Art + Auction Magazine’s 30th Anniversary Issue was enjoyable to read and reminisce about the great events and personalities that have had an effect on the industry during this period. As someone who has been in the business before the publication came into being, it was entertaining reading. Their review made Wall Street’s shenanigans look like our industry standards too. To me, the most searing exposure in the Magazine’s commentary was about the exponential growth of the auctions, and most specifically the Sotheby’s/Christie’s duopoly. This growth was most certainly directed at taking the dealers’ market share. In this 30 year time period, dealers have not enjoyed that kind of sales…
Archive
Antiques, An Investment Opportunity
Before I started working at Newel full time, I had a position as a staff accountant at Coopers and Lybrand, a then “big 8” accounting firm. I was pleased to read that a present day survivor of the now “big 4”, Deloitte, has concluded that for the antique furniture market, it is a good time to acquire a “proven asset at a low price” The venerable English weekly, the Antiques Trade Gazette (http://www.antiquestradegazette.com/news/7242.aspx) had an article highlighting the economic data as well as functional quality and craftsmanship for making an investment specifically in the antique furniture market. Along with a strategic bet that modernism is overvalued in relation to proven…
Ode to Woodstock
It’s been 40 years since the Woodstock event, and I regret every last moment that I didn’t go. At the time, I felt too committed to working at Newel to just take a couple of days off. I had seen many of the musicians who performed at Woodstock at concerts in Central Park and the Fillmore East; but history has sharpened the lens my loss in not joining my generation at such a watershed experience. When I went back college for my sophomore year that fall, I had no aspiration to actually be a musician, let alone an antiques dealer; I was preparing to play varsity soccer after a respectable…
The Consignment Shop, a Format for Dealers
The more you think about all the different ways antiques dealers operate, the more you realize there is still one original format, the consignment shop. It’s got the best qualities of both the dealer and auctioneer; it’s a place to dispose merchandise in a consistent business pricing format. What makes this configuration work is the flexibility of the shop to sell above the “reserve price” or what the consigner needs to get. The cost to the dealer who operates the consignment shop is fixed; even the dealer’s own goods can be consigned to the store. For a consignee, the ability to physically dispose of the goods and raise cash through…
The Trend In Antiques, Will Mid-Century Modern Wither?
Mid 20th Century decorative and fine arts has been the dominant period of collecting and decorating, certainly for the last decade. The classical English, French, and Italian designs have been relegated to the dust bin of the out of fashion styles, or have they just been dormant and unnoticed by the public. Taste has always been an evolving phenomenon and the present affinity with 20th Century and modern design will invariably change, but how and when? My glimpse into where trends are heading comes from my contact with interior designers and what they are looking for to satisfy their clients’ needs and comforts. Residential interiors have always been about matching…
The New Antiques Business Method: Commercial Alliances Among Dealers
The first question concerning how the antiques business will operate down the road is will it survive at all or be forced to evolve, like the banks and auto industry, but without government assistance. It also creates the perfect storm for change and innovation. Just as the Sotheby’s/ Christie’s duopoly operates on deception, fraud, and conflicts of interest, dealers as a group are too distant and fragmented to collude so successfully. If 50 dealers in any one antiques market operated with their own rules, like the duopoly operates, then dealers would probably make more money. But dealers need to know that any form of standardizing the sale of antiques…
The New Auction Format, Private Treaty Dealers
The Sotheby’s/Christie’s duopoly has been devastated by the recent bust in the contemporary art market as well as just about all areas of fine and decorative arts collecting. However, in these difficult times, they have started to make some inroads into the potentially lucrative world of the dealer by trying to exploit what dealers do best, sell privately. Where the auction format fails, this old tried and true method is becoming the auctioneers next best alternative. For dealers, this should signal a warning as well as an opportunity. I have always felt that the best approach to buying and selling art and antiques is to start with a disclosed asking…
The Antiques Trade, Opportunities For The Next Generation
When I inquired if my teenage daughter was considering working at the family business any time this summer, she remarked “write a blog why I should work at Newel”. Talk about reversing the tables on who’s the boss! So it’s time for some humility and serious consideration about her, my other two sons, and wife. What are the opportunities to succeed in the antiques and decorative arts industry in the 21st Century? For anyone in the industry, whether a dealer or auctioneer, the ability to just survive is tenuous and very unfamiliar as to how the industry has always been. Anyone connected to the trading of art and antiques…
Why Are Some Institutions Above the Law?
It amazes me how some institutions, both public like our government, and private institutions can arbitrarily create their own rules that supersede written laws. You can be quite capriciously not admitted to an antiques dealer association as easily as being denied acceptance into a country club. And just as randomly, you could be expelled for an action erratically enforced by the group. Private schools and the enforcement of their rules on expulsion are meant to intimidate both students and parents on their one-sided methods to maintain control of the actions of both. Step out of line and your transcript will be blemished. The methods to control the situation by…
Antiques, Back In Favor?
Its been a constant tendency over the last decade that 20th Century modern design and decorative arts have been the number one topic for publications to promote and elevate, at the expense of other periods of antiques. It was to my amazement that last Friday (April 24) in her Antiques column, Wendy Moonan of the New York Times started her article by suggesting that “antiques were creeping back into favor”. Well it’s about time. Her source for this epiphany was none other than the Kips Bay Decorator Show House, which last year I criticized as being the poster forum for Mid-Century Modern design when it was showcased in an…