Country Lawyer’s Barter Deal Pays Off Decades Later: Strange Inheritance Season 2
A mysterious client pays her country lawyer in exotic artwork. Forty years later, his cash-strapped son learns of its link to a long-ago Chinese emperor.
The son of a country lawyer is shocked that a desktop “conversation piece” his father accepted in lieu of a cash fee was commissioned by an 18th century Chinese Emperor – and worth a fortune.
His story is featured Monday on the hit FOX Business Network series Strange Inheritance.
Bruce Weber of Brattleboro, Vermont was “a small-town attorney who did a little bit of everything,” according to his son Paul, who said the client offered his father the barter deal in the mid-seventies. Paul Weber does not know the identity of the client, nor the type of work his father did for her – only that he had no idea the screen was such a rare historical artifact.
Weber left his son the “table screen” when he died, but it was only in the fall of 2014 that Paul decided to see if the screen was worth selling.
That’s when Lark Mason – a New York-based Asian art specialist – determined the screen was a museum quality piece commissioned by Chinese Emperor Qianlong, who reigned during 1700s.
“It’s the equivalent an American owning something that would have been there with George Washington,” Mason said.
“When we contacted Paul, it sounded like a classic tale of the knickknack in Grandpa’s attic turning out to be worth far more than anyone knew,” said Strange Inheritance Executive Producer Jonathan Towers. “As we watched it unfold, we learned there was a lot more to it than that.”
“From the Emperor’s Desk” is one of two new episodes premiering Monday. The other follows a family that inherited a shipwreck with a half-billion dollars of treasure.
Strange Inheritance is in its second season on the FOX Business Network. New episodes premiere Mondays at 9PM/ET, with encore presentations Tuesday through Thursday 9PM-11PM/ET.