pierce's face remained calm. However, when Leonard Ethan took out the teddy bear, Pierce suddenly became excited.
"This is a Steiff teddy bear produced in Germany, and it's one of the highest priced limited editions."
"How do you know?" Leonard Ethan picked up the teddy bear and looked at it confused, as he could only tell that it was from the 70s and might be worth something, but he couldn't see the specifics.
"It's because my ex-girlfriend really liked these bears, so I did my research back then." Pierce pointed to the tag nailed onto the teddy bear's left ear with a tiny nail, "You can tell from here."
"Steiff-produced teddy bears are divided into three types, which can be distinguished by this tag. Those with a yellow background and red text are normal products, those with a white background and black text are important replicas. And like the one we have now, those with a white background and red text are the most valuable limited editions."
"However, unfortunately, this one is among the more common items in the limited edition series. It simply cannot compare to the 2.1 million USD limited edition one they produced in collaboration with LV before."
"So, how much is this thing worth?" Leonard Ethan wasn't too interested in this stuffed toy, so he was more concerned about how much money it could sell for.
"Let me check — ah, here it is." Pierce took out his mobile phone and, after flipping through it for a few minutes, quickly found a teddy bear on an auction house website that looked almost identical.
Leonard Ethan took a closer look, and the selling price of that teddy bear turned out to be 2700 pounds. However, it seemed a bit more worn out compared to the one he was holding.
"So the price of this teddy bear we have should be between 2500 and 3500 pounds." After comparing the two, Leonard Ethan came to a relatively fair conclusion.
"That's right, it's an extra bonus." Pierce also showed a smile, "I really didn't expect there to be so much stuff in those attics full of miscellaneous items."
"And there's more." With that, Leonard Ethan took out that "Harry Potter" book from the deepest part of his bag. "This is the most valuable find I've made this time, the first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone."
"That version that only had 500 copies printed?" Although Pierce felt indifferent about the novel, as a national literary work of the United Kingdom, he naturally researched these things as well.
"That's right, that edition. I remember a copy was sold for nearly 30,000 GBP at a previous auction. And since our copy is in even better condition, we might be able to add another two or three thousand."
"It's worth even more than that." Wearing gloves, Pierce carefully flipped through the book and said, "Don't forget, this book is signed by the author, so it has more significant commemorative value."
After inspecting the book, Pierce immediately returned to the vehicle to get a specialized plastic bag to put the book in. Then he placed it inside the small safe box on his car designated for storing such expensive items.
The afternoon work was similar to the daytime, mainly cleaning up the whole room. To that end, Leonard Ethan even moved the metal detector over.
Regrettably, most of the rooms here had been searched by the old house owner's heirs before. So except for two 1950s silver coins and a Victorian iron flower pot stand, they found nothing else in the afternoon.
That night, the two didn't stay in an inn but chose to wrap themselves in sleeping bags and make do in the room for one night.
Early the next morning, they got up early, went to a nearby McDonald's for a meal and breakfast, and then transformed into movers to load the furniture onto the vehicle.
Perhaps the owner at that time was worried that these antique furniture pieces would be damaged during transportation, so all the large furniture items were on the first floor. This made it more convenient for the less-than-professional Leonard Ethan and Pierce.
After wrapping the furniture with the rags they found upstairs, the official moving work began.
Frankly, if they had hired professional movers, it might have taken less than an hour to take care of these things. But Leonard Ethan and Pierce, the two amateurs, spent a full morning moving all these items onto the two vehicles they had brought.
Today, Pierce was driving a medium-sized truck similar to the ones used by moving companies, with a side cargo compartment door that could be pulled down for use as a ramp. This made the workload for the two of them much smaller.