PATIENCE FOR COLLECTING I NEVER HAD AS A WRITER

It has long driven my good wife nuts, how I can dawdle in a flea market or antique mall, and seemingly forgetting our wedding vows.....or something like my blind obedience. Suzanne is very good at ignoring what she’s not interested in, whereas I am always looking for the “sleeper” piece, no matter what that might represent. She has never offered an apology for having a narrow gaze, when it comes to antiques and collectibles that interest her. I’ve tried over many years to prove that being a generalist dealer, means we have to make our money from flipping whatever items we can acquire which are under-valued. Admittedly in the antique profession, we all have our quirks and methodology. I like making money just as much as securing big finds to add, instead, to our permanent collection. But I’m not adverse to trying anything once or twice, if it affords our business a little profit. I know from experience that if you stay in your lane, and refuse a good buy when you meet it at the crossroads, you’ll miss out on making a regular profit......but you’ll have museum collection to show your friends.

I started out in the profession broke and it’s fair to say we’ve operated frugally ever since. While I stood with associates at auction sales, who’d think nothing of dropping several grand per sale.....just for run of the mill collectibles, if we spent a couple of hundred dollars, we were living the high life. I might have felt disadvantaged at times, being amongst those who had fat wallets but I didn’t let it stop me from making good buys on higher profit antiques. I did a lot of refinishing myself, and by and large, my colleagues preferred store-ready inventory. I’d get a car load of “in the rough” pieces, eager to put in the work myself, and get a wage for doing the finishing. Sometimes it worked and frequently it didn’t, and I’d lose a few bucks. I’m slow at the restoration side of the business.

I developed a discipline about expenditures. I adopted the “frugal antique hunter,” as my business theme, and since the mid 1970's, it’s worked pretty well. There have been a lot of set-backs. I’ve often had to change my buying habits because the “fat wallet gang” would start moving in on my territory. There’s nothing worse at a small town auction, than “bidder shadowing.” I wasn’t a great strategist but I knew there was no choice but to play along. I continually misled my competitors and stuck them on many occasions, with boxes of books I knew were “dogs” (no-chance-of-profit books), or gatherings of quilts in poor, stained and rotting condition. I’d let them follow me on bids, and appear anxious to win at all costs. I’ve put in many theatrical performances on the auction stage. Then, at a peak, I’d simply disappear for a coffee, leaving their’s as the highest bid. Oh boy was there a lot of grumbling then. Over time, they got the message, that to follow me takes the will of Indiana Jones. Every bid against me was a gamble. Those items I really wanted, I usually got because my shadows got spooked early in the bidding. I’d jump a bid by twenty to fifty dollars, from a normal five dollar increment, and like a missed heartbeat, they’d go back to drinking their coffee, leaving me to my treasure. They preferred bragging about their antique investments, to their cronies anyway. I had to do what it took, to make a few dollars stretch a little further. I’ve never been to an auction yet that mind-games weren’t in full production.....and theatrics a means to an end.

Over the decades I’ve learned how to be patient, frugal and profitable out of necessity. I loved the industry so much, and admired (like a racoon with a shiny object) all kinds of wonderful antiques, from art and old glass, historic lighting, vintage fabric, crocks, to old bottles and the list has no end. To get in, and stay in, I had to learn how to scrounge. It was that simple. And I had to watch a lot of great pieces walk away with someone else, because we were on a tight budget. Yet to any young antique enthusiast, I would always say the same thing,....... as I’ve had as my own mantra......a good antique hunter doesn’t need a fat wallet.....but does require a massive interest in self-education about old stuff in general. You will perish in the business if you are under-informed. I’ve watched the destruction of many antique hopefuls because they thought they knew it all......but obviously didn’t.

The antique profession is still a ruthless, no holds barred, cut-throat enterprise, even at the modest shop level. It’s like Charles Dickens himself penned our respective characters. Even the most modest, unassuming ma and pa operations, can fool the unsuspecting shopper or seller. While this is not to suggest anything about being unsavory or dishonest.......it is very much to affirm that there are many sharks in the antique dealer / collector’s pool.......and just because a shop and shopkeeps look unassuming, don’t think you’re going to beat them for a Group of Seven sketch for a hundred bucks. If you’re on the selling side, looking to make a quick profit, off a Group of Seven knock-off, think again before you commit yourself to their scrutiny. Some of the smartest and most cunning antique dealers I’ve met, over thirty years, are ones holed-up in these small, unassuming, collectible nooks and modest crannies. They’re good business people. They buy antiques like the late, great, Will Rogers. They know how to horse trade and get the better deal. There’s nothing wrong with this. They’ve earned their stripes in the business by daily dealings with thousands of other cut-throat, no-holds barred antiquers, to get where they are.

On my own travels these days, I’m looking for interesting art pieces more than anything else. I will buy primitives, especially Canadiana, and old interesting wooden trunks I can restore for re-sale. Son Andrew took his mother aside, one day, while I had my head stuck in a musty old steamer trunk, and said, “You know, I’ve never seen dad happier, than when he’s got something to refinish.” He wasn’t speculating on this. They’ve all witnessed me knotted up and frustrated at the typewriter, working on some manuscript or column, and recognize the differences between hand crafting and mind bending. I might get frustrated when an insect lands on my freshly varnished pine harvest table but it’s nothing compared to the cussing and foot stomping at the computer, when a proof-read through a feature story, turns into a war between a split personality......the writer and the other guy who taps at the keys for hours on end......both the same person but you’d never know it. One is always accusing the other of being an arse.

As a writer, I show as much patience as any one else in the profession. That’s not saying much of course. I drank heavily because I was a writer. I’d go to the local watering hole after work, and get into a fisticuff with another writer I may have called an arse or something mildly worse. I never drank once in my life, as a frustrated antique dealer. I’m so much more an antique hunter / dealer today than a writer. I love writing but there’s nothing I’d rather do, any day of the week, than find myself hopping from estate sale to flea market, antique mall to auction sale. As my writing career was a damnation to Suzanne, well, suffice to say antiquing isn’t much better, poor soul. She loves her Fenton glass collection, so I bait her before each trip......that somewhere before we hit the noon hour, we’ll have found a bit of cranberry or milk glass from the revered Ohio company. Suzanne will find a nice quilt or sewing antiquity, and eventually forget all about the Fenton, until I bring it up again......the very next time we head out on the open road.

I’m not cheap and if I had a million bucks to blow, I most surely would. Probably within a week. The difference with me however, is I would definitely get my money’s worth in antiques. If I was really proficient in acquisition, I might even be able to make a fifty percent profit or more. Many antique dealers aren’t satisfied unless their profit hits at least a hundred percent......upwards. But it’s nobody’s business what you pay for a find. Most of us are pretty good at getting quality pieces for rock bottom prices. So our mark-up is not based on fair play, it’s based on what we would like to achieve as a profit. Yes, we do win, and then again, we also lose occasionally. Some of us are greedier than others, and a few are too generous for their own good. I’ve met them all. I fall into the mid-zone. I’m not ruthless but I’m a hanger-on, and persistent where and when it counts. I’m patient because it suits my capital position. If you don’t have a big budget to flail about, then you have to be patient.....as the fisher in the meadow brook. Sooner or later it will pay off.

I’ve known some grand characters in the antique profession, who have taught me a lot about survival and improving my acquisition skills. I wasn’t a quick learner either. I guess those early teachers of mine were right all along, when they said “Teddy is interested in some things (girls) but mostly distracted.” It was the skirts, I’m telling you. I had a crush every fifteen minutes. As an antique hunter I had the same problem. I was always easily distracted. So after a few dozen bad buys, like bidding on glass and pottery that turned out to be either chipped or replicas, I learned how to focus, no matter how many auction chicks happened to be in close proximity.

When you’re bidding at auctions you must never be distracted.....by conversation or a pretty face. I’ve pulled right away from crowds and friends, when I’m particularly interested in winning an auction bid. I want to hear clearly and know who I’m bidding against. How bad do they want the piece. I have to judge their faces. It’s my business to know this and know it well. Suzanne swears I develop horns when I’m bidding. I can’t feel them but I’m sure she’s right. It’s real important to develop that immediate relationship with the auctioneer, such that he or she doesn’t miss a critical bid, before hitting the gavel down. I win about fifty percent of what I’m going after. Keep in mind, the folks I’m bidding against are sharp as tacks, and are using the same strategy as I am, to scare the back bidders off. It’s like chess but meaner. From what I’ve read about auctions from the old days, in Europe, the local sales’ tactics and competition are mere child’s play. But seeing as I don’t go to many auctions in England these days, I stick to honing my skills with what the region offers-up during the sale season.

I hate losing at auctions, even the silent ones run by local thrift and charity shops. Knowing when to stop bidding, just as playing the slots at the casino, is of critical importance. Many antique dealers and collectors have exceeded their budgets on one piece, because they got caught-up in the personality of the bid......meaning the bidding became a grudge match between patrons, and the “I’ve got more money than you,” sort of showdown. When the winning bidder, having spent 50 percent more than he should have,finally gets the prize.....geez, it’s always so entertaining to watch for the confident look we call, “Of course I knew what I was doing.” They also throw back their shoulders and exist the sale, looking pinched and about to wet themselves.

I used to write a column years ago, called the “Auction Block,” and it was great fun let me tell you. The auctioneers despised me for giving away business secrets. While it’s true I had a much more difficult time getting any bargains, especially having pissed them off, in oh so many ways by what I wrote, it was still worth every drop of ink expended. The biggest fight I had was with an auctioneer from Huntsville, who wanted me fired, for writing a column about the dangers of buying used mattresses, and upholstered furniture from auctions. I didn’t write that folks shouldn’t buy them, but rather, be awfully careful that what you think is a good buy, and a nice piece of furniture, isn’t also a residence for bed bugs. I was right but he figured that because he advertised in our paper, he had a God given right to a retraction.....refuting the bed bug claim. He said I was costing him business because folks weren’t buying the mattresses any more. Even my boss asked, “Do you mean all of these people are reading Currie’s column? Heck we should give him a raise for increasing our readership.” Well, I survived the advertiser’s challenge, continued to write cautionary columns from time to time, and expected I wouldn’t be welcome at his sales from that point onward.

I want to reminisce a bit more about the antique and auction circuit, in the near future, some gems of information, taken from those early columns......a period where I spent half my life standing at these sales waiting, for my items of choice, to arrive on the auction block. There were many humourous moments, believe me. I had no problem whatsoever, coming up with new column material weekly that’s for sure.

More antique stuff to come.

Just one more point. The reason I’m authoring these blogs about antiques and collectibles, and dredging up my glory days as a published columnist......is that, in a fit of impatience and frustration, I threw out all my old newspaper files from the 1970's to about 2005. It was the writer winning out.....temporarily, over the antique hunter. Having my new material on blog-sites, is archival, as much as it is for present consumption. I’m not likely to throw any of this stuff away because I’m not computer savvy enough to know how. Son Robert looks after all my computer needs. I just type at this keyboard and grumble. He gets the editorials on-line. In return, I’ve appointed him the keeper of all this intellectual property, should the old man vaporize one day, while having one of his tantrums. I’ve always felt spontaneous combustion would be a fitting way for me to go.....you know?

Robert just shakes his head at my mockumentry demise, and agrees to profit from my writing.

He’s a nice kid.