It is a code of conduct, or rather, a professional protocol thing, that magicians are not supposed to reveal how their magic is performed. I can understand this, and magicians of course have a lengthy and storied history going back centuries, where penalties for profession misconduct could have been rather harsh. In the antique profession, which goes back centuries as well, I've never heard that there was any such mortal penalty for saying too much about how we, as dealers, go about our business. It's a common sense thing more than anything else, because there is a serious disadvantage in many ways, of having our customers know too much about how we go about hunting and gathering our respective inventories. We know that it is necessary to be at least mildly mysterious and slightly evasive, in order to maintain an opinion amongst our followers, that we have some magical, alchemist, paranormal stylings out on our travels from sale to sale, estate to estate, haunted house to haunted castle. Quite a few of us in the profession rather enjoy the mystery, and it adds to the intrigue vendors like to build, about what will appear in their shops or mall booths next, the result of clever hunting and discoveries. It's good for business to have this aura and suspense at your beck and call, as a veteran dealer, and most of us with a few years behind us can conjure up some tangible magic for customers who like surprises as long as they get first refusals. We don't like doing this but it happens anyway for our most loyal customers.
The miniature art piece above, adhered to glass, is one example of how we, as a family of antique dealers, operate instead, on the premise due diligence is the best partner you can have out on the hustings. The due diligence thing, which is another description for doing one's job well, and thoroughly no matter what; and never giving up on what good finds can be made by never taking for granted that the big finds at a sale, at a flea market, yard sale, or auction, have already been discovered and exploited. The art work above, a miniature of significant quality, was basically a discard piece from a house clear-out recently, and Suzanne thought it was well deserving a chance of survival from the garbage bin. She was right, and by following basic due diligence, searched through all the materials we were offered, even when it meant, on a hot day, building a sweat going through piles of paper and books. There it was in worn but highly salvageable condition; the painting from the late 1800's adhered to a highly flawed and bubbled piece of glass, minus the framing that would have cradled the artist decorated panel surrounding the mountain scene. It's that one in a hundred find that makes all the work exerted worth the sweat equity.
When I started out in the antique profession the one common element that last for decades, was my highly limited budget. The antique trade is a particularly difficult one if you rely solely on money to earn standing amongst your peers; many by the way who started off as poor as church mice but loved the treasure hunt so much, that they decided it was important enough to their very existence, that passion and perseverance were there most productive professional qualities. Even if I only had a couple of bucks in my wallet, say, for example, on a motor trip to somewhere or other, and inadvertently coming upon a thrift shop or lawn sale, I would never feel impoverished about stopping and checking out what was available for whatever money I possessed. There were times when I negotiated a deal where I could have a sale vendor hold my pending purchase for a couple of days, until I could get back with the cash to complete the transaction. I frequently would buy something for a couple of dollars that would double or triple my investment at one of our own sales, or at the location we had our shop at the time. It was a discipline thing more than anything else. I just felt it was a necessary exercise to do whatever was necessary to improve our business and although it was frustrating to be so cash strapped, it was also the motivation to work a little harder to get a little more. It's exactly what we taught our sons growing up, because they attended the same sales Suzanne and I did, and they had to work with their weekly stipend to purchase what they wanted. They started at a very young age buying vintage vinyl (records) and musical instruments that fell within their budget. We kept a tight rein on their spending so like us, we did everything possible to balance the books. We haven't changed much in all the years we've been doing this antiquing thing, and it hasn't hurt us a bit being cheap. We're cheap but not stupid, when it comes to this exercise of practicing due diligence. That's when we have a deep, robust budget. Time and patience are our two most important resources even beyond having a bulging wallet.
It comes down to this fact. We have enough knowledge in this rather curious and strange profession, with a very, very storied and Dickensian legacy, to realize that like a proficient angler with patience to spare, the way to succeed in the buying and selling game, straight up, is to never give up on advancing your knowledge and capabilities. Not as a means of becoming the most arrogant and conceited dealer in town, but to know where and how to find a valuable piece under appreciated by any seller, or any one dumping items in a garbage bin; that you happen to intercept mid exercise. Knowledge and insight allows you, the antique sleuth, to go where the impatient have failed to uncover hidden treasure. We use our knowledge to our advantage and we make no apology. We are always looking for what are known, in the industry, as "sleepers," which are articles of age that are misunderstood, misidentified, and under researched. When we arrive at an antique venue, the hosts often approach us with an assortment of items they believe we will want to acquire for our shop. Ninety-nine percent of the time, and on just about every visit to these venues, we are presented with inventory articles and artifacts of which we have no interest, and talk amongst ourselves, about how impossible it seems for others to know what we are really looking for on our walk-abouts.
This brings up another of our most often used strategies for getting what we want when we attend subject antique venues. Although we have our obvious likes and strengths in the old-stuff enterprise, that vendors can clearly identify from our
No comments:
Post a Comment