BUYING A BUNCH OF JUNK CAN TURN UP A "WINNER"
TAKING A CHANCE IS WHAT WE ALL DO, DAY TO DAY……ANTIQUE DEALERS LIVE WITH THIS CONSTANTLY…..MISTAKES CAN BE EPIC CAREER MISADVENTURES
AS I'VE TRIED TO MAKE CLEAR IN THIS COLLECTION OF BLOGS, ABOUT THE ANTIQUE PROFESSION SPECIFICALLY….., "COLLECTING" ON THE PERIPHERY…..,THAT WE HAVE QUITE A FEW CLOSELY GUARDED SECRETS, THAT LIKE MAGICIANS, WE SIMPLY WON'T REVEAL. WE ARE A BAND OF INDIVIDUALS, AND THE COMPETITION IS FIERCE. BUT MOST OF US HAVE DEVELOPED ATTITUDES THAT ARE COMFORTABLY APPOINTED IN BUSINESS SERIOUSNESS, AND AT THE SAME TIME, A HALF-JOVIAL ALERTNESS TO NEW SITUATIONS, SUCH THAT WE BRACE OURSELVES WELL IN ADVANCE, FOR THE EVENTUALITY OF WHAT CAN ONLY BE CALLED "GROSS MISADVENTURE." I WILL TELL YOU, THROUGH THIS SPRING SEASON, WHAT SOME OF THOSE AWKWARD MOMENTS HAVE MEANT FOR ME. SOMETIMES ITS A SERIOUS SITUATION THAT PREVAILS UPON US TO EMPLOY THE ALCHEMY WE'RE KNOWN FOR, AND THERE ARE MANY OTHER TIMES THAT IT JUST TURNS INTO A "I CAN'T BELIEVE I JUST DID THAT," SCENARIO. LIKE THE TIME I WAS MOVING A BOOK OFF A COUNTER IN OUR KITCHEN, AND A TINY CORNER OF THE SPINE, CAUGHT THE HANDLE OF A BEAUTIFULLY HAND-PAINTED VICTORIAN TEA POT, AND SHAZAM……IT CAME OFF WITH EASE. THE DAY BEFORE I'D SPENT A HUNDRED BUCKS AT AN AUCTION, WINNING THAT FOR "MY GIRL." SO THE RESPONSE WAS SOMETHING LIKE THIS….."MY GOD, MY GOD, YOU STUPID MAN AND YOUR STUPID BOOKS," SHE YELLED OBVIOUSLY, FOR THE BENEFIT OF OUR NEIGHBORS. IF ONE OF THE BOYS HAD HIT THAT CHINA PIECE WITH A BASEBALL, AND SMASHED THE POT ENTIRELY, SHE'D HAVE SOUNDED SO CONCILIATORY. AS FOR ME, THEY DON'T MAKE A DOG HOUSE THAT BIG.
I DON'T KNOW WHAT PERCENTAGE OF THE WORLD'S ANTIQUE DEALERS GAMBLE AT CASINOS. I COULDN'T POSSIBLY EXPECT, EVEN IF I LOOKED CLOSELY, TO FIND STATISTICS ON ANTIQUE DEALERS WHO PLAY POKER…..OR WHO PLAY THE PONIES. I MEAN, IT'S NO STRETCH OF THE TRUTH, TO SUGGEST ANTIQUE DEALERS GAMBLE NON-STOP IN THEIR PROFESSION. THE RISK MIGHT BE LOWER BECAUSE THEY'RE SMARTER ABOUT WHAT THEY SPECULATE ON, BUT LIKE ANY RETAILER, YOU CAN'T GO TO FAR IN ANY GIVEN WORK WEEK, WITHOUT, IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER GAMBLING FOR A PROFIT. THE DIFFERENCE WITH AVERAGE RETAILERS IS THE SUPPLY CHAIN. THE ANTIQUE DEALER UNDOUBTEDLY HAS PICKERS TO PROVIDE INVENTORY, BUT MOST OFTEN, THE ITEMS ARE NOT THE SAME. A RETAILER CAN ORDER BY THE THOUSANDS OR MORE. THE ANTIQUE DEALER IS LUCKY TO "GET WHAT THEY GET". WE DON'T HAVE A CATALOGUE TO ORDER FROM. OUR INVENTORY GENERALLY, IS WHAT WE CAN FIND OUT ON THE HUSTINGS, OR WHAT IS ON THE BACK OF THE PICKER'S TRUCK PARKED OUTSIDE THE SHOP. A LOT OF FOLKS DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS, WHEN THEY COME INTO AN ANTIQUE SHOP, AND EXPECT A CERTAIN VOLUME OF MATERIALS THEY'RE MOST INTERESTED IN……PILED TO THE CEILING. UNLESS YOU'RE A SPECIALIST DEALER, SELLING WEDGWOOD, OR FENTON GLASS, PEZ DISPENSERS (ONLY), OR VINTAGE CLOTHING, IT'S HARD FOR AN ANTIQUE DEALER TO PLEASE EVERYONE. DO ANTIQUE DEALERS PLAY THE STOCK MARKET? I END THIS PARAGRAPH WITH THE SAME DOUBT AS I BEGAN WITH……I DON'T HAVE THE STATISTICS TO BACK UP AN ANSWER. AS A WILD SPECULATOR MYSELF, I WOULD SAY ANTIQUE DEALERS, AS A GROUP, WOULD PROBABLY BE MORE INCLINED TO INVEST IN THE STOCK MARKET THAN PLAY POKER, THAN SPEND A LOT OF TIME AT CASINOS. THEIR DAY TO DAY GAMBLE, IS BUYING INVESTMENT PIECES. THEY DON'T BUY TO LOSE MONEY. AND WHEN YOU'RE MOST OFTEN, ONLY ABLE TO BUY SMALL QUANTITIES OF COLLECTIBLE MERCHANDISE, YOU HAVE LITTLE CHOICE, IF YOU WANT TO SURVIVE IN BUSINESS. WE HAVE TO BUY CAREFULLY, WITH FULL ATTENTION TO DETAILS OF EACH ITEM…..INCLUDING THE PING AND RING OF GOOD QUALITY CRYSTAL. CONDITION IS THE BIGGEST OF BIG DEALS. NO CHIPS, NO CRACKS, NO DAMAGE. IF FOR WHATEVER REASON A DEALER DOES ACCEPT SOMETHING, WITH DAMAGE, CHANCES ARE GOOD, HE OR SHE HAS AN ALMOST IMMEDIATE OUTLET ON THEIR CLIENT LIST, WHO WILL PURCHASE ITEMS TO RESTORE. IF WE GOOF UP AND MAKE A BAD PURCHASE, FINDING DAMAGE AFTER THE SELLER HAS LEFT THE BUILDING, WE'RE STUCK WITH A CRAPPY INVESTMENT. WE CAN CALL THE WHOLESALER UP AND COMPLAIN, AND THERE ARE NO REFUNDS. IF YOU BOUGHT IT OFF A PICKER, YOU MIGHT GET A CHANCE TO COMPLAIN ON THE VERY NEXT VISIT. THIS IS OUR GENERAL DISADVANTAGE, AND WHY WE HAVE TO BE ASTUTE ON OVER-THE-COUNTER PURCHASES PARTICULARLY. AND OF COURSE, IS IT STOLEN? WE HAVE TO ASK A LOT OF QUESTIONS.
So here's where an average antique dealer gambles most frequently, leaving many in the peanut gallery of auctions etc., wondering what kind of medication we're on. When I've written previously about auction job-lots, I'm not entirely sure other dealers know this term…….or whether it is just a regional Ontario thing. When I started going to auctions seriously, in the late 1970's, I didn't have much money to spend, but a hell of a lot of inventory to purchase, for our new Manitoba Street shop, in uptown Bracebridge, Ontario. Most of my furniture inventory was purchased "in-the-rough," because it was all I could afford. I put the sweat equity into the refinishing side of the business, and for the first three years, I sold almost a hundred percent of what I was able to refinish. Then I got a reporter's job in a community on the other side of the District of Muskoka, that actually paid me to write, and I left the business to my parents, who also found employment soon after, in the Town of Parry Sound. Point is, for that "experimental" antique shop tenure, I got pretty good scrounging antique sales, for whatever job-lots, and "picking rights," I could get. Here's how that goes, just in case you don't know, what a lot of antique-loving folks have to do to maintain their profession.
Often times, auctioneers will get frustrated if they're doing a large estate sale, for example, on their own. If they're concerned at all about timing, they realize they have to reach a certain number of sales per half-hour and per-hour, to get through the inventory, before everyone has left the property……or there is a sudden rain storm. So you will arrive at a situation as a bidder, when an auctioneer will start lumping things together, that he can't get bids on individually. Back in the seventies, I could get forty or fifty boxes of "junk" at one sale. If I stuck around to the end, I'd be invited to scavenge the leftovers. A lot of bidders, you see, will buy multiples of auction-ware, but will cull their purchases, and take only what they want, leaving the chipped china, broken chairs, rusty tools and sundry other bits and bobbs they don't want to haul home. This left a plethora of interesting finds, that with some invested effort, might be salvaged, repaired, restored and re-sold. During the sales, I studied the auctioneer very closely. I knew when Les Rutledge, from Gravenhurst, was getting mad at the audience. Actually, that was pretty easy to determine, because he'd get agitated by the crowd's reluctance to bid, he hated hecklers who would make loud comments he didn't find humorous, and distractions. Les was very focused, and he liked the cadence of his auction roll to go without interruptions. It was okay to talk before he started to sell another item, but not during. So when he got flustered, and it looked like he was going to step off the platform and smack somebody with his cane, inevitably he'd start rapid selling. Which meant for us dealers……pay attention or else. He'd almost double his speed of items sold per-hour.
What his speed increase meant, was that he wasn't going to linger on the uppermost bid, trying to get an increase. If the roll of bids finally hit a flat side, and he couldn't massage another quick bid, he'd just yell out, "Sold to Number 12." If by the way, you were a kind and considerate auction-goer, and you didn't piss Mr. Rutledge off, by golly, he could remember your number, and he'd shut down a bid if he thought you deserved a break. If you heckled him, your number was bypassed forever. Not for just a couple of retaliatory "bid misses." For eternity. So when he'd find himself getting backed-up with items to sell, box loads of kitchen collectibles, for example, he would start banking them together to make more attractive job-lots, to keep him on schedule. As a matter of some irony in the profession, Suzanne and I were big fans, and auction regulars, to events conducted by his son, Wayne Rutledge, of Huntsville, who had a more gentle approach to his audience, but still liked the idea of job-lots to speed things up. As for dealers, the job-lots we were able to get, often contained a significant number of salable items, some that were unknown to the auctioneer at the time of selling. For example, you'd be surprised what can be found in a jar of buttons. Well, seeing as many reading this column are collectors and dealers, I guess you do know. Especially from estates, we could find lots of military buttons in those jammed jars, including many hard-to-find button styles, that were valuable on the open market, plus coins, vintage game pieces, broaches, special pins, such as from the Red Cross etc. What looked like boxes of junk, were pretty much boxes of junk. The exceptions were the treasures we expected to find by experience. The gambles were measured. We always knew what we could invest, with a pretty fair knowledge how we could make our money back, on the average stuff, and profit from the half dozen or more gems found in the clusters of odds and sods.
At quite a number of auctions, I attended, from the late 1970's up to the end of the 1990's, it was common, especially at rural estate sales, to be given an opportunity to bid for "picker's rights," to buy the remaining items left in a barn or shed. The auctioneer and staff would be responsible for removing the bigger, more significant items from these out-buildings, to be included in the regular sale. But there were many occasions when there were too many small, damaged pieces left in these buildings, for the staff to worry about. The auctioneer would simply sell, to the highest bidder, the privilege of buying everything else in the buildings……except the structure itself. I've talked to people who have done this, and on each occasion that I stayed around to see what they got, during the clean-up, something major was found, to cover the cost of the opportunity to pick at will. I've never come across a case yet, when a picker, in this situation, didn't prosper with what they found. It was hard and dirty work, but well worth the effort.
A trio of half-arsed entrepreneurs in our region, decided to get into the second-hand game, as a means of making some future investment money. They all had good paying day-jobs, but they hatched this plan to make big-bucks, by purchasing entire building contents, off estates executors. So instead of using an auctioneer, to settle an estate, they'd offer a price for the whole works. It was a great idea for them, but not a new one, in the antique and second hand trade. It was a good plan in Muskoka, because no one was doing this at the time. It was either dispersal by auctioneer, by yard sale, or by dumpster pulled up to the side of the house. The only problem with these lads…..and they were all nice guys I had a lot of respect for…….just not in the antique trade, was their total lack of knowledge about the money side of the industry. They got involved with small bananas. A good place to start but they never got past the minor speculation. They'd buy cottage contents from a 1930's building, that was to be torn down, but the items inside were left by the last folks to use it…..meaning the vintage of contents was pretty shallow. They were getting 1960's and 70's items, not representative of the cottage's history…..which would have been nice and much more profitable. So we understudied with them, and made quite a few purchases of nostalgia items, and some other vintage fabrics that came with the cottages. They had rented a large barn type building, and all the left-overs we didn't want, got dumped there. The idea was to have regular "barn sales," or you could make an appointment to see what they had acquired. It should have gone okay. I think they were about twenty years too early for our region, because they had the right idea…..in so many areas, but they simply lacked the experience, trial and error provide folks like us.
So when the partnership got a little stressed out about the money they had invested, and the apparent inability to generate profits the way they wanted to, we started getting more calls from the trio, about taking some of the stuff off their hands. For example, they had a beautiful and large…..very large…..Victorian era pump organ. Sure it looked great, but the market for honking big pump organs is pretty small. They take up a lot of room, and chances are, there's going to be a mouse-damaged bellows, that needs a specialist to fix. Orb Kennedy was our master repairman around here, but he had passed away quite a few years before their organ acquisition. I do have a working pump organ in my living room presently, but mine has a perfect bellows. The first offer I was given was five hundred dollars. I laughed, picked up the "smalls" that I'd purchased at their barn sale, and jumped in the car fast, so they wouldn't carry-on the conversation. I didn't want the organ. No one else did either. All that summer and fall they labored to sell that organ. Every time I went to the sale at the barn….or saw any of the trio in the hardware store, grocery aisle, or restaurant, they came up with a revised price for the behemoth instrument. "No, No, No!" was my response, as was Suzanne's when they'd corner her, thinking she was the weaker of the duo. Not so. She turned them down an equal number of times. Then came the pause. Months went by and we hadn't heard a thing about the organ, and nary a barn sale to shop. I assumed the organ had found a home.
One day, while I was working in the garden, and covered in mud and manure, Suzanne called me to the phone. "It's them," she said. "They want to give you the organ." "Cripes, we don't have any room for the stupid thing," I mumbled, as I kicked off my shoes at the door, and wiped my brow with the manure that was once only on my hands and shoes. Well, we took the organ. They delivered it free of charge, set it in our front hallway, and had those painted-on sad faces that would have made a good model for a ceramic television lamp. I gave them fifty bucks and told them in no uncertain terms, to never again buy a pump organ, and if they did, to never tell me about it. They seemed okay with the fifty bucks which was a pretty substantial loss in fact from the $500 original asking price. I bet that on the average of what they had purchased, with this organ, they had still made a profit overall…..unless you put a price on aggravation. In that case they most certainly lost money.
It was just before Christmas one year, after we had "sold the organ for $100" at a yard sale, and moved to a new house in Bracebridge, that we got a call that the partnership was giving up the barn, and the second-hand profession. We were asked to make an offer for "picker's rights" to the barn, which we knew contained some interesting….but not valuable pieces. It was bloody cold with lots of snow, when Suzanne and I started poking through the building. It was tough slugging, and the inventory was scattered in boxes and bins all over the place. For the several hundred dollars we offered, (accepted), we were able to get enough out of it to triple our investment, which is pretty much the norm. Most dealers, who had to work this hard, in adverse conditions, would want to quadruple the profit. These lads were our friends, so we didn't feel right about knocking them down further. The gem of the whole affair, was the discovery of a magnificent pioneer-vintage crazy quilt, for a child's cradle. It was small and needed some repairs, but the blue and black velvets were stunning. These irregularly cut and sewn together quilt-blocks had once been Victorian clothing items, and this more than century-old-quilt was a nothing short of a museum piece. It had been folded up in the bottom of a box that nobody had ever looked into. It was assumed it was a box of bedroom knick-knacks, carried out of the barn for all their yard sales, over the two odd years, but nobody went past the chipped and broken articles on the top of the box, to see what was in the bottom. That's where Suzanne found the neatly folded quilt, that looked like a decorative piece of paper, when looking down into the container. It was much more than that, and the quilt was valued at $200. We sold it a year later to a quilt collector, at a sale we attended in the Village of Windermere. We did make an okay profit of the other items collected during that mission of hunting and gathering.
What really upset the lads, was that we didn't take everything in the barn. That's what they assumed it meant, when we purchased the lot. I informed them curtly, that "Boys oh boys, when did you hear me say, that I was going to take everything in the barn." And pay for disposal of their bad purchases. They had those sad faces again. I just winked and said, "that's business, nothing personal."
Les Rutledge had kind of an unspoken rule, at his auctions, that I learned by inexperience. When I started to sort through the boxes I had purchased, before setting off for home at the end of the sale, and having placed aside, a pile of items I didn't want, I looked to my right side to find two big shoes at the base of the pile. It was Les, rising from those shoes! And he said something like, "Now Mr. Currie (he knew me from working at The Herald-Gazette), seeing as I gave you a good deal on those boxes, I hope you understand that it means you own it all, and you can take it back to your house and then throw out what you don't want. I'm not going to clean up your mess." I never once argued with Les Rutledge, so I just loaded it all in the boxes, and trundled off to my car, while he twirled his trademark auction cane, satisfied he'd successfully educated a greenhorn, and run another profitable auction.
THE SMART ANTIQUE HUNTER WILL ANALYZE THE DEALER'S HABITS
INSTEAD OF BEING ANNOYED BY OUR PRESENCE……FIGURE OUT HOW TO COMPLY AND OVER-TAKE
ONE DAY, OUT FOR A FAMILY DRIVE, I CAME UPON A HOMEOWNER WITH A WIDE ARRAY OF REFURBISHED STEAMER TRUNKS ON HIS LAWN. THERE WERE A COUPLE OF SIGNS ON THE LAWN, ANNOUNCING THAT THESE NICELY REFINISHED TRUNKS WERE FOR SALE. IT WASN'T A YARD SALE AS SUCH. THIS INDIVIDUAL WAS BUYING, RESTORING AND RE-SELLING THESE WONDERFUL OLD RELICS OF YESTERYEAR'S TRAVEL, AS A SORT OF HOME OCCUPATION. SMART IDEA, AND AFFORDABLE IN A RETAIL SENSE. BY THE WAY, I ALWAYS HAVE A SMALL SELECTION OF STEAMER TRUNKS BECAUSE I LIKE THEM……AND THEY ARE ATTRACTIVE, FUNCTIONAL VINTAGE STORAGE UNITS, EVEN IN THE MOST CONTEMPORARY OF INTERIOR HOME DESIGNS.
WHAT CAUGHT MY ATTENTION, OTHER THAN THE DOZEN OR SO TRUNKS SPREAD OUT ON THE LAWN, AND ONE AT ROADSIDE, WAS THE SIGN THAT READ, "OUR PRICE, $100….ANTIQUE STORE PRICE $250." AT THE TIME, AS A COLUMNIST WHO WROTE ABOUT ANTIQUES AND COLLECTIBLES, FOR THE LOCAL PRESS, AS WELL AS HAVING A MAIN STREET SHOP, THIS WAS A SALE I NEEDED TO EXPLORE. I LIKED THE WORKMANSHIP, AND THE ATTENTION TO DETAIL, AND THE MAN'S ENTHUSIASM FOR RESTORATION OF SUCH BEAT-UP OLD TRAVEL MATES. I HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO CHAT WITH THE RESTORER AND I DID COMPLIMENT HIS WORK. BUT I ASKED HIM TO EXPLAIN HIS SIGN LEANING UP AGAINST THE FIRST TRUNK, AT THE HEAD OF THE DRIVEWAY. I CASUALLY, WITHOUT ANY SARCASM, QUESTIONED HIM, AS TO WHAT HE MEANT EXACTLY, BY THE POSTED SIGN, COMPARING DEALER PRICES TO "CIVILIAN VALUATIONS." AND WHY HE WOULD INVENT SUCH A NUMBER DISCREPANCY; ESPECIALLY WHEN EACH OF HIS TRUNKS WAS REFINISHED TO HIS STANDARDS OF CARE, YET MOST TRUNKS IN LOCAL SHOPS WOULD BE EITHER IN THE ROUGH, OR ONLY JAZZED-UP WITH A LITTLE VARNISH. AT THE TIME I WAS VERY MUCH AWARE WHAT WAS BEING SOLD IN OUR SMALL ANTIQUE SELLING COMMUNITY.
HE DIDN'T KNOW ME THEN, AS A DEALER, OR THAT HE HAD OFFENDED ME WITH HIS SIGN. I JUST WANTED TO KNOW HOW HE COULD GRAB A FIGURE OUT OF THE AIR, AND APPLY IT IN SUCH A MISLEADING WAY. I HAD NEVER SEEN A STEAMER TRUNK FOR THE PRICE HE WAS QUOTING. MOST OF THE TRUNKS I KNEW EXISTED, FOR SALE, AT THAT PRECISE MOMENT, WERE PRICED AT AROUND THE FIFTY DOLLAR MARK. SO LOW IN FACT, THAT THIS IS WHY HE WAS BUYING THE TRUNKS LOCALLY, RESTORING THEM, AND RE-SELLING THEM AT A SUBSTANTIAL MARK-UP. AS WE KNOW IN THE REFINISHING WING OF THE ANTIQUE PROFESSION, IT'S BLOODY HARD TO GET YOUR MONEY OUT OF A FULL SCALE RESTORATION. SO I DIDN'T QUESTION HIS HOURS OF WORK, OR MATERIAL EXPENSES, AND I CERTAINLY DIDN'T ARGUE ABOUT HIS PRICING. JUST THE BOGUS NUMBER HE WAS USING TO INFLATE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HIS WARES AND THOSE AVAILABLE LOCALLY. I THINK I MAY HAVE EVEN HAD ONE IN THE SHOP, BUT CERTAINLY NOT VALUED TO WHAT HE WAS CLAIMING, WAS PRETTY MUCH STANDARD, SHOP TO SHOP.
I ASKED HIM POLITELY WHERE HE WAS ABLE TO PURCHASE HIS TRUNKS IN-THE-ROUGH. HE SAID, WITH A LITTLE SMIRK, "THEY'RE ALL PURCHASED LOCALLY." "AT ANTIQUE AND SECOND HAND SHOPS," I ASKED. "HALF AND HALF," HE RESPONDED, EXPLAINING THAT HE ACQUIRED SOME AT YARD SALES, AND A FEW OUT OF THE REGION. YET HE ADMITTED HE WAS A REGULAR PURCHASER OF BEAT-UP TRUNKS FROM OUR LOCAL SHOPS. "I HOPE IF THOSE DEALERS POP BY, FOR A LOOK-SEE, THEY AREN'T OFFENDED BY YOUR SIGN AT THE END OF THE DRIVEWAY," I OFFERED AS ONE ANTIQUE LOVER TO ANOTHER. "WHY WOULD THEY BE OFFENDED," HE ASKED. "WELL, FOR ONE THING, IF THEY'RE SELLING YOU TRUNKS, AND YOU'RE BENEFITTING FROM THEIR HUSTLE GETTING THEM, DO YOU REALLY THINK IT'S WISE TO BESMIRCH THEM, BY POINTING OUT HOW MUCH THEY GOUGE IN PRICING……WHEN IN FACT YOU KNOW THIS ISN'T TRUE." THAT'S WHEN HE SAID SOMETHING, THAT ALWAYS MAKES ME MAD. "IN TORONTO THEY DO……." BEFORE MY HEAD BLEW OFF, IN A MIGHTY EXPLOSION OF BLOOD PRESSURE, I ANSWERED BACK WITH A HALE AND HARDY, "BUDDY, LOOK AROUND YOU. DOES THIS LOOK LIKE TORONTO?" I'VE HEARD THIS TORONTO REFERENCE A MILLION TIMES, AND I'VE SHOT BACK A RETORT EVERY SINGLE TIME. BASING PRICES ON WHAT HAPPENS IN TORONTO IS IRRELEVANT. OUR MARKET IS IN MUSKOKA, AND WHETHER OR NOT YOU HAPPEN TO BE FROM TORONTO OR EUROPE, IT DOESN'T MATTER A HOOT, WHAT THE PRICING TREND IS ELSEWHERE. THE TASK HERE, IS TO BASE IT ON THE AVERAGE PRICING OF PARALLEL ITEMS, THAT AREA ANTIQUE DEALERS ARE SETTLING ON, AS GOOD LEVELS TO START. THERE IS ALSO BARTERING TO FACTOR IN TO THE EQUATION. BUT GENERALLY, WE'VE LEARNED THAT TO ASK TORONTO PRICES, WHICH ARE USUALLY HIGHER, ON A MAJORITY OF ITEMS IN THE CLEARLY DEFINED ANTIQUE DOMAIN, IS TO DESTINE YOUR BUSINESS TO FALL BEHIND THOSE WITH MORE COMPETITIVE MARKETING…..WHO ARE AWARE THAT FOR MOST OF THE MONTHS OF THE YEAR, IT'S THE LOCAL CUSTOMERS PROPELLING THE ECONOMIC ENGINE……NOT THE TOURISM SECTOR. PRICING AS TORONTO DEALERS ISN'T PARTICULARLY WISE, WHEN FOR TEN MONTHS A YEAR, WE HAVE TO COUNT ON MUSKOKANS TO BUY OUR ANTIQUES. IF WE, AS DEALERS, ATTEND TORONTO ANTIQUE SHOWS, WELL, I SUPPOSE THE OLD ADAGE, "WHEN IN ROME," COVERS ALL EVENTUALITIES.
I DID EVENTUALLY TELL MY STEAMER-TRUNK FRIEND THAT I WAS A DEALER IN TOWN, AND MY WIFE HAD SOLD HIM ONE OF THE TRUNKS THAT HE HAD ON DISPLAY. I POINTED OUT THAT HE HAD ACQUIRED IT FROM US FOR THE WHOPPING SUM OF THIRTY-FIVE DOLLARS IN-THE-ROUGH. NOT THE PRICE HE WAS CLAIMING, WAS PRETTY MUCH STANDARD FOR ANTIQUE DEALERS FLOGGING STEAMER TRUNKS. HE BLUSHED A LITTLE, SEEMED UNCOMFORTABLE, AND OFFERED A SWEEPING SORT OF APOLOGY, FOR HIS HASTILY PREPARED SIGN. HE POINTED OUT THAT IT WAS JUST AN ADVERTISING PLOY, AND THAT HE WAS WELL AWARE OF THE DEALS HE WAS GETTING LOCALLY, AND THAT, OF COURSE, HIS MARKET WAS MUSKOKA…….WITHOUT MUCH INFLUENCE AT ALL FROM TORONTO. I WAS SATISFIED WITH HIS EXPLANATION. SO MUCH SO, AND WITH HIS QUALITY OF WORK, THAT FOR THE NEXT TWO YEARS WE SOLD MANY OF HIS TRUNKS AT BIRCH HOLLOW ANTIQUES, TO VERY HAPPY CUSTOMERS; WHO ALSO LIKED THE PRICE FOR THE REFINISHED PIECES. I WAS REALLY SORRY THAT HE QUIT RESTORING THESE BEAUTIFUL OLD CHESTS AND TRUNKS, WHEN HE MOVED FROM THE AREA TO PURSUE NEW OPPORTUNITIES. I'VE TRIED MANY TIMES TO COPY HIS METHODS OF RESTORATION, AND I'VE NEVER ONCE COME CLOSE TO WHAT I WOULD CRITIQUE AS A PARALLEL EFFORT. HE DID GOOD WORK, BUT GAVE UP THE ENTERPRISE FAR TOO SOON. I SELL A LOT OF TRUNKS TODAY IN-THE-ROUGH. I COULD USE HIS EXPERTISE. BUT STILL, IN RETROSPECT, IT WASN'T NICE TO TREAT HIS DEALER SUPPLIERS, WITH A SIGN THAT ACKNOWLEDGED OUR PRICE "GOUGING," WHEN IT SIMPLY WASN'T TRUE.
BLAME IT ON THOSE PESKY ANTIQUE DEALERS
It happens a lot at auction sales…..that antique dealers are blamed for just about everything, including global warming. I remember standing behind a group of four card-carrying bidders, at one sale a few years ago, who were berating antique dealers, as being the scourge of the civilized world. "They bid up everything," one woman said to her chums in conversation. "You should see them loading their trucks at the end of the sale. They get all the good stuff," another claimed. "They shouldn't be able to control the auction like they do…..and the auctioneer always favors them because they're big spenders."
Suzanne, overhearing the allegations and gross generalizations, pinched my arm through my sweater, with enough torque to actually leave a welt. "You're not going to say anything," she said. "They're just spouting off, that's all." They went on however, to explain how it works in the antique business, almost, but not quite, suggesting kick-backs and favors between the auctioneer and antique dealers they prefer. Well at least she said, "the dealers the auctioneer prefers," personalizing the matter of graft (and insider trading) to just a few dealers, and not the whole bunch of us. Obviously, this woman didn't believe all antique dealers were "on the take." "I'm going to leave you here, if you say one word to those people…..having a private conversation," Suzanne reminded me. She has left me at auctions before, taking the vehicle with her. When I'm bad, I'm real bad. It's one thing for me to take a few cheap shots, at my professional associates, from time to time, because they know my comments are coming from considerable experience. When those outside the profession, start assuming they know it all, and commence a campaign of outrageous slander, then it is the right occasion to remind them that dealers have feelings……even if they believe we have no scruples. Well then it gets all nasty, and Suzanne breaks out in red blotches, and I might have to hitch-hike home with a pine buffet strapped on my back, like the pioneers had to, breaking trail into Muskoka. If they could do it…….well, I couldn't. So I beg her forgiveness. I need the vehicle. Even if she's not talking to me, I need to get the auction purchases to the shop. You see I've got two strikes against me from the get-go. I'm a veteran dealer known for being outspoken, and I'm a long time newspaper columnist, with a penchant for political bashing. So I've got a lot of internal battles going on, to defend my profession, from unfair allegations and ridiculous generalizations. It's true, there are scoundrels amongst us, but this happens in every profession.
On a previous occasion, and the one Suzanne loves to recall, a couple in front of me, at another auction, once again pointed out how unfair it was, that dealers got all the best antiques of the sale. She kept going on and on about all the money dealers have, and how they can just "blow everyone out of the water," with their big wads of money, stuffed into deep pockets. I felt a necessity to explain a few things about my own "lack of a wad," and that I have very seldom every felt as a preferred customer at an auction, here or anywhere else. It's true that I was a friend of most of our area auctioneers, God rest their souls, mostly because I was also a newspaper columnist, who did feature stories on them all. So I kind of snuck into this conversation, going on a few feet from my big ears. Without identifying myself as an antique dealer, I suggested to them that antique retailers were actually good to have at these sales, especially if your knowledge of pieces is a little thin. I noted that by bidding-up an antique dealer, who, for example, was showing a keen interest in a particular piece of furniture, rising above their final bid (and we all have those), by possibly ten increments, (if there are other bidders), you would still be getting a bargain if you won the item. The women looked at me as if I had just given them the theory of relativity. They really didn't get it. So I simplified it for them. Here's how that went.
I said that "if a dealer purchased the antique pine buffet for the price of one hundred and fifty dollars, you would expect that the price would increase at least one hundred percent or more, by time it hit the floor of their shop." In many cases, depending on the deal they got, the increase could be much higher and for pine this is likely. "What does this mean for us then," one lady asked. "Well, what it means is that if you were to get the piece you want, for say fifty to seventy-five percent more, than the dealer's final bid, chances are, you saved at least fifty percent on the retail value of the buffet," I responded. "If the dealer was planning on taking a two hundred percent mark-up, or even more than than…..think about the savings from what you would pay, by purchasing at the auction price instead." I always use collectors and associate dealers as my auction guide and I'm also a dealer. "If you are concerned about the money you invest in a piece of antique furniture, as an example, outbidding a dealer by several increments, is a pretty good plan for acquiring something under value. Dealers very seldom increase their acquired wares less than a hundred percent," I reminded them. And I also let them know that all the antique dealers I know, have limited resources to draw from, and if there is this general assessment, that we're all wealthy, and can spend with reckless abandon, then there is a great and unfortunate misunderstanding about the antique profession. Maybe that's our fault as dealers, that we haven't bothered to educate the public, as well as our customers, that were not all cut from the historic novels of Charles Dickens……as scurrilous and mysterious characters, with ill-gotten money to spend with reckless abandon. If I was to arrive at one word to describe my antique dealer colleagues, it would be "frugal." Some more than others!
"You know a lot about antique dealers, don't you," questioned one of the two ladies, I'd been conversing with. "He should know……he's a dealer too," chirped a friend of mine, who had come to say hello, and heard some of my explanations to the women. Talk about a cold snow-clad shoulder, turned to me, after this revelation. They began talking to each other, as if I had shown my devious, unscrupulous side, by first listening-in to their conversation, and secondly, by offering unsolicited advice. I should have kept my mouth shut. Suzanne would have liked that. Still, you know, it bothers me that some people think like this, when it comes to how antique dealers acquire their inventory. We have to compete like everyone else. I'm not saying that there aren't occasional favors granted, like my friend David Brown was able to arrange, but then this was only in regards to moving some sale items up on the sale agenda; not actually getting financial favors. It's true, my old auctioneer friend Les Rutledge, used to stop looking for bids, if I was one of the bidders……and he knew that I had been losing most of the pieces I had been interested in, up to that point. I never condoned this, but at the time, I was pretty new to the auction game, so I wasn't sure what the rules of engagement were, between my role as a bidder, and Les, as the judge and chief of all that was fair and equal. I also wouldn't have hurt his feelings, because he thought he was extending Suzanne and I a kindness, as newlyweds, trying to outfit our first apartment.
My advice to anyone at an auction, is to pay close attention to collectors and dealers. Collectors will generally bid more than dealers, because they don't have to worry about profit margins. Antique dealers have a lot of monthly expenses if they're running a shop, and they can't abandon sensibility when paying-out for their auction buys. So for the bidder, who wants a quality piece, with the potential of being at least doubled in value, regarding a final retail price, it's a pretty good strategy to jump in when the dealer's money has run out on an item, and carry on bidding against other competitors……keeping in mind the last bid placed by the dealer. It's like canoeing with an outrigger, or cycling with training wheels. Even passing a known collector's final bid by a few increments, is pretty safe if you're looking at value for your investment. Instead of being annoyed by intrusive dealers, "buying all the stuff," it should be considered a good guide for value-conscious bidding, to have dealers leading the way. It's the kind of intrusion I welcome. I have often outbid associate dealers, usually because the subject piece is more in my bailiwick of experience……such as with Canadian art, of which I'm reasonably knowledgeable. They may want to buy the painting, but not as much as I do, and with art especially, unless you're a specific art dealer, most get wobbly knees if they don't see me bidding. I like to step in before the auctioneer's gavel hits the block, and it usually works in my favor, that the bidding is derailed…..the cadence broken.
When I decided to join the antique profession, an oldtimer in the industry, reminded me of the critical importance, of getting to know every collector and dealer operating in our region, as it would be necessary to my success, to learn from them, the tricks of winning at the acquisition game……especially at auctions, where it is very public; and regardless how invisible you think your bid is, with a wink-wink, you are still on display…….and people are watching intently, your every move until the bidding is declared over, and the item on the block, is announced as being "Sold!" So it's exactly what I did for the first ten years imbedded in the profession. I did biographies on all the key players, and I knew all the civilians and how they liked to bid, and by what increments, on certain items. Even though I don't attend nearly as many sales as I used to, ten years ago, I can pick up the vibe in a room in under five minutes of bidding action on antique pieces. I can spot winks and nods, because in my profession, you have to know who is bidding you up…….and they want to know all about me, especially if, as a newcomer, I intrude upon their sense of auction privilege; by forcing more aggressive competition for the best pieces. You have to be fearless if you want to win bids, and buy the best pieces up for sale. This doesn't mean being reckless. Most dealers arrive early at sales, and perform their due diligence, before the audience has reached full capacity. They've made copious notes on paper, or in their minds, about the coveted, valuable pieces, and set limits as to what they are willing to spend on each of the items, they would like to haul back to their shops, antique mall booths, or for online auctions. Those who are not antique dealers, have a wonderful opportunity to learn by immersion, into the world of rigorous competition, dealer against collector. In most cases folks, the average customer, home decorator, hobby collector, can easily out-bid both dealers and hard core collectors. I've been out bid on major works of art by home decorators, who just wanted a particular artist's work to hang in their home. So they pay the auctioneer, and the host of the sale, a parallel value to what I might have marked-up the painting, had I been the successful bidder. The point is, most bidders who crowd into auction sales, have more financial flexibility than dealers and collectors…..but they just don't seem to get it……that the proverbial ball is in their court, and there's not much we can do about it; except give off the aura that we will bid up to a million dollars to acquire a piece we most desire. Thus, indeed, we have to resort to being puff adders some of the time, to scare off the competition.
Thanks for coming on over to my blog site today, for this little overview of auction bidding, and antique dealer scorning…..which is usually unjustified, and baseless. Please consider dropping by again soon, for some more antique chats, at fireside, about this historic profession of collecting and living with old stuff…..because it feels so right. Bye for now.
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