Dear experts,

Are you familiar with a dated UK idiom

BRING ONE'S PIGS TO A FINE MARKET?

Thank you,
Yuri

It looks like the expression is "bring one's pigs to a pretty market." In Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, published in 1898, there is this definition:

He has brought his pigs to a pretty market He has made a very bad bargain; he has managed his business in a very bad way.

Examples from dictionaries have similar meanings. Translations of Hungarian expressions show (from Google):

... the mark), melléfog (blunder, to be all abroad, to be beside the mark, to be wide of the mark, to blunder, to bring one's pigs to a pretty market, to bring ...
www.websters-online-dictionary.org/ definition/english/mi/miss+the+mark.html
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So, "bringing one's pigs to a pretty market" would mean that the seller has misjudged the market. He has brought his ugly pigs to an upscale market where they don't belong and no one will be interested in buying them. In other words, he blundered, he missed the mark, he messed up big time.
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Rachel

Marilyn informs me that she found several examples of "bring pigs to a fine market," using a slightly different search string than I did:

"I found 15 (net) Google examples of "...pigs to a fine market," most from dictionaries and 18th- and 19th- century literature."

The meaning seems the same as "bring pigs to a pretty market."

Rachel