MOVERS AND SHAKERS
If you want to know what’s happening where, this is the place to look. This month: The Euro and US columns from Issue 34 of Antiques and Collectables for Pleasure & Profit. The UK Column
English Midlands – yet again In the last issue of ACPP I reported the ménage â trois of the new Arthur Swallow Fairs event at Lincoln County Showground, IACF’s resurrection of RAF Swinderby and the longstanding IACF event at Newark County Showground. Well, in December, Lincoln was a triumph while Swinderby (same two days) was a catastrophe. Newark (immediately following) remained unaffected. Blaming anticipated bad weather, IACF cancelled their Swinderby event scheduled for 2/3 February. So, as things stand right now, the April scene includes Lincoln and Swinderby on 6/7 April (both setting up with early entry on the 5th) and Newark on the 8th and 9th. I’m mentioning this merry-go-round here, yet again, because April and October are the months with most visitors from overseas. On recent form the best approach, by far, is to pay the £10 for early entry to Lincoln at 9am on Monday 5 April and go round and round and round until nothing more is coming out. Then Swinderby on the Tuesday, but don’t expect to be there long. Then Newark on the Thursday as normal. Check on Swinderby the week before. Collapsing furniture Antiques Collectors’ Club (UK) publishes an annual report on the movement of antique furniture prices. Although it is a well-researched analysis, people read a little too much into it category-by-category. Similar reports on the value of houses or cars are based on the sales of thousands within each category – but how many George III walnut dressing tables went through the salerooms in 2009? Who is to say that they weren’t George II? What about condition and dimensions? Nonetheless, the headline figures cannot be ignored. 2009 saw a 7% decline, taking the unweighted index back to 1998 levels – in real terms, barely one half of where it was back then. Worse than that, from the often overstated investment perspective, the 2009 figures show that furniture, as a forty-years investment, did no better than the stock market and only half as well as property – ignoring the fact that selling furniture incurs far higher charges than those of the stockbroker or estate agent. One of the reasons suggested is that there has been a decline in the frequency of formal dining. But people still have to eat off something from time to time, and their options are unlikely to include dressing tables, chests of drawers or wardrobes. No, it’s because people just haven’t had as much spare cash as of late. All this is wonderful news for anyone other than dealers or investors in fine antique furniture. The best advice about buying antiques has always been to buy something because you like it and want to use it. There has never been a better time to do just that. Cracking Antiques – Silver River gets real In the last issue of ACCP I mentioned Silver River Production’s creditable approach to the new BBC guidelines for reality TV. I stumbled across their researchers at the inaugural Lincoln County Showground event in October. They asked me to keep a lid on things for a few weeks as it was early days and they didn’t want to be seen in cahoots with any one event or organiser until their research was complete. They didn’t hang around. The filming of all six episodes of Cracking Antiques (working title confirmed) was completed in December. Not only that, co-presenters Mark Hill (Miller’s Guides and BBC antiques expert) and interior design consultant Kathryn Rayward have written a book of the same title, to be released by Mitchell Beazley alongside the TV series. The participants, rather than being ‘contestants’ or ‘victims’, are everyday folk with budgets and agendas all of their very own - they aren’t there just to make up the numbers. For example, one episode to be shown is about someone with her own budget of £1000 (around $2000) and a desire to furnish and decorate a bedroom along the lines of the French Court. In other words, the scripts were written by the participants, not the presenters or producers. Mark Hill says: “This programme isn’t anything like Roadshow or Bargain Hunt. The interest in those programmes often turns on the precise identification of the items and their retail values. We decided not to pigeonhole the items into specific categories or periods. We concentrated more on their value to the purchasers, within their own budgets and being used in their homes. “Too much detail would have alienated the participants and our target audience. We have endeavoured to inform people that spending money at fairs, markets and centres is just as much an option as shopping at department or discount furniture stores. Not only is it a form of recycling, there are bargains to be found. I sincerely hope that the show helps remove the mystique, even fear, which so many people seem to have about buying second-hand furniture.” So, there’s still hope for the furniture dealers. Scheduled to start running sometime around Easter on BBC2, it shows more promise than most. Tune in if you are able – I hope to be able to give other viewing options later in the year.
The Australian Column
In a recent book review in Collectables Trader - a magazine with no family or business connections to me whatsoever – the reviewer made the following observations with regard to the Furphy/Carter’s Price Guide, 2010 edition: ‘Pricing in this publication is supplied by the contributors listed with the item, and is based solely on the contributors’ experience in their markets.’ It was further stated that: ‘All items and descriptions are supplied by the dealers identified with the items.’ This is also stated in the books themselves. The reviewer then states that: ‘The prices are not entirely firm,’ and ‘There is no independent authentication of descriptions, nor of the items, in this guide.’ So, according to the reviewer, the prices and descriptions of the items included in the Furphy/Carter’s guide are the domain of the dealers. According to Furphy/Carter’s themselves, ‘A small amount of editing is carried out.’ That’s good, isn’t it? Here’s a book with an ‘editor’ who by his own admission does just a small amount of editing. And here’s a company that produces books that are edited by the contributors to those books. So who checks to see if their prices and descriptions are in the ballpark? Apparently nobody. And you have to ask the question: ‘What’s a Price Guide for?’ In my opinion it’s a book that contains as many items from as many categories as possible, each bearing as accurate a description and current value as possible, to enable both the trade and collectors to easily identify and value items. There will always be some errors and conflicting opinions in such a book, but diligent work by the publishers will keep these to a minimum. Abdicating that responsibility would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious. The reviewer of the piece in question is not identified in the review, but in my opinion he or she has revealed the key to the reason behind the continued inferiority of the Furphy/Carter price guide. And that is an almost total lack of control of descriptions and values of the items displayed. The Carter family are, and have been for 26 years, at pains to ensure that the descriptions, information and values that appear in the publications we produce are as accurate as we can make them. We diligently check EVERY single item for accuracy, we employ the services of experts and we check dates and descriptions. And on top of all of that, we take pride that our books are presented in such a way that the subject matter is shown in the best possible light, as vibrant as possible. For that’s the other side of the coin isn’t it? The LOOK of everything. And it makes all the difference to the most important person - you.
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Ivor Hughes reports the highs and lows of the UK trade – and interviews Mark Hill of BBC Antiques Roadshow and Miller’s Price Guides
What’s a Price Guide for?