The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1910-03-03
POOLING THE COLLECTORS
Sailing House With Fake Antiques
n Trick Worked I'm England.

L
Trick Worked I'm England.
Evidently America is not the only
fools paradise where the hoodwink-
Ing of collectors of antiquities Is
profitable business. Here Is scheme
which, according to the Grand Maya
zine, is true in all its details and is
practiced In London:
Let the reader imagine he Is lls-
tening to the end of an earnest con-
versation between dealer of world
wide reputation and one of the lat
ter's most important customers,
man whose bottomless purse Is the
lodestar of all swindledom. The vis-
itor complains that nothing really
fine is to be picked up nowadays.
When he thinks he has at length dis
covered some ancient piece OF furni-
turc in an out-oi-the-way farmhouse,
he is sure to learn at the last mo-
mcnt that 1t Is not authentic and
has merely been planted there by
some cunning rogue of Wardour
street or the Rue des Faussaircs.
"Ah," replies the dealer. looking
where there are still some perfect
treasures, It's an old Elizabethan
mansion in Slumberingshiro, but the
owner, an unmarried lady, nearly
seventy, though she has barely
enough to live upon, absolutely re-
fuses to sell a single article. She
won't even allow a stranger to enter
the house. | managed to get In by a
trick once, ana ! assure You | was
almost dumbfounded at what ! saw.
The whole place is in identically the
same state it was 200 years ago.
The hook is now baited, but the
dealer, who knows his man, allows
several days to elapse. Then he
sends a telegram
Just learned that the old lady
will be absent from home for 4 day
or two; can bribe servants to show
house"
The place IS some distance from
London; no matter, off the pair go,
only to find on arrival at their dcs-
tination that by some fatality the
owner of the house has not gone
away after all, so that the inspection
must perforce be put off. Naturally
the collector, if he is worth his salt,
knows no rest now until another op-
portunity to see the treasures pre-
sents itself.
His desire Is finally gratified, and
In company with his "disinterested'
cicerone he is allowed to run hastily
through 4 few rooms filled with
dusty old furniture piled up in pic
turesque confusion. He IS not per-
Initted to make close inspection IN
der preteXt that the old lady may re-
turn at any moment and that he will
find 1t difficult to explain his pres
ence.
What terrible pity" sigh both
men simultaneously as they hurry
away, that such admirable speci-
mems should remain here in the
Dust"
A month, perhaps two months
pass; then one morning the dealer
rushes in breathlessly to his custo-
mer's presence.
You remember the old lady?"
eyes, what about herr"
''She is absolutely compelled at
last to raise some ready money, and
has consented to sell me some of her
most precious historical relics"
by Jove, what luck! Buy every
thing you can for mo. | must have
those things, whatever they cost"
| What the cOnfiding millionaire did
not know-though he assuredly sus-
poets something of the kind now-is
that the Eli2abethan mansion was
rented by the dealer; that all 1t con-
tanned was the same persons prop
erty, and that both the carefully
trained servants and the "old lady"
herself were in his pay.