Retrospective

We are foregoing our usual spring feature 'The Year in Review' in favour of a retrospective of the antiques world over the past thirty years. Part I will be followed by parts II & III in future issues of Collector's News.

Actually the past year panned out pretty much as we predicted last April. Low dollar & low prices saw American visitors coming through every day - even throughout the winter. Asian buying was further curtailed and the cry went out up and down the street 'Where are the Japanese?' English dealers came through every 2 or 3 weeks. The English market is so strong some that some of the younger more mobile local dealers are taking Canada-U.K. transactions one step further by going over themselves regularly with stock to sell at shows and in malls. How the world has changed! I even heard from one Japanese dealer that it is now cheaper to buy certain Rolex watches in Japan than Canada.

The switch to more business from the south was fun for us because it involved re-stocking more traditional antiques like brass candlesticks which have fallen out of favour locally. Indeed, the Vancouver market has been a difficult one to trade on this past year and continues to be so.

The English and American markers continue to perform strongly. As I write, the Dow Jones has hit over 10,700 and the wealth factor should really help antiques sales this summer. We are looking forward to seeing many of you again this year and you can be assured that you will find the shop chock full of interesting and good quality antiques.

Granville Highway Update
Predictably, both residents and merchants alike lost out to City Hall on the expansion of a major bus route down Granville Street. We will now be faced with a loss of some parking spaces on Granville (without any increase in side street parking) and the rush hour 'no parking' extending from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
The powers that be at City Hall have also cunningly now devolved the responsibility for transit onto a newly created lower mainland transit authority so that the political fallout won't fall squarely on their heads but onto a commission that isnÕt that easily accountable to the public.
The old saying that 'You can't fight City Hall' is oh so true.

Garage Sale Lawsuit
Last year an estate sale was held in a home in Tucson, Arizona. An ambulance service manager with no formal art education bought two flower paintings in the sale for the full price of US$60. He then contacted Christie's N.Y. who immediately flew an expert down to view the paintings. They were identified as by the American 19th century artist Martin Heade and subsequently sold for 1.1 million.
The item here is that the relatives of the estate took the buyer Carl Rice to court. The judge ruled 'Too bad'. Mr. Rice bought the artwork fairly and squarely and didn't even bargain as is the common practice in garage sales. Not content with this the relatives are now suing the estate sale organizers (it is common practice in the U.S. to hire someone to conduct a sale of the contents in situ). They even made the original appraiser culpable even though at the time of her hiring she said she did not do paintings. She has since settled with them out of court.
The motto of this story is 'Seller Beware'. You would think that with all the publicity about finds in the attic from the 'Antiques Road Show' people would be more aware of the values of things. Obviously not, which is why garage sales are such a popular and occasionally, exceedingly lucrative, pastime. Incidentally, Mr. Rice has bought a house with part of the proceeds but had to go to the expense of retaining a lawyer to handle the estateÕs outraged relatives.

The Internet and Antiques
The big retailing news of the past year has been the explosion of Internet sales. Ebay, the online auction house, has just under 2 million auctions per week. The question on everyone's minds is 'How far can this thing go?' Clearly it is having a dramatic effect on the collectables side of the antiques business with small dealers leaving malls in droves to sell on the Ônet'. They are doing this because it drives their costs of doing business down substantially.

In the euphoria of saving money though, there are serious considerations raised about on-line trading. The biggest one is authenticity and condition.

The auction house itself guarantees nothing so it is up to the individual seller to be totally forthcoming in describing their goods for sale honestly and in detail. This, of course, is not always what happens and there are stories of damaged goods received, reproductions instead of genuine objects and occasionally, outright theft.

Because the 'net' never sleeps and is totally international in scope, it does provide a great service to shut-ins, people in small towns with limited antiques shopping available and large savings in time and money by cutting out travel costs. Actual participation in auctions is inexpensive, needing a computer and monthly internet fee. Interestingly, it is driving the price down of common collectables like Royal Doulton, Hummel etc. by bringing so many of them out of the woodwork that the market has almost crashed except for the very rare figurines which, if anything, are escalating in price.

The success of auction on-line houses like Ebay has caught the attention of the major auction houses like Sothebys and Christies who are both planning on-line auction sites. The difference being that the dealer's participating will have to guarantee the merchandise sold. They will also be limited in number being chosen and vetted by Sothebys and Christies. The major drawback to this scheme is that the auction houses will have access to dealer's client lists which could lead to conflict of interest problems in the future.

Essentially though on-line auctions are no substitute for actually seeing an antique in a dealer's store especially for higher end antiques. Also, you have the hassle of having to go to the post office, pick up the parcel and pay, at the very minimum GST and shipping charges. It really is a new wrinkle on the old mail-order business. If I was a landlord/antiques mall owner though I think I would be losing sleep at night because the history of commerce has always been one of delivering the product for the lowest price and you can only be successful at doing that if your overheads are low. Clearly, given the current too-high costs of running retail outlets, there is no doubt that on-line services will grab an ever increasing percentage of retail unless a miracle happens and rents and property taxes fall substantially in the interim.