So-called "antique shops" in this era often ran a side business much like a pawnshop alongside their legitimate trade in antiques.
Whatever you wanted to sell, as long as it looked valuable, they were willing to pay for it—though no more than a third of its appraised value, of course.
As for where it had come from? From the mountains, underground, underwater, natural, man-made... none of that mattered.
To put it more plainly, they fenced stolen goods, and they were damn professionals at it!
Naturally, a shop like that did not care where its sellers came from. If anything, an unknown background was better: it gave them a chance to drive down the price.
Pan Long took out two large gold bars. The antique shop owner inspected them, first confirming they were not antiques. Then he cut them open to make sure they had no filling, and finally weighed and scratched them to establish that they were more than ninety-nine percent pure gold. Only then did he pay Pan Long by weight.
"The Royal Mint sets the value of an ounce of ninety-percent gold at three pounds, seventeen shillings and ten pence. Your gold is purer, so after deducting processing costs, I'll give you four pounds and four shillings an ounce," he said. "These two bars weigh 21.3 ounces altogether. That comes to eighty-nine pounds and twelve shillings."
Pan Long paused. He did not know what pounds, shillings, pence, or even ounces amounted to in this world, but judging by what the owner had said, he did not seem to be driving down the price.
The figures looked like a jumble, but a quick calculation using the two main units, ounces and pounds, was enough to show that they roughly added up.
He was not one of those people who