A peddler visits a local town, and announces that he has a Fabergé egg to sell. Townspeople gather near his freshly-painted cart to see the shiny jewel. The seller contends his merchandise is the Rose Trellis Fabergé egg.
He extols the beauty of the object, tells listeners that he recently purchased it from a museum, and that he’s willing to sell it to the highest local bidder.
“How much is this egg?” they ask.
“Why, it’s a bargain at twenty-five million,” the peddler replies. He tells the crowd, accurately, that Fabergé eggs have gone for even more than his asking price.
“Let’s see it,” says the crowd.
The peddler reaches into his cart, and grabs a silk bag, in which there’s a velvet box. He opens the box, and briefly lifts up a small, glistening object.
“Behold,” he exclaims, “a world-renowned jewel that – for the right price – can be yours!”
He holds it in his hand for just a few seconds, and hurriedly returns the egg to the velvet box, inside the silk bag.
Someone asks if she can see it again, for a longer time, and closely enough to hold it in her hand.
The peddler laughs at her request.
He loudly tells the assembly that “a real connoisseur wouldn’t need to hold a jewel of this quality, or inspect it. Genuine experts know true value from a distance, after a quick glance of no more than three seconds.”
“It’s too bad that you have people around here who are so troublesome that they think they should hold a multi-million-dollar object in their hands, or look at it closely, before buying,” declares the peddler.
The seller’s declaration silences some, lest they appear unsophisticated in the peddler’s eyes. The same statement emboldens others, causing them concern that three seconds from a distance is not a proper opportunity for inspection of an expensive object.
One is left with this question: Should a sober-minded person purchase that object, for anything like that asking price, under those conditions?
There’s a reasonable answer: Knowing nothing else of art, still one should know that a legitimate seller of genuine goods would not offer so precious a creation with so little time and such limited conditions for inspection.
It would be better to reject entirely a peddler who’d make that sort of offer. Better, even, as he whines and wails on his way out of town.