The Chinese Tiger Ying

"Yesterday someone stole a rare and valuable three-thousand-year-old Chinese artifact from my store."

"Blimey, three thousand years old?" I said. "That's unreal, but kind of cool."

Camargo nodded sagely. "Right, the piece dates back to the Western Zhou dynasty that existed from 1047 to 772 BC," she said. "The artifact is a bronze water vessel known as Tiger Ying because of its tiger decorations. Chinese art experts believe it to be one of only seven similar archaic vessels in existence. Five of them are housed in museum collections. An unidentified private collector of antiquities owns the other. I had already received a great deal of interest from potential buyers."

"Can the thing be fenced?" I said.

"No, it isn't something a person would take to the local pawnshop," Camargo said. "To get anything close to the value of the artifact, I'd expect the thief will try to sell it to an interested private collector. The only other market would be a museum. But, a museum would recognize it at once."