RINKER ON COLLECTIBLES — Column #1512

Copyright © Harry Rinker, LLC 2016

London Bridge Is Falling Down

When “Rinker on Collectibles” first appeared in 1987, its focus was the emerging twentieth century collectibles market.  Twenty-nine years later, the twentieth century collectibles secondary market has achieved a level of equality with the secondary market for antiques.  In fact, many of the collectible categories about which I wrote in the last half of the 1980s and the 1990s have evolved and become viable members of the antiques community.

With the arrival of the 21st century, I shifted the “Rinker on Collectibles” focus to objects made after 1945.  I make exceptions, especially if the object allows me to discuss collecting and/or secondary market pricing trends.

From its inception, “Rinker on Collectibles” also focused on analyzing and interpreting developments within the trade.  While the focus was on developments within the collectibles sector, the column occasionally ventured into looking at what was happening to antiques.

When launching “Rinker on Collectibles,” I made two basic assumptions.  First, the antiques and collectibles secondary markets were separate entities.  This is no longer true.  In 2016, the collecting, economic, societal, and other trends that impact one also impact the other.

Second, the high-end objects, whether antiques or masterpiece and upper echelon collectibles, were relatively safe from the shifting market trends of the middle and lower portions of a collecting category’s secondary market.  As the 21st century dawned, some antiques and collectibles market analysts questioned the concept of “blue chip” antiques.  The same applied to the top-end prices in collectibles collecting categories with an aging collector base.

As “Rinker on Collectibles” goes forward, a few of its text columns will digress and explore developments and trends in the antiques sector, especially when they mirror what is happening in the collectibles sector.

[Author’s Aside #1:  I was a collectible when I began “Rinker on Collectibles.”  I turn 75 in 2016.  Like it or not, I am an antique.  I make this point not to imply there is anything wrong with being an antique, albeit some may disagree.  My defense, not that one is needed, is that I remain a Twentysomething is a Seventysomething body.]

Dick Wise, a participant in the Institute for the Study of Antiques and Collectibles 2015 Summer Camp, called my attention to an article that appeared in the December 19, 2015 issue of the magazine “The Economist.” The articles was entitled “The future of the Past / Out with the old / Why the bottom has dropped out of the antiques market.”  It came after an earlier article in the May 24, 2014 “The Economist” entitled “Money for old rope / A trade falls victim to technology and changing tastes.”

The 21st century’s digital age has created a global marketplace.  The antiques and collectibles market is part of it.  Just as the American stock market is incapable of ignoring developments in Asia, the Mediterranean, and around the world, the American antiques and collectibles market cannot ignore what is happening elsewhere.

The May 24, 2014 “The Economist” article begins:  “For the past four decades Britons have been hooked by ‘Antiques Roadshow,’ a television programme in which dusty old chairs discovered in a corner of somebody’s attic are occasionally revealed to be worth thousands of pounds…But while the format of the show has hardly changed over the years, the antiques market has.  Technology, immigration and changing tastes mean the televised ideal of the trade is dating quickly.”  The article notes the number of English antiques dealers fell by close to 25 percent.  American tourism is down.  Asians and younger Europeans are no longer interested in English antiques.

[Author’s Aside #2:  The Europeans define antiques far differently than do Americans.  Only recently have they reluctantly [interpret as kicking and screaming] agreed that middle to late Victorian material might, if one is willing to stretch the truth, be considered antique.]

“The Economist’s” choice to revisit this topic a year and one-half later is significant.  The December 19, 2015 article indicates the decline in the antiques marketplace went from bad to worse in 18 short months.  Reading the article leads to the obvious conclusion that the end of an over one hundred-year-old era is close at hand.

The remainder of this column will present excerpts from the December 19, 2015 “The Economist” article.  Readers will recognize many of the themes discussed in “Rinker on Collectibles” columns during the past decade.  The article begins by discussing the decline of antiques shops on the Rue de Rivoli in Paris where only half a dozen antiques shops survive on a street that once housed hundreds of shops.

“Shops selling furniture that has passed the century mark – the generally accepted definition of an antique – are closing on both sides of the Atlantic.  Fulham Road in London used to have so many stores selling old wood furniture that it was known as ‘the brown mile.’  Today all but three have closed.  Bermondsey Market and Portobello Road, two other well-known stomping grounds for antique-hunters, are suffering, too….Bonham’s, Christie’s and Sotheby’s, three big auction houses have all cut back on antique furniture to focus on what they see now as bigger moneymakers: contemporary art, jewellery, and wine….

“High rent is one problem for antique-sellers.  But the other, much bigger issue is falling demand….even lower prices have not drawn buyers back….

“For a long time antique-buyers believed that scarcity meant that value of old furniture would rise, or at least hold steady.  They perhaps underestimated the capriciousness of taste….Appreciating antiques, and knowing what to buy and at what price, takes study and training that few people have…Dealers complain that time-pressed young buyers show little interest in the past....young people do not entertain as they used to…Young people do not want period rooms, no matter how much money they have, says Bunny Williams, an American interior designer….

“Baby-boomers are downsizing, while their own parents are dying and leaving them their old furniture.  But their children have no interest in it.  Many of those who go to antiques shows are not looking to buy, but to gauge how much their own antiques are worth….hundreds of auctions take place every month on sites such as Bidsquare, Invaluable and LiveAuctioneers, and you do not need to be a professional to take part….It can be harder for customers to spot true quality online—and fraudsters find it easier to flourish.  But buyers who take care should be able to find tremendous bargains…”

It would be easy to take an “I heard it all before” or “this is nothing new” approach and dismiss the above.  But, this is new information.  It offers indisputable evidence that all is not well in many sectors of the high-end antiques market.  It is a subject that will encourage other publications to investigate.  “On the way down” stories sell.  The media sets and encourages trends.  If similar articles appear in other leading publications, their sheer number will result in the “decline of the antiques market” story becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In the December 20, 2015 email that I received from Dick Wise calling my attention to “The Economist” article, he raised this question: “When retrenchment occurs, is it a top down process (higher levels to lower levels), a bottom up process (lower grade establishments and merchandise first, trickling up to the top), or a two-stage process – trickle down from the top but accelerating as it moves down and then rebounding upward intensifying in strength? “ Look for my answer in a future “Rinker on Collectibles” column.

Readers wishing to read the full text of the December 19, 2015 “The Economist” article, see: http://www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21683982-why-bottom-has-dropped-out-antiques-market-out-old.

Harry L. Rinker welcomes questions from readers about collectibles, those mass-produced items from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.  Selected letters will be answered in this column.  Harry cannot provide personal answers.  Photos and other material submitted cannot be returned.  Send your questions to: Rinker on Collectibles, 5955 Mill Point Court SE, Kentwood, MI  49512.  You also can e-mail your questions to harrylrinker@aol.com. Only e-mails containing a full name and mailing address will be considered.

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.