| Deeler's
Antique Closes
Deeler's Antiques of West Vancouver and of Main
Street closed its doors last December. To those of you with long memories,
John and Mary Jarvis have been operating Deeler's since the mid sixties
with, at one time, several stores in the lower mainland, Kamloops
and Edmonton.
I first came into the Deeler's flagship store at Hastings and Richards
at least thirty years ago when the British revolution was well under
way and met John and his brother Mike who both hailed from the Brighton
area in Sussex, England.
Both brothers were unfailingly helpful to me in my efforts to establish
our sister company William Books by helping me import books and later,
giving me container space to bring in antique shipments from the U.K.
We are sorry to see that they have closed and our best wishes go to
them for their new endeavours.
Israel Sack of New York and Alex Reid
& Lefevre of London Close
Israel Sack, Inc. of New York City has closed
its doors with the remaining stock sold off at auction in January.
They were the leaders in the field of American period furniture and
accessories. No collector can afford not to read their engaging, informative
and fascinating book on the history of the company "American
Treasure Hunt" published in 1986.
Israel Sack was a legend from the 1920s on as we went around the east
coast ferreting out pieces of early Americana. He was the leading
dealer and became so by paying record prices for antiques. The book
concludes with the record US $675,000 they paid in 1983 for the Gibbs
kneehole desk attributed to the Rhode Island cabinet maker, John Townsend.
Israel and his late son Harold would no doubt be amazed at the millions
it would fetch today - if you could find another.
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Also closing after 113 years in London as the top art dealership
in impressionist pictures is Alex Reid & Lefevre. A combination
of high overhead and paucity of suitable stock appears to be the
reason here although the principals have indicated they will still
be in the art business but not running a commercial gallery.
A report out of London states that three more out of the top 15
art have either closed or seen huge drops in sales during the past
decade.
The problem is, at the top end of the market, a shortage of exciting
things to tell, not a shortage of buyers. Indeed the poor performance
of the stock market in recent years has propelled investment money
into art. Dealers are having to chase fewer and fewer desirable
items making this the most competitive market ever.
Because of the above, future newsletters will no doubt have the
sad news of more closings.
The Internet and Antiques (Part 4)
Big changes again this past year as dealers
and collectors grapple with trading on the internet. In the wake
of the recession and 9-11 consolidation among internet companies
was the order of the day. A collector in England was bought out
of Able Auctions here in Canada and Sotheby's has relocated all
its online selling to North America and has struck up an alliance
with eBay for more effective marketing to promote the Sothebys.com
site.
If this sounds like there is a downturn in business online, it seems
there is but then everything else is pretty well down too. Understandably,
there has developed something of a backlash against online selling
for a variety of reasons - problems that we have enumerated before
and the fact that people actually want to see and touch the things
they're interested in before they actually buy anything. The number
of antiques stores that have disappeared because their owners felt
they could do better on the 'net has hurt the trade generally because
there are far fewer shops to look through.
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Dealers who have deserted the general public and main
street stores in favour of their own homes, state that the overhead
was too high, too many browsers and not enough buyers and not enough
time to go out and look for new inventory. Actually, the situation
is a little more complex.
Auction sites like eBay have actually de-regulated the pricing structure
of many antiques and collectables throwing the marketplace into some
disarray. It has created smaller margins on collectables whilst at
the same time, a dealer operating from commercial premises, finds
his/her overheads constantly rise year in, year out. So the Internet
has forced many marginal businesses onto the Internet because they
can't make any money the traditional way. Whether they can make it
on the Internet sites is another question again.
Where the internet has been very useful is in the speedy transmission
of information. We can send same day colour photos of inventory all
over the world as well as receive photos of antiques people wish to
sell. For anyone who buys at auction or just wants to peruse forthcoming
sales, many auction houses now are online with their catalogues opening
up a vast new area of treasures to view.
Surveys have shown, interestingly, that North American residents are
much more likely to buy online than anyone else which is why the major
auction sites are all over here now.
There's going to be a lot more twists and turns to this story as time
goes by and we'll update you as we go along.
Kerrisdale Antiques & Collectibles
Show
On Saturday, May 4, 2002, the doors opened at
the Kerrisdale Arena to a throng of antiques enthusiasts coming to
view the antiques and collectables on offer. We exhibited at the show
and were pleased with the strong attendance. It's a great central
location for us and we will be there again next year. The same promoters
are having a summer show on June 30 and July 1 at the Burnaby Lake
Bill Copeland Sports Complex. Call (604) 730-7122 or (604) 925-3159
for details.
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