Antiques??

[cee-dee]

Are many RTers interested in Antiques these days?

The reason for mentioning the subject is that I see good antiques selling for way, way below the prices realised ome years ago. Why is that?

I forget how many years ago that a friend of mine (now dead!) said that "Brown furniture" was on the way out. It was at the beginning of the minimalist culture where you saw just a TV, a couch and a low table in a room with nothing else (the walls being White and the furniture Black).

Today, people speak of "Brown furniture" as if it's little more than garbage and the prices realised (if it sells at all) are very poor. An item that some years back would easily sell for £1500 now has a job to make £300.

All through the "Antiques & Collectibles" field prices are very poor, it's not just the "Brown furniture" that's seemingly out of favour.

So what are people spending their money on? Is it people having two Pizzas delivered for £20 when they could buy two for £2 at a supermarket or wasting money on a £1000 phone while paying £60 a month?

Going back to furniture, you see adverts for something made of "solid Oak" (when it's in fact made of small pieces of wood) costing £600 when a similar antique can be bought today for £60. Even good "old" furniture (looking very similar to the "new" stuff) can be had for peanuts so what's gone wrong for the Antique Trade?

Has ebay had any impact of what were traditional Antique Shops? At the time when ebay began, there were lots of Antique shops but today many have gone. What's your thoughts?

[1956glyn]

Here are my thoughts....

Many items go in and out of fashion hence the fluctuation in prices. Maybe younger generations are just not interested in antiques just the latest gadgets? eg Apple watches and the like.

I purchased lots of Royal Doulton limited edition figurines for my parents and received them back when they passed.   I would say that most are nowadays worth about 40% of what i paid for them brand new.  (not that i would ever sell them)

I recently had the pizza debate with my son who is in his 20s..    Yes i do buy and he eats the £2 pizzas.   Then he himself sometimes buys the two Ds pizza for £20.    I am informed that that 2 for £20 do taste better 😞   Yes i do think spending £20 on two pizza is a waste of money but then again its his money buying them and not mine.

So far as mobile phones are concerned he is about to buy a new one cash for a grand plus as he does not wish to commit himself to paying monthly for it for the next 2 years.      Again to me i think spending that much on an i phone is a waste of money.  Again his money not mine and he does work really hard.

So far as pizza and phones are concerned i think its a generation thing.   My hubby just has a £200 phone and i do not even have or want one.

[1956glyn]

I think the answer is......its a generation thing and the younger generation are just not interested in antiques etc only gadgets and that is what they tend to spend their money on.

[upthecreekyetagain]

Real antique furniture still demands a good price as we found when looking for a dining table and 8 chairs.

What does seem to sell for ‘pennies’ is so called vintage furniture - if you search eBay for dining tables in the “antiques” category the vast majority of the items found can’t really be called anything other than “vintage” at best and are the sort found in second-hand shops rather than antique shops.  There used to be a high demand for these items by newly married couples and/or those buying a property.  Those same individuals now demand new goods even if of a lower quality.

Maybe If eBay clamped down on people listing 1960/70s items in the antique category it would make life easier. 

Isn’t listing new and/or 30 year old items as antiques misleading advertising?

[**caution**opinion_ahead]

I think where furniture and larger antiques are concerned, it is the cost of transportation that is prohibitive.  Cheaper to buy new and get it delivered for free. 

[cee-dee]

UTCYA, when I said that what used to be a £1500 antique now selling for much, much less I was thinking of a genuine, good quality 18th century Longcase clock which now often goes for £300 (and even less sometimes).

1956glyn, with regard to Doulton, I think of the "Character jugs", look how much they used to sell for and NOW look at them?

Thinking of ceramics, a Beswick rearing Huntsman (the original version) used to sell for over £400 (yes, sold on ebay for more than that) and now look at them?

Caution, Yes, it may be a generation thing but buying new and delivered "free" isn't free, you've paid (through the nose) for delivery in the price!

As for a phone costing £1000 (up front? Are they MAD?), you've still got to pay for the calls + data? I had a mobile phone just after the "bricks" and I rarely use the one I've got now, it's just an "emergency" phone. Is it "easy come, easy go" with the current generation?

[1956glyn]

Yes they still do have to pay for the calls and data but they get a package deal every month for say £10 or so.

My son uses his phone a million times a day for work.   I can see his point though that he wants to buy it outright rather than pay every month for years.

[astrologica]

Good subject CeeDee. I used to love going to auctions, but I don't go any more. I haven't got room for any more of what my OH refers to as cr*p! It depends what you mean by 'brown furniture'. Some pieces still command good prices. I've got a really nice Welsh dresser, an old one, and I have had offers in the thousands for that. But I'm not selling it. It is home to my Gaudy Welsh china, which I still collect. Some Gaudy pieces go dirt cheap, but the rarer patterns are quite expensive. Later brown furniture items still sell for good prices, especially if they are a nice design...Arts and Crafts era is very popular. Lots of people are now buying good pieces to paint. Painted furniture....shabby chic...is very popular too. I think the youngsters will come around to recycling furniture....throwing it away is not very green. My daughter has just moved home into a bigger house, and she has vowed never to buy new furniture unless absolutely necessary. Jewellery is also a good investment if you know what to buy. Good diamonds are a good buy...if you can afford them!! So I suppose it depends what you mean by Antiques. The collectible china I think was always going to go down in price, they come and go with fashion. Years ago I bought a set of Biblical Mothers collectors plates...I could scarcely afford them at the time, but now they are very cheap to buy. But I still love them because the designs are beautiful. Good design is timeless.

[astrologica]

I meant to ask....what sort of Antiques are you folks interested in, if any?

[1956glyn]

I  collect antique real gold jewellery and possibly Art Deco items

[dark_castle1]

I would like to collect bags and bags of £20 notes but no chance of that happening   

Oh I did collect a stent in the early hours of Monday morning   

[theelench]

Just a few thoughts on the subject, as I've just noticed the annual "Little League" football tournament is setting up in the playing fields opposite.  In about an hour there will be total chaos in the road with hundreds of small kids arriving and I need to get my car out of the way. 

"Minimalism".  I've been here before in the 60s / 70s when my mum decided to go for the Scandinavian look.  White wood, bare boards and very little else.  I hated it.   I think todays fashion is a combination of people having less disposable income, especially in cash, less time to find what antique they might like and an abundance of credit.  Several of my friends have well paid jobs but no time to go to auctions/ antique fairs or even view before buying on-line.  They admit that they buy "good" new, with finance on-line and most of their income goes for repayments on their mortgage (for an over-priced house), the car(s), the phones.  One is even paying finance for a kitchen refurb.

Years ago when we were younger credit was more difficult to get.  A good job didn't mean that you were on-call 24/7 so you had the time to spend looking for what you wanted and as cash was often limited, bought solid oak furniture because it would last. 

When I bought my first house in London I started collecting Art Deco because I fell in love with the look although, at first, didn't even know it was Art Deco.  I furnished and filled that house with deco bric-brac entirely from house clearers / antique shops for next to nothing.  Those shops largely went on-line largely because rents / rates made them uneconomical.  As they disappeared my collecting almost stopped until I went on-line in '12.

Ebay was a treasure trove of Deco glass at the time.  Ebay, IMO, boosted the collectables/vintage market in many areas, that's what helped ebay get as big as it did.  These days ebay has lost interest in that market.  By adapting the search to prioritise "New" over "Pre-loved", it is instrumental in collapsing the bubble it helped to create. 

[theelench]

To add a couple more thoughts.

I simply don't believe that younger people are not interested in antiques or even collectables.  I've said before on other threads that I remember "Antiques Roadshow" back when I was probably a teenager (forty odd years ago) with the presenters fretting about the future of the trade because "everyone they could see over the balcony of the venue was 40+.  

I'm sure that there will always be nostalgia, "fanatical" devotion to a sport, club or entertainer.  A love of "beauty" in all conceivable forms.   Most people will have some "special" interest or love of some "thing" and want to acquire it/them and there's always the lure of making a shrewd investment.  What, IMO, is lacking at the moment is spare income to indulge the urge to collect.  I'm sure that given the means, collecting will very quickly become fashionable again.

In my mind there is one thing that will hold it back.  Where will younger people see anything to become interested in??  The antique shops have largely disappeared.  On-line everything is categorised and there isn't one for "something old and interesting".  Many children are, apparently,  growing up in minimalist houses.  The past is being relegated to a few period dramas on TV and drowned out by loud and very bright images of "Be There" ads.

I suppose that's the real challenge for future sellers, getting noticed amongst all the transient dross.   Going back to ebay, some of my saved searches for glass have recently been invaded by adding categories of mainly modern repro. or new items to those included in the results.  Big business including ebay is the real enemy of collecting, not fashion or being hard-up.  They don't want people wasting their money on anything that they cannot sell from their fulfilment centres. 

[1956glyn]

We do try and collect £1 coins in a camper tin....another family member keep "borrowing" them for bus fares lol

[cee-dee]

I remember in the early days of "minimalist" a lady clearing her house of antiques and was pleased with the prices realised (at auction). Today, if she did the same thing the prices for h erantiques would be at least 60% (or more?) less. If her minimalist stuff (all Black of course) went in to an auction it probably wouldn't sell at all.

At one time, some of the stalwarts of the antique trade were copper kettles and warming pans. The finest, large copper kettles, no dents and beautifully polished went for £120. On Tuesday two kettles plus some other bits and bobs went for £10. A warming pan made £5.

Brass candlesticks? To make any money they have to be of rare type. "Ordinary" Victorian ones are going very cheap now, £5 - £10 a pair (or less sometimes). A pair of Petal sticks (that I'd repaired) made £190 and another pair of 18th century swirly Petal sticks made just short of £500. It's a crazy antiques world today.

[right-then-petal]

I Collect Nearly Everything, Did House Clearing For A While, Carboot's Buying And Selling

Charity Shops Are Pricey And Mainly New Stuff From Another Place

[vamo48]

I agree there will always be people interested in beautiful things and in collecting various items, and those people's ages are irrelevant.  Fashions do change, and in the case of "brown furniture" it was becoming unpopular when I was young but later caught people's interest again, and is now being upcycled with paint, new handles etc. to give it a new lease of life.  A lot of people can't be bothered with silver these days, takes a lot of looking after, so beautifully made silver teasets for example are being ignored or sold for scrap value.  

As for where younger people will see antiques and collectibles, there are many places that come to mind.  Other houses they visit (friends, grandparents...), museums, tv programmes, books, magazines, to name a few.  Look through a magazine like "Style at Home" and you'll see young people in their 20s decorating their houses in many different styles and collecting items to display.  Intelligent people will always be able to see past all the dross and find treasures.

[theelench]

Yes you're right, my pessimism comes from my circumstances at the moment.  My mum has Dementia and trying to help her necessarily imposes limitations on my life.  Seeing things through that prism distorts my view.

The urge to collect will always be within most people and they will go looking for what they want.  Even if ebay isn't actively helping any more, there are plenty of other sites that cater for a vast array of interests.  On occasion, when trying to I.D a piece of glass, I've come across sites entirely devoted to some type of glass I've never heard of.

The physical shops, books etc., might be less obvious, but on-line there is probably more info. and interest than ever before.  Although the fashion-led "headline" stories might catch the eye.  Quietly, in out of the way corners of the WWW, there is more interest and activity than ever. 

Whether its Brown Furniture or Art Deco, fashion might lead to "boom and bust" situations but more often than not a core of devotees keeps some interest alive.  Some might say collecting is dying, with younger people prefering to spend on experiences, probably wishful thinking on their part, in the hope of getting a bigger slice of whatever cash is up for grabs.

[vamo48]

I'm sorry to hear about your mum and the difficulties it must cause in your life.  

I too am sure there will always be the urge to collect.  People collect the most weird and wonderful things, and who knows where they first got the idea.  My own small collection of frosted glass animals was inspired by my grandmother's Bonzo perfume bottle!  There certainly is a lot of information available online: one site leads to another;  the locations of physical shops being among the things you can find.

Fashions will continue to change as people want to see something different in their houses, and inevitably some of the new items are based on 50s style, or Art Deco, or whatever, and there will always be those who are inspired to seek out the original and maybe find a bargain!  I think there is still a lot of interest in antiques and more modern collectibles, though maybe some would-be collectors just don't have the spare cash.  Sad but true, it's always been the way.