They also assure you that he can "smell" a fake antique from a distance. In fact, they maintain, this sixth sense of Signor has been his undoing. He could not "guarantee" the genuineness of an article. He knew too much.
Most of the others guaranteed in good faith and ignorance thousands of pieces, and made fortunes, where Signor only shook his head derisively.
They have sold "genuine" Memlings to collecting millionaires, swords of Gaspard Olivares and statues of Osiris as well as Chinese porcelains and Buddhas, the origin of which they refused to know, while Signor maintained that the real things still on the market would not fill a good sized shoe.
On the dusty shelves in Signor's store are pieces in brass, pewter, glass and iron of no particular artistic value, but the origin of each thing is guaranteed by the dusty old man.
He will tell you the whole history of every bit of metal in his shop. And if you think him stark mad when he announces the price of the iron hinge on which once hung the principal door of the Amiens Cathedral, or of the brass lantern which once adorned the nuptial chambers of the Moor King Mambrin of Don Quixote fame—if you are stunned by Signor's prices he will tell you that all these things are "unique."
Signor never owned or sold a thing which was not unique. He has investigated that Cathedral door hinge and convinced himself that the upper hinge on which now hangs the door is a new one. As to the brass lantern, he has a hundred authorities to strengthen his allegation.
One must know that Signor does not deal in things that have their counterpart somewhere on this planet.
But above all, Signor has always been proud of his collection of stamps. Among the philatelists the world over he is listed as the owner of the most searched for stamps.
There are standing offers of thousands of dollars for some of the little colored squares of paper Signor is tucking safely away in his heavy safe every sundown. Bent over his little desk in a corner of his darkened shop, the old man is daily examining his stamp collection.
He looks them over again and again; treats them, where there is suspicion of decay, nurses them back to health, using medicines from labelled bottles or by exposing them to the air after mid-day, when the rays of the sun no longer affect color and tissue.