RINKER ON COLLECTIBLES — Column #1222 Copyright © Rinker Enterprises, Inc. 2010

Trophy Antiques and Collectibles

The concept of a trophy wife is an ancient one.  Bathsheba and Cleopatra are examples.  A 1950 issue of The Economist magazine called attention to the practice of victorious warriors marrying beautiful women captured in battle.  Monarchs often married wives where the trophy rested more in political alliances and land acquisition than physical beauty. Charles (who needs all the help he can muster) and Diana offer a contemporary example.

By the 1990s, trophy wife was a term used to describe the marriage of a financially successful man to a woman whose beauty and desirability enhanced his status among male competitors.  The trophy wife was equivalent to a Lamborghini, Patek Philip, or New York Park Avenue penthouse.  Billionaire J. Howard Marshall’s marriage to Playboy Playmate’s Anna Nicole Smith added a pejorative connotation to the phrase.

Reading the media hype preceding Christie’s International, Phillips de Pury & Co., and Sotheby’s June 2010 London sales of impressionist and modern art, I found several references to the top lots being offered for sale as potential trophies.  Applying this trophy concept to fine arts, antiques, and collectibles is new.  If it becomes acceptable trade speak, it will solidify the idea that desirability at the high-end of any collecting category rests on financial as much or more than aesthetic beauty.  Unlike the trophy wife whose beauty fades over time, the implied assumption is that trophy art’s financial beauty will not.  This is a dangerous and possibly false assumption.

Who or what decides if a piece of art is a trophy?  At the moment, the answer is money.  Which is the trophy—the $106.5 million dollar Picasso painting sold on May 2010 in New York or the $51.2 million Picasso “Portrait d’Angel Fernándezo de Soto” from the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation sold in London on June 23, 2010, by Christie’s International?  If they are both trophies, how is the $55 million dollar difference explained?

In the midst of the Great Recession (do not try telling me and millions of others that it is over), staggering prices are being paid for high-end pieces, many of which set auction or private treaty sale records.  Individuals are cashing out of their intangible investments such as bonds and stocks and buying tangibles.  Fine art, antiques, and collectibles as tangibles are one area into which this available capital is flowing.

Coins, comic books, non-sport and sport trading cards (a.k.a., bubble gum cards), and stamps have developed a grading and encapsulated system, the goal to create a universal standard through which these commodities can be traded worldwide.  Attempts to do this for other fine art, antiques, and collectibles have failed or met with limited success.

The determination of trophy status is and always will be subjective.  The amount paid is driven by the opinion of someone, a person whose expertise and motive needs to be constantly scrutinized in the present and future.  There is no one who is above suspicion, even the buyer.  If the buyer’s goal is to buy status, a piece of trophy art, antique, or collectible, his judgment is clouded from the onset.  Advice from experts within the field, investment pundits, or auction house personnel is tainted, if for no other reason than they profit from the acceptance of their advice.

I was extremely pleased with the balance shown by the media reports of the June 2010 London art sales.  In addition to reporting the lots that sold, they called attention to the large number of lots that did not sell.  Prior to the actual auction, many of these unsold lots were hyped by the auction houses as trophy pieces.  Given the high percentage of lots that did not sell, I am more pleased by those who did not bid and saved their money to buy another day than I am by those who bought into the hype.

When I describe the top five to ten pieces within a collecting category, I refer to them as masterpiece or ultimate units.  A top notch collection contains at least half of them.  Collectors define their importance in terms of desirability and not money, although a connection can be made.

Because of collectors’ declining importance in determining the importance of what is and is not being sold in the antiques and collectibles marketplace, it is time to accept two truths, no matter how painful—(1) the concept of trophy antiques and collectibles has been around far longer than most are willing to admit and (2) those who buy these items are not collectors in the true sense.  Although a reputed pair of the ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz were sold in an MGM auction in 1950, the concept that a pair was a trophy was established on May 24, 2000, when Christie’s East sold a pair for $660,000 to David Elkouby and his partners, who owned several Hollywood memorabilia stores.  They have not surfaced since.

Is trophy the best word to describe these slippers?  My first thought is yes.  They are trophies.  The slippers are one of the movie’s greatest props.  While researching the slippers, I found a reference to them as “Genre: Fantasy.”  It is hard to dispute the fantasy attribution.  There is a sense of unreality to them.  Since I have no desire to create two new collecting concepts of trophy and fantasy, trophy is fine for now.

Once again, the question becomes how do you define a trophy antique or collectible?  Like the Picasso paintings, the object can be assigned to a specific collecting category or sub-category.  A trophy piece should stand alone.

In the past, I have railed against those who tout the one-of-a-kind over a mass produced object.  Painters, even Picasso, had their bad days.  I have seen more than my fair share of handmade junk; crap that belongs in the landfill rather than a museum or collection.  Each piece stands and falls on its own merit in my eyes.

Perhaps this is why I am having so much trouble dealing with the possibility that the only way to define a trophy antique or collectible is its uniqueness.  Ideally, it is a one-of-a-kind item.  But, the ruby slippers were not one-of-a-kind, they were five-or-six-or-more of a kind—a pair or pairs for dancing, a pair or pairs for close-ups, or a pair or pairs of identical slippers worn by one of the witches.  Is size alone enough to differentiate which is which?  Trophy clearly requires limitability.

I briefly considered equating trophy with icon status.  In June 2010 Michael Jackson’s Swarovski crystal-studded glove worn during his 1984 Victory tour sold for $190,000 to Wanda Kelley of Los Angeles.  Who is Wanda Kelley?  Her claim to fame is her statement: “Let’s just say I wasn’t walking out of here without that glove.”  Is this glove a trophy icon?  For $190,000, one would hope so.  Fate decrees otherwise.  In November 2009, Michael Jackson’s white glove worn when he first performed his moonwalk for the 1983 Motown 25 television special sold for $350,000.  Apparently lead crystals do not a trophy icon make.  Further, the auction company touted the white glove as the Holy Grail of Michael Jackson collectibles.  Trophy, icon, Holy Grail – what is next?

The last week of June 2010 witnessed a number of hard-to-understand-the-price-paid sales.  Julien’s Auctions sold a set of three Marilyn Monroe X-rays revealing a lovely set of ribs (not what you thought I was going to comment upon, was it?) from a 1953 Cedars of Lebanon Hospital visit for $45,000, an Elvis Presley shirt worn during a 1956 appearance on “the Milton Berle Show” for $61,200, and a pair of Michael Jackson’s stage-worn loafers for $90,000, hopefully fumigated and polished before being sold.  None of these items are trophies.  In fact, they make you wonder if the buyers who acquired them were in the right mind.

It is far easier to agree upon which objects are not trophies as opposed to deciding which are.  When I hear trophy, I immediately think of the shelves and boxes full of sports trophies I encounter doing home appraisals.  What were once valuable are now junk.  The moment of glory and memories associated with them vanished.  This my greatest concern with assigning trophy status to fine art, antique, and collectible objects.  The concept is not permanent.  There is no guarantee the next owner, let alone future generations will assign it the same value.

Rinker Enterprises and Harry L. Rinker are on the Internet.  Check out www.harryrinker.com.

You can listen and participate in WHATCHA GOT?, Harry’s antiques and collectibles radio call-in show, on Sunday mornings between 8:00 AM and 10:00 AM Eastern Time.  If you cannot find it on a station in your area, WHATCHA GOT? streams live on the Internet at www.gcnlive.com.

SELL, KEEP OR TOSS?  HOW TO DOWNSIZE A HOME, SETTLE AN ESTATE, AND APPRAISE PERSONAL PROPERTY (House of Collectibles, an imprint of the Random House Information Group, $16.95), Harry’s latest book, is available at your favorite bookstore and via www.harryrinker.com.