50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 819 Win-win
Ordinary people are not Christie's sales targets, so by charging a high price of $500 for admission, they can naturally keep poor people out.

On the other hand, the revenue from ticket sales can also subsidize Christie's expenses on auction promotion.

They're very familiar with this tactic; a mature auction house doesn't just earn revenue from auction commissions.

From the moment they begin collecting the items for auction, there are various ways to generate additional income and returns.

The reprint by "Treasure News" a few days ago had already earned them a sum of money; the ticket revenue was just one aspect of the various stages of the auction.

For Sun Zhiwei, $500 is still money. He's not stupid; he'd rather spend money to tour his own property. The average worker in China doesn't even earn $500 a month, so every little bit helps.

So he went directly to Christie's, got an employee badge, and entered the exhibition hall through the employee entrance.

The exhibition venue was decorated with distinctive Indian characteristics, featuring an antique Indian style. Upon entering, there was an exhibit introduction explaining the origin of this treasure.

Sun Zhiwei made a point of reading the description of the treasure's origin, which mentioned that an adventurer found a clue on a parchment from hundreds of years ago, encountered a storm at sea, and survived countless near-death experiences before finally arriving at the deserted island where the treasure was hidden.

Then, the explorer encountered venomous snakes and ferocious beasts in the tropical jungle, fought against cannibals on a deserted island, and finally, after overcoming countless hardships, the explorer found an ancient Indian temple on the island.

But that's not all. After finding the treasure, the explorer was betrayed by his companions, but unexpectedly received help from an ancient royal princess who was in charge of guarding the treasure, and finally obtained this gold treasure worth hundreds of millions.

Goodness, this is scriptwriting! Look at this story they've created.

A treasure trove, a deserted island teeming with wild beasts, beautiful women, gunfights, martial arts battles, natural disasters, loyalty, and betrayal—this film has gathered all the popular elements of movies.

Does Christie's employ a bunch of Hollywood screenwriters?

Because of the story's plot, it somehow made him think of "Indiana Jones."

However, this absurd and fabricated story attracted all the visitors, and many people took photos of the story information board at the entrance.

It's unbelievable that no one questioned the authenticity of this treasure hunt story.

Seeing the high level of interest, Sun Zhiwei suddenly had a gimmick to expand his influence.

He immediately found Christie's manager, shared his idea, and the manager immediately praised it. Then the two began to negotiate the revenue sharing ratio of tickets.

Finally, Sun Zhiwei received a 35% cut of the ticket revenue.

Half an hour later, an ancient treasure chest appeared at both the entrance and exit of the exhibition hall.

The treasure chest at the entrance was placed in a transparent display case. The chest was open and filled with all kinds of gold coins.

Many gold coins overflowed from the treasure chest and were scattered all over the floor inside the transparent display case.

There is also a treasure chest at the exit of the exhibition hall, but that treasure chest is closed.

Christie's staff stood nearby and explained that the explorer who unlocked the treasure had decided to donate a batch of treasure coins to share his joy.

Every visitor leaving the exhibition hall can take an ancient gold coin from the treasure chest as a souvenir, based on their ticket.

Staff assured that the gold coins inside were genuine, and that the ancient gold coins retrieved from the treasure were worth between $500 million and $50. What you got was entirely up to luck. This was Sun Zhiwei's idea; a large portion of the treasure he obtained from the temple consisted of ancient gold coins, exceeding 10 pieces.

Most of those gold coins were ordinary gold coins that circulated back then, and now they are worth only about one or two hundred US dollars each.

Melting them all into gold bars seems like such a waste, but auctioning them off isn't worthwhile.

Therefore, Sun Zhiwei discussed with Christie's the opportunity of this exhibition to hold a "treasure gold coin" lottery event, which would not only increase the publicity effect of the exhibition, but also indirectly sell the gold coins, achieving multiple benefits at once.

Christie's estimates that ticket sales could more than double after the addition of the "Treasure Coin" raffle.

After all, this is a real treasure. Anyone who loves treasure and adventure would be very interested in the chance to draw a treasure coin themselves.

As they expected, the "Treasure Coin" event immediately made headlines in Hong Kong newspapers as soon as it was launched.

The results even exceeded Christie's and Sun Zhiwei's expectations; a total of 11 tickets were sold during the two-week exhibition.

This was several times more than they had originally expected, leaving Christie's and Sun Zhiwei puzzled.

In the end, it was a local employee from Hong Kong Island who revealed the truth.

It turns out that betting on horse racing and other gambling activities are very popular on Hong Kong Island. However, although the prize money is very high, the risks are also very high. If you don't win, you will lose everything.

But Christie's "Treasure Coin" raffle is different this time, as it has an ancient gold coin as a guaranteed prize.

Even if you don't win the $50 rare gold coin, you're guaranteed a $500 "treasure coin".

These are genuine ancient gold coins. Even if you keep them, they can be used as valuable assets to preserve their value, which is much more worthwhile than betting on horse races.

Therefore, when Christie's first used a $500 ticket to screen customers, it estimated that the number of visitors would be around 1, all of whom were potential customers for this auction.

After adding the "Treasure Coins" event, they estimated that 2 tickets would be sold.

The truth is, a total of 11 tickets were sold, which almost depleted Sun Zhiwei's gold coins.

Many of these people aren't there to see the treasure exhibition at all; they buy tickets and head straight to the exit to participate in the lucky draw.

Some gamblers even buy multiple tickets to increase their chances of winning the lottery.

This event brought Sun Zhiwei a total of $1925 million in revenue, while his original 1100 gold coins were worth approximately $11 million.

Sun Zhiwei sold the gold coins in two weeks and made an extra $800 million, making the deal very profitable.

Christie's also profited; they sold 100,000 more tickets than they could have originally planned to sell. Even though Sun Zhiwei took a cut, they still earned more than $30 million in ticket revenue.

This is a win-win situation.

(End of this chapter)