Antiques & collectables?

[cee-dee]

What have people found regarding the buying/selling of Antiques and Collectables? Have you found that some things are selling for very, very low prices compared to a few years back?

Brown Furniture is selling very badly compared to when I was listing 8 - 10 items a day, 7 days a week.

Brass and Copper is very poor, a Copper warming pan only fetched £6 a month ago and there were three warming pans in a sale at the weekend and none of them rased a bid of a tenner. A copper kettle made a tenner when some years back it would have made £50 - £60.

Brass candlesticks are also selling badly (that's the common Victorian ones). Over the years, I've repaired/polished hundreds of them and now it's a job to get much more than a tenner a pair if they sell at all.

Some ceramics are virtually unsaleable and those that are selling don't seem to make a lot?

Books? "Good" books are down too. A limited print book that was making over £400 at one time had dropped so much I counted myself lucky to get £240 for mine. Just as well I'd bought it at the pre-publication price...? I checked the current price of another book that was making £200 and found one on sale for £52. Mind you, a seller in the USA was asking $350 for a copy....

What have you found and why do you think it's happening?

I put it down to the "minimalist" and "decluttering" culture where people have very little in a room.

[wilsonhepple]

Greetings from an expat antique & collectables dealer now living in the USA. (Massachusetts)

I live just a mile from the famous Brimfield Antique Market..so I am able to keep my eye on what is selling, and I talk to the dealers, and they are NOT happy...

I am in full agreement with your assessment of the seemingly slow demise of the antiques business...

I deal in many items, but try to concentate on what I know best...English porcelain, china & pottery, and I have seen a 40% drop in value in the last three years on many of these items..

By the way, there was a time, in the not too distant past, that I was able to buy nice antiques during my holiday trips back home (Northumberland)..but this has not happened in the last ten years or so..

Right now...my basement is filled with 'brown' furniture no one is interested in even taking a look at it..

My glass sales are way down too, even less profit than last year...and my prices are reasonable. ?

Five years ago, I was selling Gaudy Welsh items at the Brimfield show, and getting really good prices.

Depending upon the patterns, I could sell C & S sets all day long at $100. - $150.00.

Other pieces of Gaudy were selling at a premium....but not today..

I checked recently and found C & S sets going for $50-75.00. on eBay which I consider a good price guide indicator of what's going on in the business.

Another popular item I have had no problem selling here in the States are the pottery Wally dogs..(both Staffordshire & Bowness)...

Five years ago, I would bring three or four sets to a show....and I would have them sold at $400-500. a pair..before the day was over..but not today. 

Right now I have 10 pairs sitting in my basement, and I swear they are looking as sad as I am..!!

It may take a while, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the fickle public will eventually grow to love antiques again.

[iwonderhowmuch]

Hi All

I think you will find the demise may continue purely through generations and technology.

Lets face it my 2 kids (7&4) are already playing xbox live and DS's etc do we really think the next generation are going to be into antiques when they are adults or will our homes and collections be designed to their childhood memories.....

Lets face it a brand new boxed playstation 1 in original wrapping is worth more than a nice vase from 200 years ago......nuff said unfortunately 😞

yours hoping

[cee-dee]

All these hits but only two comments? No ideas as to the demise of "collecting"?

One thing I forgot to mention, Silver.

I think a lot of Silver is going for scrap judging by the price of some of it. There's really good, really old items which are going to be lost forever.

[captainbovine]

I used to be an avid collector of blue and white china. It was easy to find a really good bargain on here, but I've also had to bid hard for some items.

now, the prices are so low it's incredible. I can no longer collect as we downsized.

the market is very sluggish, I now have a lot of b/w to sell but what is the point at the moment? but I don't have the room!!!!!! it's catch 22 for me.

Would I be better off taking it to auction or putting it on ebay? I really don't know what to do.

[cookiecookuk]

i think if you want to buy and sell at the moment just look at anything chinese japenese american or australian as these countries are paying silly money to there antiques back..

[cee-dee]

Lotsa views but posts are thin on the ground?

Not many got any idea why antiques/collectables seem out of favour?

After the second world war, lots of old things got destroyed as people were looking at or for "something new" but then in the '60s there was a revival of interest as people started looking for better quality things and antiques fulfilled that desire and not only that, they were cheaper too.

People wanted better than poor quality furniture made of plywood, some of it having been re-used. I remember seeing "Tate & Lyle" on the back of a wardrobe, the makers had re-used boxes in which sugar had been transported (can I say "Tea Chests" even though it was sugar?)

By the end of the '60s there were antique shops everywhere and if it wasn't an antique shop pure and simple, it was tea rooms with antiques as a side offering.

How many antique shops have you in your area today?

[ilove2patch]

We have a couple of those big antique (junk) emporiums here but a lot of it is painted furniture these days. I don't think the youngerr generation have any interest to be honest.

[cee-dee]

Ah, those places are where dealers pay for "a pitch" and the place is staffed for them.

But.... how many antique shops are there?

Painted furniture........ YUK. Shabby chic, yuk too. How'd you fancy a grandfather clock painted RED or a wall clock painted bog house BLUE? I've seen both those.

[ilove2patch]

Certain towns around here have a lot of shops. Honiton is one I can think of but probably only one in Weymouth now as the overheads are high so they have pitches in the emporiums. Hungerford has quite a few too.

[2017clearout]

"Brown" furniture has been out in the SE for a long time - years, in fact: but I really don't understand why people will happily pay hundreds for a new chipboard whatever when they could get something gorgeous and substantial from real wood, along with their own piece of history, for far less.  A lot of it in antiques depends on fashion too - and perhaps with the trends for all the whitewashing and shabby chic, brown is out right now?

My parents are major early English blue and white collectors, and stuff is now going as low as it was in the 70s, apparently - but the really good stuff that's also rare is holding it prices.  I see a similar thing in my interest, antiquarian books - the very, very rare, or the rare but in perfect condition, is holding, but otherwise, prices have plummeted.  Even in modern firsts, fashion matters - I have a first printing first edition of "The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo" (by accident - it just happened that's what I bought) and when it was all the rage, these were going for thousands: you'd be pushed to get over £100 most days (sadly, mine was in storage in those heady days!).

There's more antiques programmes on television than ever before - and that probably has something to do with it too: I know silver and brass/copper etc has been out of favour for a long time now - people don't want to have to polish it, or think they don't have time.  I remember when you could hardly give Clarice Cliff away, and now it's on every blooming programme - but I suspect everything will have its day again: apparently, after the war, you couldn't give stuff like brown furniture away, as everyone wanted new, and it came back in again.  Just depends, for the poor dealers, if they can hang on long enough, though.

[ilove2patch]

The americans love brown furniture.

[cee-dee]

When I was a kid, I used to have my cornflakes in a Clarice Cliff bowl, we had half a dozen of them.

I think the antique programmes featuring auctions have caused "problems", for one thing people see the more ordinary stuff selling for peanuts so that drives the prices for everyone down but the main reason that I think they cause problems is that some good buyers don't want to be seen on TV so stay away (so the prices are lower) and other people attend just because the TV people are there and they're either hoping to see/meet "the stars" or just hoping to be seen on TV.

It doesn't help when "the stars" are saying for all to see/hear things like "Brown furniture is out right now".

Other decorating/renovating/furnishing/designer programmes are continually on about having a complete clear-out, "de-cluttering" and for replcement, pushing very plain, angular Black and White furniture. They're also showing rooms they've furnished/designed which has little or nothing in them other than the bare, basic items.

[dark_castle1]

I totally agree with you CD ! 

I used to attend Great Western Auctions until the "I want to be seen on tv brigade" took over and started paying way over the odds on the items being auctioned off for tv. Yes you could tell which ones they were because the auctioneer emphasised them making sure everyone knew which they were. Ultimately the other prices went higher in the hope they would also be filmed so many of the buyers who used to try and stay off the tv subsequently stopped going and prices started to drop and through greed Great Western Auction upped their percentage because I think they saw themselves as tv stars.

Now when you look at their catalogue the amount of lots has fallen quite a bit.

[ghostofhuggles]

I'd love to find 50s/60s furniture but it's always up North.

[dark_castle1]

ghost have you looked on your local Gumtree ?

[cee-dee]

There's a lot listed on ebay...............

Thing is, the shipping takes the shine off the deals?

[wilsonhepple]

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@ilove2patch wrote:

The americans love brown furniture.

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They used to.....but that was a long time ago...nowadays you can pick up a complete set of antique bedroom furniture for a song..

MCM....(mid-century modern) is super hot right now...anything and everything.

[merc1_clocks]

As an aside...I live in a Victorian Gamekeeper's Lodge...

& have tried to make everything in it Victorian...I LOVE brown furniture 

[ginap.123]

Had to bin my mums walnut bedroom set, bed, 2 wardrobes, 2 bedside tables and a mirrored dressing table when mum downsized after my dads death in 1986.
It was a gorgeous, well kept, polished set but no one was interested at all. Such a shame.