Many related findings in psychology indicate that we apes imbue objects with significance in proportion to their specific history. Credulous adherents to any religion revere the totems of their particular superstition. Men would and have killed for a fragment of the true cross or sight of the Kaaba in Mecca. A drawing signed by Picasso is worth vastly more than the same drawing not signed by Picasso and vastly more than the same drawing 'signed' by Picasso but revealed to be a fake. Heterosexual men will pay small fortunes for sheets slept under by Marilyn Monroe or knickers once worn by Madonna, but only if they have not been washed. Elvis fans will do the same for anything The King allegedly touched.
We care about provenance. It is useless to argue otherwise. Of course there is no aesthetic difference whatsoever between a genuine Picasso and a convincingly faked Picasso but there is a world of difference between the values we place on the two objects. To object that making such a false distinction is absurd is entirely to misunderstand what it means to be human.
It's mid January and snowdrop season is well underway. Every weekend in my February diary is allocated to some event devoted to the dissemination of these small, white flowers. Why am I so entranced by snowdrops? Well, I don't really know but I do understand very well the urge to possess the latest, greatest discoveries in the bizarre netherworld of galanthophilia. Yesterday I paid £300 on eBay for a single bulb of Galanthus 'Green Tear' and I consider this a perfectly reasonable price for an object as desirable as this bulb. In fact, when you consider how little £300 buys you in the rest of the so-called real world (three tanks of petrol; 150 Waitrose ready meals; or a new tooth), it is a trivial sum to pay for something that is not only unique but coveted by many others who don't have it. I have two.
You might think that the market sets the price at which rare snowdrops change hands but, if so, you'd be wrong. A small cabal of movers and shakers determines which selections are worthy of notice and, since these are the same individuals who possess the entire living stock of the relevant plants, they get to decide how much to charge. In any other commercial sphere the trade in snowdrops would be known as a cartel. Lest you think that I intend this as a criticism, let me hasten to reassure you that I don't. Both sellers and buyers are happier under the illusion that Green Tear is worth more than, say, 'Green Brush'. Let the bureaucrats get their rocks off regulating the appropriate firmness of cabbages and leave the snowdrop trade alone. Caveat emptor will do fine for we galanthophiles.
There is a genuine question of authenticity. This season one eBay trader has already been exposed as offering for sale plants that were not correctly named. The beauty of eBay is that frauds like this are quickly exposed. One way to establish the authenticity of what one is offering is to spend a decade patiently building a reputation for reliability and honesty. Another way is to do the same thing by claiming line-of-descent from an unimpeachable source. The inner circle has always had an unquestioned right to attend the prestigious lunches at which the next generation of must-have selections are determined. The original snowdrop lunch was hosted by the late Primrose Warburgh, whom I never met and whose name I can never therefore drop. The words in a catalogue: 'I had this from Primrose Warburgh' add, I estimate, £25 to the value of the relevant plant. If you can legitimately drop the surname and say "I had this from Primrose.", you have really made it and can name your price.
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