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2005 Best Of Winners

Discover Mid-America — March 2005

Top Five Tagging Turn-Offs

Retail buyers of antiques and collectibles expect sellers to know something about the objects they're selling — and they expect what the dealer knows to be on the price tag.

Here are the top-five "pet peeves" among buyers when it comes to shop tags.

Tags without descriptive detail
It's a strange kind of sign of the times when yard sale tags are beginning to look more like antique shop tags and vice versa:

"Doll $200" "Figurine $75" "Red dish" $25"

I wish I could say these yard sale tags in antique shop tags are apocryphal, but they're not. A retail customer expects the tag to tell me more about the item than what I can plainly see for myself (e.g., that it's a "doll" or a "figurine" or that the dish is, indeed, "red").

"Too cute!" "Simply wonderful!" "Best I've found in the last decade."

Very often these tag raves take the place of substantive tagging information and (fair or not) seem like a cover-up for the dealer's lack of knowledge about the item. Most buyers are smart enough to decide on their own whether it's "wonderful." What they want to know about it is what they can't see — and what they can't know unless the seller tells them.

At a minimum, buyers want the dealer's educated guess about the age, manufacturer, country of origin, provenance (if known), information about condition, etc. In my experience dealing with dealers, I've found they often know this information but just haven't taken the time to put it on the tag. If they don't know it, they may have to do a bit of research - and, love it or hate it, research should be considered an integral part of an antique dealer's job.

"Pottery Canteen, $25" would be a typical tag description for this item, which people clearly see is a pottery canteen. What it needs is a tag like this: "Frankoma Pottery Thunderbird canteen, #59, done in Ada Clay (pale, earliest clay color used by the company), fired c1942-1955. Original leather strap. Missing original plug (made of cork). $50." Note the price differential; you can't price it accurately if you don't know what it is.

Flipped and invisible tags on shelves of locked cases
Sometimes a flipped tag on a glass shelf above eye level can better facilitate reading it, even if the buyer has to do it with a bit of torso twisting, But some dealers have the mistaken impression that it's a good sales strategy to write hang tags for all the items in the case - then flip every last tag so the description and price can't be seen.

Dealers I've challenged about this practice inevitably explain their (mistaken) impression that, if the customer has to go to the trouble to ask a shop employee to see the price, the customer will have to have the item taken out of the case, which makes it more likely the buyer will actually buy it, if only because they'll be too embarrassed to have it returned to the case.

In fact, just the opposite is the more likely case: Customers are less likely to ask to look at items in a case where tags are flipped or otherwise not visible. Many of us make it a point to walk right by cases where none of the prices are visible — the blank-side-to white string tags often being the most visually compelling thing about the display.

Faded tags
Tags in booths that get direct sun for much of the day can quickly become faded. But regardless of how long the process takes, the appearance is that things have been there for a really long time. If the owner cares so little to keep it looking fresh, why should a customer care to buy it?

If it's been there long enough for the tag to bleach to near illegibility, it's time to remove, re-price or at last re-tag the item.

Tags that dodge condition issues
Sometimes tags can actually be amusing; my favorite was a tag on a damaged item that said, "Slightly as is." I guess this must be like being a little pregnant.

Some tags don't attest to damage at all. We're not talking here about the one item in the booth that some klutzy customer chipped after it was tagged nor about the subtle flaw (e.g. a small hairline) that the dealer might honestly not have seen. We're talking about dealers who knowingly and habitually sell stressed, marred and ruined merchandise without declaring damage and/or repair on the tag.

Some dealers get around the ethical question this begs by claiming, "price reflects damage." In other words, if the price is too good to be true, it probably is, and the buyer should be smart enough to beware.

The truth is such dealers are hoping the buyer won't see the damage until it's too late.

So how many retail businesses do you know that could stay in business long if they operated that way?

Sticky tags and tape on painted merchandise
Nothing says, "I don't give a damn!" quite like this practice — my own all-time pet tagging peeve. The others are a nuisance, sure enough, but this one actually damages the merchandise. Invest in string tags! Use tented placards! Anything but adhesives!

Take a little time and care to tag your merchandise well. Buyers will appreciate it, and, assuming you have basically good merchandise, your sales will be commensurate with the care you take in describing the items you offer for sale.

Peggy Whiteneck is a writer and collector living in East Randolph, VT. If you would like to suggest a topic she can address in her column, email her at allwrite@sover.net.

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