THE LESS THAN HUNDRED MILE ANTIQUE HUNT -

THE LESS THAN HUNDRED MILE ANTIQUE HUNT -

WE SHOP REGIONALLY AND ALWAYS ENJOY THE COUNTRYSIDE AUTOMOBILE ADVENTURES

     I HAVE ALWAYS FOUND THE ANTIQUE HUNT RELAXING.
     EVEN WHEN I WAS FAR MORE COMPETITIVE AND AMBITIOUS, IN MY EARLY YEARS AS A DEALER, I FOUND GREAT JOY MOTORING AROUND, LOOKING FOR INTERESTING ROADSIDE VENUES, AND SHOPS TO EXPLORE. I LOVED THE DRIVES THROUGH OUR PICTURESQUE DISTRICT. AS I WAS A FULL TIME WRITER / EDITOR, IN THOSE DAYS, I NEEDED TO VENT FRUSTRATION ON DAYS OFF. I LOVED WRITING BUT HAD A HUGE DISLIKE FOR MY EMPLOYERS. THEY DIDN'T LIKE ME EITHER. SO WHEN I GOT A CHANCE TO HIT THE ROAD ON A SATURDAY MORNING (THAT I WASN'T ON-CALL), AND FORGET ABOUT OFFICE POLITICS, AND ALL POLITICS, THERE WAS NO HOLDING BACK MY ENTHUSIASM. TODAY SUZANNE AND I BOTH HAVE GEARED BUSINESS AS A RETIREMENT OPTION, AND IT IS OUR POLICY TO HAVE A GOOD TIME.....AND NOT JUST "PUT IN TIME," LIKE WE DID WITH OUR MAIN PROFESSIONS. WE STARTED ORGANIZING THIS LEG OF THE BUSINESS, ON THE FIRST DAY WE OPENED OUR SHOP IN BRACEBRIDGE. THAT WAS IN THE VICINITY OF 1987, IF MEMORY SERVES. AND YES, IT HAS TAKEN THIS LONG TO GET IT RIGHT. A STRESS FREE ANTIQUE BUSINESS.
     AFTER I GRADUATED UNIVERSITY, IN TORONTO, AND OPENED UP MY FIRST ANTIQUE SHOP, ON UPPER MANITOBA STREET, IN BRACEBRIDGE, I GOT IT IN MY HEAD THAT I HAD TO DRIVE ALL OVER THE PROVINCE TO FIND SALEABLE ANTIQUES FOR MY CUSTOMERS. MY GIRLFRIEND AND I DROVE TO ALL KINDS OF SMALL TOWNS IN SOUTHERN ONTARIO, AND ADMITTEDLY WE FOUND SOME INCREDIBLE SHOPS, HOLE-IN-THE-WALL, MOM AND POP ANTIQUE STORES THAT WERE HISTORIC, EVEN WITHOUT THE INVENTORY. WE PUT ON A LOT OF MILES, AND IN SOME CASES IT WAS JUSTIFIED. ON OTHER OCCASIONS, I ARRIVED HOME WITH NEXT TO NOTHING, AND HAD TO BUY LUNCHES AND GAS. THAT'S THE WAY IT GOES. OTHER TIMES I'D COME HOME WITH SOME SMALL ITEMS THAT WERE BIG IN VALUATION. TOOK A LOT LESS GAS TO HAUL THEM HOME, AND DIDN'T REQUIRE THE RENTAL OF A FORK LIFE TO GET THEM OUT OF THE VEHICLE.
     WHEN SUZANNE AND I OPENED OUR NEXT ANTIQUE VENTURE, FURTHER UP ON MANITOBA STREET, BELOW MARTIN'S FRAMING, I STAYED CLOSER TO HOME. I DON'T REMEMBER PICKING IN THE TORONTO AREA AT ALL, SOMETHING I HAD DONE FREQUENTLY IN MY ROOKIE YEARS IN THE BUSINESS. I WAS FAR MORE CONTENT TO KEEP OUR BUSINESS LOCAL IN EVERY SENSE, AND THAT ADMITTEDLY WAS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE. IN OUR FAVOR, BACK IN THE LATE 1980'S AND EARLY 1990'S, WAS THE FREQUENCY OF GOOD COUNTRY AND ESTATE AUCTIONS CLOSE BY, WHICH WAS PERFECT IN THE SUMMER MONTHS, WHEN WE NEEDED LOTS AND LOTS OF REPLACEMENT INVENTORY. HAVING TWO WEE LADS, IT WAS TOUGH GETTING AROUND, AND TRAVELING LONG DISTANCES, ESPECIALLY WITH SON ROBERT, WAS MORE THAN ENOUGH AGITATION TO END THE TRIPS ALTOGETHER. ROBERT AND BROTHER ANDREW MIGHT BE CALM AND CO-OPERATIVE IN OUR FAMILY BUSINESS TODAY, BUT BY GOLLY, IT WAS LIKE A WRESTLING MATCH-IN-A-VAN, EVERY TIME WE PULLED OUT  OF THE DRIVEWAY. SO SPENDING A DAY AT AN AUCTION JUST WOULDN'T FLY FOR ANYONE'S BEST INTEREST. THE ONLY TIME THIS CHANGED, FROM DONNYBROOK STATUS, WAS WHEN BOTH BOYS STARTED BUYING VINTAGE VINYL AND MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS....AND FINALLY HAD TO STAND LIKE MOM AND DAD, AND WAIT FOR THE ITEMS TO COME UP FOR AUCTION. I WAS SURPRISED HOW MUCH PATIENCE THEY HAD DEVELOPED, WHEN THEY WERE SHOPPING FOR THEMSELVES. SO THAT'S WHEN SUZANNE AND I WOULD START YELPING, "CAN WE GO NOW.....IS IT TIME TO LEAVE.....COME ON BOYS, WE WANT TO GO HOME!" THEY DIDN'T LIKE IT! "GEEZ MOM AND DAD....NEXT TIME WE'RE GOING TO LEAVE YOU AT HOME," THEY'D SCOLD US.
    
SHOPPING LOCALLY SAVED US A LOT OF GAS - AND WE DIDN'T SACRIFICE QUALITY

     I've had quite a few people tell me, (who don't know who I am), that you can't get any good stuff locally. "All the best pieces are gone," they claim, nodding agreement with their own statement. I used to like a good old fashion antique-debate but there were too many off-hand, ill-informed opinions to counter. So I just nodded, and went on with my writing chores. I wrote four manuscripts in between sales transactions, back in the 1990's. Heck, I even wrote a weekly column, and summer season copy for The Muskoka Sun. So I had lots to do, in order to maintain a focus, and not feel obligated to educate customers who felt the need to demonstrate their vast knowledge of the industry. I don't know what it is about the antique business, that brings out the know-it-alls, but I've heard every summation and overview, on virtually every subject in the antique domain, and whether in agreement or not, have in response, just mumbled comments down into my shirt opening, and played the pacifist sales clerk. I'm capable of launching a couple of salvos their way, but honestly, it just doesn't seem worth the effort.
     There are fantastic antique pieces to be found locally. If there is any shortage, it's simply a case of timing and circumstance, and not the result of inherent shortage within our region of the province. It's a perception thing. Just because the person, making these claims, didn't find a hoosier cabinet for fifty bucks, or a pine flat-to-the-wall for a hundred, means in their minds, Muskoka has been drained of all its relics. Like angling, antique hunting demands patience, and if you're short of that, it's the wrong business to be attached. There are a lot of cliches appropriate to the antique trade, and many, many morals about wisdom and caution.
     If I ever did in my early days, I don't cartwheel into yard sales now, trying to beat my competitors to the cream of the crop. Many times over a yard sale season, Suzanne and I turn up late, having sipped, not guzzled our coffees, and found some incredible pieces the mob ignored. I swear, you could have a Henry Moore original sculpture, as big as Toronto's "Archer," and frenzied yard sale fanatics would pass it by......as quickly as missing the A.Y. Jackson sketch, or the signed Monet hidden behind the paint by numbers, and boxes of old coloring books.
     I have only made use of one picker in all my years buying and selling antiques. He was a neat oldtimer, of French Canadian stock, who used to hunt antiques and collectibles in the North Bay area. He showed up at the shop, the first time, trying to figure out where this place "Wash-A-Go" was, as he had delivery items on his truck. Of course, he meant "Washago," but his accent kind of got in the way. I had a nice visit with him and his wife, who often came along for the ride, and he was more like the old dealer-types I had known, when I started my first shop. He didn't employ the hard sell, and he really seemed to like what he was doing, over and above making a few dollars to live on. Maybe being passive and old-school was his sales gimmick. It worked, if this was the case. So I did buy quite a few items from the oldtimer, and by golly, everything I ever bought, eventually sold. I closed up the shop, to work as public relations director of the Crozier Foundation of Muskoka, so I lost track of my North Bay friend.
     I refused all other pickers because they employed more intrusive strategies to, as they used to say, "massage my wallet." At least they were honest about it, from the get-go. I'm not a gambler which is kind of contradictory, because you can't be a retailer in any field, and not be somewhat of a risk taker. Let's just say I take the fewest risks of all my contemporaries in this business, and I found with pickers generally, you were taking big-time gambles with items the customer base wasn't used to having in stock. You don't want to confuse your clients. It takes too much time to build up trust, and they want to think, you methodically picked up each peice while on local buying adventures. Not simply buying it off the back of a truck.
     The pickers, as Suzanne and I think of ourselves now (more so than shopkeeps), make their money by combing the countryside, and even the cityscape, finding marketable antiques and collectables to flog to dealers. They provide a useful service, without question, and help those dealers, who can't spend the time motoring around the back roads, keep up their inventory. What I found, was that the prices were way too high, to pass on to our customers, allowing us a few crumbs of profit to pay the rent.....and the picker. I know of a number of dealers, who got in too deep with pickers, and it almost ruined their businesses. Some pickers, including my North Bay friend, would give you a month or two grace period. When they came back to your shop, you would owe them the entire amount pre-arranged, when they originally left the chairs, tables, lamps and dressers. If you had the summer season to flip the items, you were probably able to pay the picker the full amount owed, even if half the items hadn't sold. There was your profit. There were far more occasions when the deal seemed so good, that a dealer would take advantage of a $2,000 or more, drop-off of items, but be able to sell enough in a month or two, to cover the difference. Depending on how well you were doing, and the enthusiasm of the clientele, maybe you would have doubled the amount, and then you bought some more on the next visit. I never once had an occasion, when I sold enough in that pre-set time frame, to do anything more than pay off what was owed. Usually, this meant, I had sold the best of the "pickings" and was stuck with run-of-the-mill pieces, that could take five years to sell. It depends what comes on the truck, and the amount the picker is asking for the goods. You never get all "winners," and a good picker will sell you the lesser peices, obviously at a lower price......but that won't make a pickle crock any more appealing. There are a lot of crocks on the market, and a much smaller demand.
     From my experience, in the antique trade, it is never wise to work on a credit scheme, with pickers or anyone else. Consignment sales are fine, and they have always worked for me. Generally, the amount earned by consignors is at least twenty to forty percent higher, when we sell a piece, than if we were to buy it outright. An antique dealer will generally offer one quarter of the presumed value. They've got wiggle room, but the whole idea is to buy low and sell high. The consignment arrangement is the best of both worlds, because the risk is mitigated. Most antique dealers would love to liberate the money invested in low-demand pieces, cluttering their shops and antique mall booths. If you happened to buy them off a picker, you lost your ability to profit, and that doesn't bother him, or her, one bit. They got their money, or else.
    I know of dealers, who couldn't pay the agreed amount, at the end of the time period, and were forced to trade-off prized items from their own paid-for inventory, to satisfy the debt commitment. Not a good way to run a business. If they had hustled for the pieces like average dealers all over the world, they would have been able to pay a lot less. Pickers will disagree. They will tell you, their prices are fair and the items of excellent, or at least good condition. But they're not usually regional, at least in our area. So it means we get a lot of pieces that for all intents and purposes, look great and seem a good buy, but not according to the trends of the local market.....which as a regional / neighborhood dealer, you should be well aware, and profiting from.
     These days, working alongside our boys, with an antique extension of their Gravenhurst Music and Collectable business, Suzanne and I may get reckless and drive to Orillia to have a sort around, looking for interesting pieces to sell in the shop. We used to go to Huntsville twice a month or more, but in the past five years, the return on our investment of gas, was getting less and less; the haul of antiques, vastly diminished from the good old days. I love the Lake of Bays antique tour, we used to take, but once again, as dealers, we have increasing difficulty finding affordable prices. We sell for less, and this isn't an advertisement. There are some items we can't sell cheaply, because they are investment pieces, and of this we make no apology, for having to ask slightly higher prices. A majority of our collection, is based on the experiences of our past in the business. We returned to antique businesses, and second hand shops, where we could afford to shop, and actually make multiple purchases. When that trend changed, so did our loyalty to shop there, and now, there are fewer and fewer places for dealers to make their purchases free of wild speculation. There are even charity shops that price some of their assumed collectable pieces, higher than storefront antique shops. We just believe that there are enough antiques and collectables out there, to moderate the prices. You'd never know it, but it's true. There is a lot of baloney being spread about, in terms of what is rare and what is commonplace, in the collectable trade, inflating prices well beyond fair market value. What these dealers are doing, is screwing their own businesses in the ground, as well as casting serious doubt on the credibility and fair play of every other vendor, who appreciates the necessity to defend their pricing policy. Just ask Suzanne or I to defend any price we attach to an item. If we answer, "because it's ours, and we can ask what we want for it," then you can kick us in the respective asses.
     While to some readers, and associate antique hunters, it may seem that we have nailed ourselves into box, or better stated, "handcuffed" our flexibility, to make acquistions. In fact, quite the opposite has occurred. We are driving fewer and fewer miles each week, but making better connections and decisions than we have previously, in the retail industry. And getting interesting pieces from unexpected sources. We are no longer impulse buyers, and we stock up for special occasions well in advance. We are already prepared for our Harvest season displays, and Christmas shopping for the store, is a third complete.
     Buying items out of season, is a huge cost saving for us, because in the sweltering heat, yard sale hosts are quite willing to unload the boxes of vintage Christmas ornaments, so they don't have to carry them back into the garage, or up to the sweltering attics where they've been stored. Of course, there are trade secrets we can't reveal, because we'd have lots of other joiners-on, and that wouldn't be good for business whatsoever. But for those who think that you can't run a decent antique and collectable business, only shopping within our region.....well, you keep bolstering that opinion, and that will make more room for us to navigate. The folks who know full well, there are acres of fertile fields yet to harvest.
     And I would be neglectful, not to mention the fact, that as Muskoka antique dealers, we celebrate our region every day we open shop, and on every countryside outing we take, through our beautiful region. It's not that I wouldn't be glad to have some Quebec or East Coast primitives in our shop. I know I can get them for a price, for a picker passing through our region. But we have a rule here, and it's all about being locally responsive, and representative, with what we offer our customers. We would be interested in those Canadian pieces, if they were found in a Muskoka home, that had been hauled here by steam engine, steamboat, and horse-drawn cart. This did happen. Believe me. But I am not going to bring the East Coast or Quebec antiques into the shop, that have no actual provenance here. There are lots of neat Muskoka made primitives out there, and all it takes is a coincidence of time and place, and us being in the right spot at the right time, to make a big acquisition. We're just not importers of antiques. We buy locally, and sell pieces with local provenance. Many that have been crafted right here, in the District of Muskoka, from the late 1850's onward.
     If you see us hustling antiques and collectables in Orillia, it's because we like the drive, and the city, and some of the unique opportunities we find there. We do come upon some affordable opportunities to the south, more than the north these days. Still, we won't exceed the hundred mile shopping zone, and haven't for many years now. It keeps our prices down, and we have suffered no loss of business, because our pieces are found in Muskoka.....and reflective of our life and times, in this beautiful hinterland. No picking adventure goes without a picnic, in some scenic locale. There's a lot less hustle these days, but a great deal more enjoyment for the business, than we had when we first began......and mistakenly thought the shop could only survive on overdrive. How wrong we were, and how much enjoyment we sacrificed, by rabid competition for a few extra bucks. We have too much fun these days, to consider the antique trade as work. Today it is a paying hobby, and nothing more. We're still a million dollars shy of being millionaires, and we have resolved to love or leave the enterprise, if it should become cumbersome and precarious.
     When I see some of the folks who leap, drop and roll, hopscotching their way to yard sales, risking life and limb driving like maniacs between venues, I can't help but recall the indiscretions of the past.....that we bought into, without questioning heartily, "what the hell is it all about?" Well now we both know, that it's about "a way of life," we have come to enjoy for the pressure it doesn't inspire. I missed a lot of yard sales this morning, because I wanted to write this editorial piece. I don't feel disadvantaged whatsoever. If I missed a valuable piece, or a pine flat-to-the-wall, there will be another, and another more interesting cupboard after that. There is no shortage of neat and saleable antique pieces, regardless what the doomsayers might lead us to believe, by their negative overviews.
     Thanks so much for joining today's blog. Please visit again soon.
     Remember the Concert on the Barge show on Sunday evening, at 7:30 p.m., at Rotary Gull Lake Park, in Gravenhurst, featuring "Endless Summer," which takes us back to the 1960's beach-party craze.....and you're invited. Bring a lawn chair and an umbrella. You never know when a little shower will prevail. The concert will have a rain delay if necessary. In the case of storm warnings, the evening concert will be cancelled, and there will be no rain relocation. The final concert of the summer season of 2012, next Sunday, will be the annual visit of "The Good Brothers," which is always a special event in Muskoka.