“Look at this” I said to Charlie, handing him a broken piece of Mayan pottery.
“What is it?”
“It’s one of those little three legged Mayan dishes. I thought was a copy and I carried it around with the musical equipment for Sherry to use as an ashtray. Last week we were playing at Fido’s and a tourist offered me $600 U.S. for it.”
“It’s real?”
“Sure enough. I didn’t sell it because I thought I might get more for it from another tourist. When we were packing up the equipment that night it slipped out or my hand and cracked right down the middle. Now, it’s worthless.”
“What a shame.”
“I just had a great idea,” I told him. “There is a little Maya village on the Belize/Guatemalan border that makes replicas of Maya artifacts to sell in the gift shops. I wonder if they could copy this for me.”
The head of the little Maya village said, “Sí, señor. We can copy this exactly for you but I think what you want to do is not legal. Because of this we will have to charge a lot of money but we can make exact copies for you. Just like this one.”
“I had to pay him $100 U.S each for the counterfeits,” I told Charlie, when I got back. “It’s worth it, though. I bought 50 of them for $5000. If I sell them for $400 each I stand to make $15,000 U.S. clear in profit.”
When the shipment came in Charlie went with me to pick it up. I gave him a box and I took one. He got his opened first.
“Wow!” he said. “They’re exact copies alright. All of these look just like the original, right down to the big crack in the middle of them.
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