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Discover Mid-America — November 2005

Where this column is coming from

Now that Good Eye has been running for a year in those trade publications that carried it first, it seems an apt time to take stock of the column's design, purpose and perspective.

The column has gotten some gratifying positive feedback. But, as also expected — since just about anything worth saying is bound to get you into trouble for saying it — there have also been a few brickbats tossed in with the bouquets.

Some readers, for example, feel the column is "down on dealers," that it lacks a sufficient sensitivity to and appreciation of how difficult it is for an antiques dealer just to stay in business these days. Au contraire, mon frére.

There's a reason I haven't gone the way of so many other collectors and parlayed my collecting passions into a career as an antiques dealer, a common path into the trade. I've done the math. I've gulped at the rent I'd be paying on display space and have grown nervous just wondering how I'd tide myself over in the inevitable seasons when sales can't even offset the rent. I've considered the investments of time and energy in replenishing inventory. I've contemplated the growing dealer population and decided the field's crowded enough.

What this column offers is a perspective on the trade that is oriented primarily to dealers but is not from a dealer. But the column is like anything else in life: You can take it for what it's worth and from whence it comes. If the shoe doesn't fit, no one's forcing you to wear it.

You don't need anyone to tell you how hard it is to stay in business

No column has to tell you how hard it is to stay in business. You already know that. The particular job of this column is to share with you, at least on occasion, something you might not know.

Please note this column springs from skills developed through experience, including a stint as a floor assistant and then front-desk manager in a business so classy that a term such as "emporium" always seemed more apt to me than the usual moniker "multi-dealer shop." My sympathy for dealers — and my occasional annoyance with them — stems in large part from my observations and experience in this group-shop environment, watching what worked in marketing and sales, and what didn't. I always felt that my relative freedom from the "tunnel vision" that sometimes afflicts the trade was one of the strengths I brought to my particular role within that organization.

This Harker mug is done in a Rockingham style glaze but is clearly marked with the manufacturer's name. It dates from the 1960s. Recently, I've seen a pitcher in the same pattern by the same maker, tagged "Rockingham" and offered at a 19th century Rockingham price. All it would have taken was a little Internet research to ascertain the real facts behind the piece. (photo by the author from her own collection)

My goal is to bring that same perspective to this column. What's distinctive about Good Eye is that it's written by someone who has seen the trade from both sides of the sales transaction. (Yes, dealers are buying customers, too. But they'll never be retail customers like me, not as long as they're in the business. The customer dynamics are completely different for someone looking for stock for resale.)

So the job of Good Eye is not to say how the trade looks from the dealer's perspective, but to try and mediate between the perspectives of dealer and retail customer. Because I've actually worked within the trade, my suggestions for different ways to pursue the business are inclined, I hope, to be more "grounded" than the airier desires of retail customers with no insider experience to inform their concept of an ideal shopping experience.

What does a retail customer want from you?

When one overhears dealers commiserating among themselves about retail customers, it often sounds much akin to the plaintive wailing of young men trying to figure out what it is women want. Retail customers remain as inscrutable to some dealers as women remain mysterious to some men. In the trade journals, one can often read printed versions of this same plaintive confusion: "Somebody please tell us what retail buyers want that we may only give it them!"

The frame on this small Marcia Wilson etching measures just 4.25" by 4.75". The subject is irresistible to a cat lover, and the bamboo motif of the wooden frame is a great compliment to the florals in the background of the image. I certainly didn't have this item in mind when I went shopping. It was a happy and never-since-regretted impulse buy that might never have happened had I been deterred by a shopkeeper's observation that the place "didn't have any" of the things I more commonly collect. (photo by the author from her own collection)

Finding the answer to this question is largely a matter of...well, asking. That doesn't mean the pro forma question fired at customers the minute they come in the door: "Anything special you're looking for today?"

It means some honest-to-gosh, on-the-spot research in which you, as a good conversationalist, artfully invite visiting shoppers to share with you their collecting and buying interests. It's about making inventory decisions that respond to any "bankable" patterns you discover.

Dealers who exhibit at shows or run their own small shops have some direct contact with the retail public. Consequently, they seem less prone to insularity than dealers who exhibit exclusively in group shops. Some of the latter admit quite openly that they exhibit in such venues precisely so they won't have to encounter members of the buying public, whom they find too often irritating, ignorant and inconsiderate.

This large, heavy Chippendale-style wall mirror has a mahogany inner frame and a red, hand-painted decoration in the outer frame whose style is difficult to describe — somewhere between American folk art and Chinoiserie! Age unknown; it was one of my very first purchases from an antique shop, bought just because I liked it (still do!). (photo by the author)

For years, many dealers have been quite content to sell to other dealers who themselves sold primarily to dealers in turn, in a market that seemed perpetually to be eating its own tail. In a changing market with single-owner and multi-dealer shops going out of business left and right, and with the influx of mostly amateur sellers dealing directly with the public via the Internet, it's becoming increasingly difficult for the pricklier personalities in the professional trade to come up with clever marketing strategies designed to keep the end customer at arm's length.

Like it or not, retail customers who love antiques are the ultimate goal of the trade. And what they want from dealers is courtesy, hospitality, integrity, reliability and, at least, a good generalist's expertise in what they're selling.

If some dealers feel they can't meet the standard, there are plenty of others who do meet it, and gladly. Those will be the ones left standing when the dust finally settles from the ongoing shakeout in the trade.

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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