Relaxing in Phuket after a week in Hong Kong
  

Apparently, there were collectors in Singapore that would buy it and value it as being genuine, so I agreed to sell it. This particular sale realized more than enough to cover our celebration holiday.

Hong Kong was still British then and we enjoyed so many aspects there, the jade market was full of fakes but never-the-less fascinating, we had clothes made-to-measure for us, the shop was full of such beautiful high-quality fabrics that it was hard to make our choice, and there were some interesting antique shops to visit, in addition to the usual sights to see.

We were invited to Hugh Moss's home while we were there (he had been the leading snuff bottle dealer in London, but was living in Hong Kong), he had published so many books on snuff bottles and I had bought some bottles at his London gallery, where I first met Bob Hall, who was working there.


Jewellery Quarter Development

Lastly, we gradually purchased what was quite a large development site (consisting of old factory buildings) in The Jewellery Quarter, after I purchased a factory in the middle. A wonderful location on a hill just a few minutes' walk from the centre of Birmingham, but this involved having several investors.

This is still unresolved as our investors turned out to be far too greedy and failed to honour our agreement. Over the years we had purchased eleven properties at a total cost of 2.5 million pounds including all management, lawyers' fees, and planning costs.

The basis of our agreement was that the investors provided the funds, and we negotiated the purchases, organised maintenance, security, and the planning applications that were all charged at cost, the investors did not have to do anything.

Once sold they would all get their funds back first and then we would share the profit.

It took much longer than we thought, because the planning department kept changing their minds and moving the goalposts, in addition we had an added problem of a dangerous professional squatter (a known criminal with a gang of thugs) in our largest property.

Our lawyers were unable to get them out for over a year. Stupidly, when we eventually had the opportunity to sell for 7.3 million pounds representing a substantial profit, our investors refused to accept the sale (claiming they could get more).  They never did!  Jewellery-Quarter+R