RINKER ON COLLECTIBLES — Column #1432

Copyright © Harry Rinker, LLC 2014

Nostalgia Value: A 21st Century Perspective

Preferring a simple rather than a complex approach to understanding value in the antiques and collectibles trade, I divide antiques and collectibles value into four primary components – collector, decorating/conversation, reuse, and family.  As a result, I include nostalgia value as a subcategory within decorating/conversation value.  For the past several years, I have questioned whether this remains the correct approach or if nostalgia value needs to be elevated from a secondary to a major value factor.

Nostalgia value grew in importance following 9/11.  Families grew closer, staying home and seeking “comfort” activities.  Individuals looked to the past to find memories and objects that were warm, fuzzy, and positive.  Antiques and collectibles sale venues saw an increase in attendance and purchases.  For the next six years, it appeared as though the antiques and collectible market was back on track.  Interest in “older” things was enjoying a mild renaissance.  A mood of optimism prevailed.

The 2008-2009 Great Recession changed everything.  Instead of finding comfort in the past, many chose to ignore it.  The 2008-2009 Great Recession is painful for many.  Today, individuals’ focus is on the immediate and future.  As of July 2014, the antiques and collectibles market still is not fully recovered from where it stood economically in 2006-2007.

In doing research for this column, I encountered an article by Clay Routledge, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at North Dakota State University entitled “A new view of an old emotion, or how science is saving nostalgia” posted August 19, 2013 on the website theconversation.com. [http://theconversation.com/a-new-view-of-an-old-emotion-or-how-science-is-saving-nostalgia-16658]   Routledge conducts research on the psychology of nostalgia.

[Author’s Aside #1:  Academic and scientific research into the antiques and collectibles trade is minimal.  There are a few studies on the psychology of collecting, but that is about it.  However, this does not mean that the antiques and collectibles trade cannot learn and borrow from the academic and scientific community.  I continually search for research and other studies that are applicable.  Routledge’s work on the psychology of nostalgia is an example.]

In his article, Routledge notes that prior to the later part of the 20th century, nostalgia was viewed as having a negative impact on the human psyche.  Psychologists and the medical profession classified nostalgia as a mental disorder, closely related to depression.  Economists argued that it deterred individuals “from living in the present and investing in the future.”

Recent studies in the field of empirical psychology and research has resulted in viewing nostalgia in a more positive light.  Data, that elusive block of information so badly missing from antiques and collectibles research, shows “nostalgia activates a number of positive states.  Specifically, nostalgia increases positive mood, self-esteem, feelings of social connectedness, and perceptions of meaning in life.”

[Author’s Aside #2:  The antiques and collectibles trade sells wonder, stories, and memories.  Memory and nostalgia are closely related.]

Routledge continues: “Studies show that nostalgic memories are focused on personally treasured life experiences.  When people engage in nostalgia, they bring to mind past experiences that they find meaningful….Finally, nostalgic memories are happy memories or at least memories that have happy endings.  So nostalgia is good for people because nostalgic reflection allows them to revisit cherished experiences from the past shared with friends and family.”

Routledge poses the question: “What makes people nostalgic?”  He answers it with: “Nostalgia has a wide range of triggers.  Familiar smells, music, and connection with old friends on Facebook can activate nostalgia.”  While he is correct, he has failed to include the one thing that produces more memories than any other—objects from the past.

I would very much like to take Routledge on a visit to an antiques and collectibles flea market, mall, shop, or show to observe the customers walking the aisles.  The goal is to watch the customers’ facial reactions and body language when they encounter an object that triggers a nostalgic memory.  The face expresses wonder, love, comfort, fascination, and more.  This momentary link with the past produces a smile and even an occasional tear.

Historically, nostalgic memory played a critical role in saving objects from the past.  When individuals died, many of their possessions were distributed among family members.  While some were acquired for their usefulness, most were saved because of the family memories attached to them.

Over the years, I have appraised and managed the dispersal of dozens of estates that contained material handed down from great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents as well as aunts, uncles, great aunts, great uncles, and family friends.  Many of the homes had run out of space for family treasures long before the most recent acquisition had been squeezed into the mix.  As a Pennsylvania German, I grew up in an “it is too good to throw out” culture.

In the course of writing this column, I began thinking about the family things that I own—my grand-grandparents Knoble’s Victorian cottage bedroom suite, the Depression glass dishes that graced the dining room cupboard of Grandma and Pop-Pop Prosser when they lived at 717 High Street in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and the Henry long-rifle that descended through the Brewen family from Plainfield Township, Northampton County, Pennsylvania.  The list is endless—six of the eight family Bibles from my major bloodlines and hundreds of photographic images and other ephemera.  When adding my collections of Hellertown [PA] memorabilia (my childhood growing up memories), Pennsylvania German artifacts (my cultural heritage), and my personal items (just in case I would be president someday and could make a killing selling them) to the list, the number of objects is over 1,000.

The sad truth is that my children, grandchildren, and cousins and their families have little interest in any of these materials.  These are my and not their nostalgic memories.

I do not wish to imply that my children, grandchildren, and cousins and their families do not have nostalgic memories.  They do.  But, they are different.

My children and their offspring (some adopted or acquired through a previous marriage) and my cousins’ children and their children have a very different nostalgic focus than do the generations that were born prior to 1960.   They do not know the distant past and have little interest in it.

Newer generations focus primarily on their own nostalgic memories, a circumstance with which the antiques and collectibles trade still has difficulty dealing.  The good news is that the members of these newer generations have nostalgic memories.  The trade needs to offer objects that trigger them.

The question remaining is whether nostalgic memory is a financial or an emotional memory.  If nostalgia is used to sell objects, it belongs as a subcategory of decorating/collecting memory or a category all its own.  I still favor the former.  If nostalgia is an emotional memory, then it needs to be moved to the family/sentimental category, a category in which the object may or may not have financial value but does have strong emotional appeal value.

I end with another quote from the Rutledge article: “Nostalgia is a healthy emotion that promotes well-being and helps people cope with vulnerabilities and insecurities.  Nostalgia is not about living in the past, it is utilizing the past to help with struggles in the present.”

Nostalgia motivates everyone, whether collector, decorator, or just a person who enjoys an occasional smile.  It is an emotion that the trade would do well to stress more often when offering objects for sale.

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 and is archived 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, $17.99), Harry’s latest book, is available at your favorite bookstore and via www.harryrinker.com.