- English translation
Keep it stored away; sooner or later some sucker will turn up and buy it.
- Literal wording
Leave it in its bottles until the hapless fool comes to buy it.
- Meaning and lesson
The saying advises against destroying or discarding something just because it has failed to sell or attract interest. Keep it stored and unspoiled in its containers, it suggests, because sooner or later someone will come along who is willing to take it off your hands.
The tone is wry rather than earnest. The word for the eventual buyer literally suggests someone luckless, but here it marks a gullible, undiscerning simpleton. The proverb thus reassures the owner while poking fun at whoever ends up accepting what everyone else passed over.
- When it is used
Use it when someone is ready to discard unsold goods because no buyer has appeared. The speaker urges patience, but the expected customer is mocked as gullible or unlucky, so the saying can sound cynical, especially when applied to a particular sale.
- Register
- Colloquial
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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