Maine Antique Digest, December 2016

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Maine Antique Digest, December 2016 23-B
- FEATURE -
23-B
The Young Collector
For Your
Reconsideration
by Hollie Davis and Andrew Richmond
Sometimes people ask what it’s like to write a column,
to come up with something new to talk about each
month. That, we say, is easy. That it’s just about
having opinions, of which we are not short, and, hey, you
know, being right all the time! So actually it’s the second
part that’s the hard part: conveying opinions in a way
that makes them opinions, not cemented facts. It can be
hard to strike the tone of “this is what I think” and not
“this is what you should do.” For us, writing a column is
about sharing observations and perspectives. Too much
soft-selling, though, and there’s not enough to support
the weight of a full column, but too much pontificating
and, well, in an election year we don’t think we need to
explain to anyone the effects of too much pontificating.
We try not to write in such a way as to be scolding from
the pulpit because opinions can truly change.
We started thinking recently about how we’ve changed
our minds over the years. Sometimes we look back on
things we wrote and think that we have a different view
on that issue now, whether it’s because we’ve learned
something else on the topic or we’ve gained a different
perspective or simply because the world in which we
wrote that opinion is no longer the world in which we
live. Sometimes it’s less that our core opinions have
changed andmore that we’ve developed an understanding
of exceptions or circumstances that call for something
different.
Andrew had that kind of moment with something about
which we once grumbled: small stickers. The complaint
was about dealers at shows who simply write down a
number on a small sticker and call it a price tag. Sometimes
there’s not even a dollar sign, which made us wonder if we
were looking at a date or an inventory number.
Then Andrew did his first antiques show in April and
went all out for price tags: complete descriptions, printed
tags, company logo—the whole nine yards. It was
expensive. It was tedious. It was successful, in that many
folks read the labels, but based on his overall sales that
day, it didn’t help. When he repeated the show this fall,
he decided to change his strategy and see if he noticed
a difference. His main goal was to streamline the entire
booth production operation, so he decided to ditch the
printed tags. Instead he hand wrote tags at the show after
he finished setting up, and this took less than an hour.
(He used business cards, too, so every buyer could walk
away with contact information, and so they could call
him later and ask him to translate his handwriting, Hollie
says.) Having less information, we realize, also invites
buyers to ask questions and gives you an opportunity
to engage with them rather than allowing them to read
everything you already know before walking off without
being able to strike up a conversation.
Andrew didn’t abandon content entirely. Some
information was included on every tag, and for a few
“important” objects he printed up a reference sheet with
more information. But he did discover that there is a
middle ground. At high-end shows more information is
not only good but necessary even. For middle- or lower-
end shows (Where do you think we’re buying? We’re not
judging based on quality, just price!), the kind of shows
where you may have 150 objects in your booth, you can
get away with some numbers-only stickers. But we are
in a service business, so a few words of identification,
even only an auction catalog “tombstone” with maker,
origin, and date—give us something!—seems reasonable
to expect. To us, one of the very first steps toward good
service is good information.
So you’d think we’d be in favor of printed catalogs,
but when Andrew was a full-time auctioneer, he had a
love-hate relationship with printed catalogs. He loved
catalogs for other people, but hated them himself. OK,
that’s not true. There’s nothing like cracking open a
box of freshly printed glossy catalogs straight off the
printer and holding the evidence of months of blood,
sweat, and tears in your hands. But on the other hand,
there was the blood, sweat, and tears! Extra photography,
administrative details, layout, design, fixed deadlines,
reshooting cover shots over and over—there is so much
work. And not to mention the money to print and mail
them! All with the realization, too, that in six weeks,
99.9% of them would be in a landfill or a recycling bin.
And as everyone points out, (almost) all the buyers are
online now, right? So, yes, in that sense, we stand by our
original premise that the number of buyers who require
a printed catalog is small and getting smaller. After all,
the Internet offers a lot more: real-time updates, easily
enlarged photos, and searching or browsing. But we also
know that for auction houses, catalogs have become a
tool to entice sellers, not buyers.
Then Andrew was having a chat with Erik Gronning,
head of Sotheby’s American furniture department, and
Erik pointed out how vital the catalog is in making
distinctions between objects, in highlighting the good-
better-best paradigm. If a sale has four good Chippendale
chairs, estimated at $500, $2500, $5000, and $25,000, in
an online catalog they all have small square photographs
in a standardized format list. In a print catalog, more
valuable objects get more valuable real estate. Gronning
can give them full-page spreads with big essays, and in
the top end of the market, if the catalog efforts push bids
just a notch or two higher, then the catalog may well pay
for itself. So while we still think auction houses should
regularly examine exactly what printed catalogs are
doing for them and if their time, energy, and money are
well spent in that direction, for true collector auctions,
we now acknowledge that the printed catalog still has a
secure place in the auction process.
Of course there are a couple of things we haven’t really
changed our minds on, such as original surface. We still
think the obsession over something being “all original”
has gone several steps too far, especially because very
few things that are 200 years old are truly in both good
and “untouched” condition. From John Kirk’s “buy it
ratty and leave it alone” to the pained look on the faces
of people when an Antiques Roadshow appraiser tells
them their high chest would have been worth a lot more
if they hadn’t refinished it, this obsession is detrimental
to the business and has run its course. Sure, condition is
important, and “all-original” things should be worth a lot
because they’re so rare. However, should a grungy but
mediocre chest really be worth many orders of magnitude
more than a chest of superior design that happens to have
a later finish and replaced brasses? It’s a turnoff to think
of entering a marketplace that makes it clear anything
you can buy at an entry-level price is stuff to be sniffed
at by everyone else. Just stop it already.
And we still think a website is an easy thing to have
and keep up with, but increasingly, to some folks,
websites are so 2005. We have come to understand in a
real way that managing inventory online is a lot of work,
and about the only thing that is more work is driving
enough traffic to your website to generate actual sales.
But a simple website is a billboard—it gives you some
credibility since you are invested enough to have an
online presence, and it keeps your contact information
and your show schedule out there where interested
parties can find it. But these days social media is where
things are happening. If you have to choose between a
website and a Facebook page, we’d say go for Facebook.
Andrew has sold far more through his Facebook page
than through his website, and with so many communities
for collectors often built up around specialized areas,
targeted marketing is already kind of done for you! Still,
check your e-mail. (You do have e-mail, right?)
Our take on collectors versus users is also evolving.
Six years ago we painted a rather bleak picture of the
future of the antiques marketplace (“The Last of the
Young Collectors?,” December 2010). In one sense, we’re
not sure that picture has gotten much rosier. While the
marketplace and the economy have recovered quite a bit
since 2008, prices are still generally down (at least from
the bubble market of the 1990s). And we still think an
unimaginable volume is heading to market over the next
20 years now that 10,000 boomers are turning 65 each day.
But we feel we probably oversimplified by shifting
the focus too much on casual buyers, those folks who
probably won’t fill their homes with antiques but like
the occasional piece because it’s a better value or better
quality or eco-friendly or matches their dog. There
certainly are more of those folks buying antiques, but
as we consider the long-term health of the market, we
feel that getting those casual buyers in the door is still
important, and we really do need to be finding—or at
least hoping for—more collectors. After all, the market
hit its peak 20 years ago because there were lots of
40-somethings with big houses buying pressed glass and
hogscraper candlesticks. Many of them were less like
collectors and more like hoarders with taste—and those
are the folks you want: people who come to your show or
auction and buy 15 things instead of just one.
It’s a process, and we need to keep doing whatever we
can, working any angle that is available—green, local,
recycle, upcycle, whatever—to get people in general
interested in art, history, or affordable storage. It’s slow
because it’s such an individual approach, and as any
teacher will tell you, you have to meet your students
where you find them, keep watching for a spark, and then
figure out how to fan it.
So that’s how it’s done. No “we’re sorry if you
were offended” or “we regret that our work was not
appreciated.” Just “we were wrong.” And we were, about
some of these things, and we’re sure we were about other
things, too. At the same time, we’re also sure that we’re
not wrong about the work we need to continue doing
when it comes to adjusting to the changing marketplace
and cultivating new sources of business. Everyone has
opinions, not just us, but if you have an opinion and
there’s no one around or interested in hearing it, then
does that opinion make a sound?
We welcome ideas, tips, criticisms, and questions
regarding “The Young Collector.”We may be reached
by e-mail <youngcollectors@maineantiquedigest.
com>, on Facebook
AntiquesCollectors), via our blog (www.young
), or by writing The
Young Collector, c/o Maine Antique Digest, PO Box
1429, Waldoboro, ME 04572.
We started thinking recently
about how we’ve changed our
minds over the years.
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