He would need proof that they were authentic up-time dolls.
They could provide certificates of authentication, proof that they not only came from Grantville, but from the personal collection of Delia Ruggles Higgins. Of course, the dolls weren’t for sale.
All in all, with Johan’s deliberate mistranslations and Delia’s enthusiastic discussion of her dolls, it had the making of a remarkably shrewd sales technique.
All of which wouldn’t have worked at all, except Federico knew perfectly well what would happen when he reached Venice with the dolls. There would be a bidding war, and the dolls would be shipped to royal courts, wealthy merchants, and everything in between, from one end of the world to the other. All at exorbitant prices. Some, a very few, would actually end up as the prized toy of a very wealthy child. Most would end up in various collectors’ collections of rare and valuable knickknacks.
It wasn’t quite enough. Federico left that night with no commitments made.
July 16-18, 1631
That might have been the end of it. Not hardly. Johan would have found something. If nothing else, they would have offered a few more dolls. That was what Federico was expecting. Or failing that, Federico would have gone back and made the deal anyway. In spite of the urgent letters he had for delivery in Venice, he was not leaving Grantville without those dolls. But a deal under the current conditions would have meant bad blood. Real resentment, the kind of anger that means the person you’re dealing with never wants to deal with you again, and warns their friends away. Says words like “thief” and “miser,” not with a half-joking half-respectful tone, but with real intent.
In any event it wasn’t necessary. Two weeks earlier, David had given Johan an old Playboy. It had happened at the end of a discussion of the fairer sex, in which young lad and old man had agreed that girls were complex and confusing, but sure nice to look at. He figured that the old guy would use it for the same thing he did; to read the articles, of course.
This was still the age when the quality of art was determined primarily by how closely it reflected reality. The photographs in a Playboy magazine looked quite real indeed, just somewhat, ah, more, than nature usually provides. This gave the pictures a certain amount of added artistic value. Johan had noted this, and on the morning of the sixteenth, had shown the Playboy to Master Vespucci, with the explanation that there were some forms of art that proper Christian ladies didn’t appreciate. It was a deal closer. It saved everyone’s pride. Several additional images were agreed on and things were settled. Master Vespucci would get his dolls and get to keep his pride. Lady Higgins would be spoken of with respect, and even her scoundrel of a servant, as someone who knew how things worked.
Little did they know, but with Delia’s full knowledge, Ray Higgins had been a long time subscriber to Playboy. She had been no more upset about Ray’s Playboys than he had been about her dolls. Well, she didn’t buy him Playboys, but she did no more than shake her head. In one of the storage containers that was reserved for family use, there was a collection of Playboys going back almost to the first issue. Alas, the blockages of communication between the generations and the genders hid this knowledge from those most able to use it. The Playboys continued to gather dust.
The final deal was made. A consignment of selected dolls, all sizes and types, each with a signed and sealed certificate of authenticity, and undisclosed sundries, were exchanged for a rather large sum of money. In fact, most of the money that Master Vespucci had available to him in Thuringia. The things he’d been planning to buy in Badenburg would just have to find another buyer. The sundries were David’s Playboys, all twenty-four of them. And fifty really raunchy color photos downloaded from the internet up-time, that he had used the last of his color ink to print.
Delia got to keep most of her dolls, at least for now. They had asked the bank to loan them rather more money than the sales realized. Almost twice as much in fact. They had asked the bank for the total amount they had estimated plus the hundred percent fudge factor that Mrs. Wendell had suggested. Now, that fudge factor was gone. Federico Vespucci had paid them little more then the minimum they thought they would need. They would have sold more dolls, but Federico Vespucci hadn’t had any more money to spend. It was enough to start.