Situation puzzleThe expensive fake
When it turned out that the painting was fake, it became 10 times more expensive. How did it happen?
A lady approaches an antiquarian’s tent, spends long time looking at the paintings and stops at one of them with an inscription saying: “I. Repin”; the price tag said: ten rubles.
— Here’s ten rubles. I’m taking the painting. But I’ll bring it back if it’s fake. I’ll be at my friends’ place, where Repin is having lunch today, and I'll show it to him.
The lady brings the picture to her friends and shows it to Repin. He laughs. He asks for a pen and ink and signs at the bottom of the picture, “This is not Repin. I. Repin.”
This painting returned to Sukharevka and was sold for a hundred rubles thanks to Repin’s autograph.
An abstract from Vladimir Gilyarovsky’s book “Moscow and Muscovites”, 1926
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