As anyone who has written me knows, I will almost always respond in time if the message is polite and professional. I have gathered a long post I had with an antique dealer and his opinion of demographics, antiques, and the market for comics. These were his responses to my article, some of which I have posted below- especially the charts comparing comics and collectibles. below are his responses. I will add prompting concerns to his opinions to create a question-and-answer type format.
“An antique dealer and a comic book speculator walk into a bar…”
This is the important part of being an investor, adapting and maintaining the ability to learn from others, especially my readers. What are things we can learn from the antique furniture market that apply to comics? What primary things do a seasoned collectibles dealer look at that can help us make collectible investor decisions?
Conversation with an Antique Dealer
The reader’s name is Mr. Lum (40-year veteran antique collector) and I will leave out his first name and middle name for his privacy. below is a rough summary of our conversation and his opinion of what drives the collectibles market:
Mr. Lum starts with…
“Good review as usual Norman but I have a few things I would like to point out and add. “
Question: What is the deal with antique furniture, any future?
“Antique furniture or what we phone call in the trade, the “brown furniture” has been dead since I started in this business 25 years ago and I highly doubt that it will ever come back even as things in these trades do become popular again.”
Question: Is there any area of furniture that is at least doing okay now?
“A big part of that has been the Mid-Century modern furniture and collectible’s boom, which is still going pretty strong but even in the last 10 years that has shifted to Hollywood Regency tastes, 70’s to 90’s contemporary high end.”
Question: What is the demographic shift going on in antique furniture?
“David Rago and several other respected and widely known dealerships were speaking about this shift within a demographic shift happening 10-15 years ago I shifted my business appropriately back before most did for both of these fields. nobody wants grandma’s old dirty china hutch and matching buffet or credenza anymore, especially not the younger generations, i.e. Millennials and younger kids.”
Question: how are Millennials impacting antiques and collectibles?
“I believe this is going to be the biggest impact on all of the collectible trades here in the next 10-20 years, I mean I know people our ages and even a bit older that have no clue about any of this stuff and they too could care less. everyone wants brand new junk, and everything I have ever read about Millennials’ buying habits, preferences, and way of lives says 70% of them say they never expect to be able to own a home in their lifetime. Therefore, they are not interested in stuff they have to drag around from rental to rental and have no place to put permanently.”
Question: Estate sales are what I think of for antique purchases, how has the younger generation treated these opportunities?
“They also have no interest in anything that is in their minds “old”, I see lots of estate sales every year where the young youngsters don’t know anything about antiques or collectibles, they don’t know anything about the value any of it might have and they could care less, when their people or whoever dies they just want the stuff gone, to the garbage dump in many cases. This honestly is ignorant on their part because in most situations they could get the best bang for their buck out of inherited products and sell them to buy the house they never think they will be able to buy.”
Question: are there areas of collectibles that are still viable and collectible?
“True antiques and fine art still sell and they always well, fine art is widely considered the best investment you just have to have the big bucks to invest in it. As far as furniture goes a beautiful “Philadelphia game table” by the right maker from the 17th century will still fetch a record price 9 times out of 10, over a million or so.”
Question: Are you still dealing with traditional antiques?
“In the end, everything is worth something at one time or another. I do hope people come back to traditional antiques because I still love them, even though I have moved on from dealing with them for the most part for now. I have not been lucky enough to find one of these million-dollar tables or pieces of furniture yet myself. but I have had several dealer friends of mine that have throughout the years so there’s still hope for me to score.”
Antique Furniture: A Cautionary Tale
Experts generally define “antiques as products of value that are at least 100 years old and less than 50 percent restored.” They often cite the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which set the “100-year benchmark for antiques in the united states and also enull
