ANTIQUES DEALERS DRIVEN TO DRINK
...will be my title of a future self help book...especially since I just love, love, love alliteration!
Earlier, a call came through from a lady...we shall name Miss JW...who entered the antique silver jewelry market about four years ago. We discussed the ups and oh-the-downs of the antiques business...such as prices, trends, what is selling and what is not!
Four years ago she felt that the antiques biz was to be a genteel business for a lady to enter as it had been for many decades past. She had a very interesting and hilarious way to describe it as it really is now...and when I get her permission...will quote her here...
Having been buying collecting and selling vintage / antique collectibles for more than 30 years...much has cyclically happened during that time. In years past...before the last long sad seven years...when "things got bad" for short spells and folks "sold off their stuff"...dealers were able to buy and hold for a short time until "things got better" Perfect!
Alas...no more! It is very different now. That happy hopeful horizon seems to have disappeared... These discussions have arisen among Trocadero jewelry dealers from time to time. There is so much more thrown into the mix these days. Still, I encouraged her to join us as a Trocadero dealer.
As baby boomers...we are the savers...as in $...collectors and curators of all things we find beautiful and worthy of keeping in "the original condition". Most of us would abhor the melting of beautifully hand made silver jewelry and would never dream of selling to those four page newspaper advertisers / collectors from faraway lands...
I have suggested to any who would listen...that rather than end up as dealers just buying and selling to each other...why not drag as many millenials as possible...by the hand to shows and teach them the art of collecting...then "make them" start collecting! Better that than continuing to consume so much junky throw away new stuff! Threaten to take them off the will...if they continue to ignore all the beauty of the past!
For those of us who "make" with our trigger fingered deformed hands...this is true much more so. As I have been fond of saying these last few years...what will be left of my signed metal hand hammered work...after certain donations are made... will NOT be "marked down" for sale...ooooh nooooo...horrors!
I would rather "King Tut it"...ha! Or maybe take it out to the middle of a body of water and let future generations find it...yikes...my blood sugar is droppin' and I am beginnin' to... I am rushing to make dinner...pop a bottle...eat a few chocolate covered potato chips...don one of my 70+ hats...and bid a fond fare thee well to the last episode of Downton Abbey...sniffle...sniffle...getting my Victorian hanky ready for that event.
So Miss JW mentioned that there should be a support group for antiques dealers having the problems we discussed. She laughingly added that half the group may wish to drink during the meetings. I added...ah yes...I will make the martinis!
...then I said, "we'll call it Dealers Driven to Drink" ! She liked that and I made her promise that we should write that book together...
Regarding the "One Of" hand hammered sterling long necklace with modernish Dzi beads and ancient Ammonite ...signed Mimi Dee...as seen above: this author will write about it within the next few days. In the mean time please visit: www.mimideeartwear.com/catalog ...... then search: dzi
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