How to Retire Without Money
BEST PLACES TO RETIRE: AUSTRIA (page 11)
CASE HISTORY No. 2 (continued). Back in Vienna, Dave took his purchases to art dealers, keeping one or two which he wished to take back home with him when his vacation was over. The Rembrandt print went for 5,000 shillings (about $200) which still makes Dave mad when he thinks about it, because he was robbed.This was too good to be true. Dave applied for another visa to go back to Prague and then began to bone up on antiques, first edition books and etchings. He also tried to find out a way in which he could get more money into Prague for his purchases. One of the antique dealers came to his assistance here. Dave could buy antique gold in Vienna and take it into Czechoslavakia with him. Then in Prague he could sell the old gold for from two to three times what he'd paid for it in Austria. No laws, either Austrian or Czech, were broken by this bit of international financial gobbledygook.
On his next trip to Prague Dave took some of his books along. He had had his mother send him some from Massachusetts. He also took a couple of hundred dollars worth of second hand gold jewelry. Sure enough, he was able to sell it for old gold at a jewelry shop.
This time he made a cleaning, finding several books of consider able value back home, quite a few prints at rock bottom prices and even an oil by one of the minor Flemish painters. The profit he realized when he returned to Vienna astounded him.
Dave had figured out why he was able to find these fabulous bargains. Many, many of the formerly wealthy in Czechoslovakia had found themselves displaced when the communists took over. Some of them fled the country, some adapted themselves as best they could. Few of them could afford to retain the family art possessions. As a result these things were sold for the best they would bring which wasn't much since everyone else in the country was in the same position. First edition books, old prints, ceramics, antiques, all of considerable value, were going for a pittance. Dave even found a small statue by Rodin in a Prague shop and was able to buy it for peanuts.
After a time he stopped selling his findings to the Vienna art dealers and began marketing them himself through the various publications in the States specializing in the arts and antiquities and sometimes through personal contacts in Vienna among Americans and other tourists. In fact, Dave was rapidly getting a name among art collectors as a man to contact upon arriving in Vienna.
When I met Dave, in Prague, he told me that he currently had a stock worth somewhere more than $50,000. He was considering opening a shop of his own and employing some art conscious Austrian to work for him while he continued to study up on such art fields as he must know to recognize a bargain when he saw one. He was looking forward to extending his tours behind the Iron Curtain into whatever other lands would allow him to acquire local arts and antiquities. Russia, he understood, was out since they wouldn't allow you to take art objects from the country, but he was investigating Rumania and Bulgaria.
§
. . . learn more about retirement in Austria
Read more about some of the best places to retire:
Best Places to Retire Mexico Spain France Italy