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Discover Mid-America — March 2006
The sales power of research
A consumer of the trade who has learned to trust his or her own eye will sometimes buy things without knowing precisely what they are (and without the seller knowing what they are, either). Collectors have a passionate curiosity about such things; many love a research mystery they can tackle and try to solve. When it comes to one of these "mystery finds," they want to find out what it is, what it was used for, where it came from, when it was made, who made it, and (when possible) who owned it last.
Research is all about curiosity — a character trait that seems essential for success in the trade. From a dealer's perspective, how much you can get for an item depends a great deal on how much you're willing to find out about it.
Where can you find information?
One of the best things you can do to become a better-educated trader is to assemble a personal library of published resources (books and article files) about areas of particular interest to your business. Not many dealers can afford to maintain a large information resource collection of their own. But there are libraries in local museums and universities that include art and antiques among the topics in their collections, and these institutions are often hospitable to researching visitors.
When thinking about published resources, don't neglect high-end auction and museum catalogues, as these usually provide full-color pictures that show what are often the best known examples of arts and antiques in particular fields.
Online research can be a speedy alternative to published resources, but it's important to be careful and discerning in using Internet resources; otherwise, what you'll end up with will, indeed, be not just quick but dirty!
The Internet: The best and the worst
Many collectors and sellers assume that if they "couldn't find it anywhere on the Internet," the information they want isn't available anywhere. Of course, that isn't at all the case. Even Google, currently the most popular search engine, is capable of searching only a small fraction of what's actually available online. And if you've ever tried to use Google for research and ended up with a bunch of online auction listings and virtual storefronts — many of them dead links — you know how easy it is for business to "search optimize" their own sites in a manner that frustrates efforts to find usable information.
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I bought this cutout wooden horse on wheels (11.5” long x 13” tall at the tips of the ears) some years ago just because I liked it and thought it would go well with my living room decor. The owner of the small shop where I bought it said she thought it was Pennsylvania Dutch. I don't know about that, and I haven't been able to find out much at all about this...what? Toy? Decoration? Folk art? I'm still looking! |
One way to get around these "junk listings" is to log onto Google Scholar at http://scholar.google.com (note - no www). This little-known arm of the Google empire includes only those listings — articles, books, etc. — that are from scholarly sources.
Do a test run on a topic of choice; type into the search field, say, "Art Nouveau glass" or "Colonial furniture" or "Chinese Export ceramics." Some listings will be more relevant than others, and some of the full-text articles listed on Google Scholar are only available to paid subscribers and/or at an exorbitant price. Don't take that bait. Just keep surfing the list to find the free stuff.
Don't believe everything you read on eBay
Although many professional dealers have an Internet component to their business, the online auction field is dominated by amateurs who may know little or nothing about what they're selling and for whom "research" means repeating hearsay. Online auction venues also feature a small but high-impact cadre of 20th century technology's answer to 19th century snake oil salesmen: con artists who consciously prey on gullible consumers.
On the other hand, the wonderful thing about eBay is that it's such a global market. And that means that you can often find contradictory information in auction listings and can use a preponderance of evidence in similar postings to establish probabilities in identification and vintage of items with which you may be unfamiliar. These can then be confirmed with published sources or web sites run by experts.
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The "Nemurineko" - "Sleeping Cat" in English - is a classic form in Asian porcelain. This one has a finely decorated red-orange moriage collar and black and white painted decoration (with some wear on the paint). Measuring 4 inches long, it's marked with a red stamp of a double M in a wreath and the words "Hand-painted in Japan." This mark has caused considerable controversy over the years and is often assumed to be a Noritake mark, but it's really the mark of the Moriyama kiln in Morimachi (hence the double M in the mark). I'd initially estimated this model as being from the 1950s, but it turns out to be older, sometime between 1921 and 1933. A Nemurineko with this maker's mark was even exhibited at the 1933 World's Fair. |
Message boards
There are a number of collector message boards online that offer fascinating and in-depth consideration of the esoterica of specialized areas of collecting. One of the best of these is the group of message boards (arranged by porcelain type) on Erik Nilsson 's web site for antique Asian porcelain, www.gotheborg.com. This is not your average message board; several well-known experts in the field of Asian porcelain (e.g., Sandra Andracht) post to it regularly.
Multiple message boards are available on the UK-based site www.worldcollectorsnet.com. Although this site deals chiefly with 20th century collectibles, there are some older topics as well, ranging from Moorcroft pottery to Japanese Netsuke.
You can find an eclectic mix of discussions about real antiques on the BBC's message Board, "Antiques on TV" (www.bbc.co.uk) — and not all the questions have been inspired by TV. The Maine Antiques Digest also sponsors what it calls an "interactive forum" on antiques topics, which can be reached via link click on its main page at www.maineantiquedigest.com. (There are probably others. However, many trade-related message boards are little more than an advertising and promotion gimmick for the businesses that sponsor them.)
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Another of my "mystery possessions" is this pair of lavender-pink glass candlesticks. I don't honestly even remember where I got these. The glass itself isn't of the highest quality and, at first, I suspected they were Depression, but the glass is a bit heavier than what I usually associate with that era. Despite the number of collector volumes out now that are devoted especially to glass candlesticks, I haven't yet found these. And were I a dealer, I wouldn't put them out for sale until I knew just what they are and where they came from. |
For collectors, research is its own reward — its own treasure hunt — and finding out about a fascinating object of antique vintage is the next best thing to finding it in the first place. For dealers, research can be quite literally rewarding. It makes all the difference in price tagging if all you can say about an item is "a pretty piece of signed glass" or whether you can say" a piece of engraved and enameled glass made by French glassmaker Emile Gallé, arguably the finest glass artisan of the 19th century, also famous for his innovative furniture design."
The more you're willing to ask about an item, the more you'll be able to ask for it.
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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