I was struck by a comment made by our friend John Andrews in his editorial in this month’s Antique Collecting (which quotes John anonymously as “an American dealer” — he *is* an American citizen but even after 20 years I find it difficult to think of him as American!). Off track — sorry. John Andrews observes “Online commerce is not going to go away. What it tends to do is to demand a perfection of condition or provenance that is difficult to satisfy.”
In other words, buyers are even more particular when shopping online for antiques. Or, perhaps: it’s even more difficult to sell pieces of merit that aren’t either perfect or accompanied by desirable provenances. (In general, provenance of early oak furniture is more important in England than it is here — as American provenances add value to American antiques.)
I’d never really thought of this, though intuitively I suspect that he’s correct. Trust matters enormously when buying antiques online, so the less that there is to distrust, the more likely a sale will occur.
John goes on to say: “There was as time when such perfection was not paramount, but time and buying from photos has changed all that, perhaps contributing to the demise of the run-of-the-mill currently prevailing at auction.” Certainly most of the dealers we talk with share our experience of the past several years: the very best material continues to sell quite briskly, while things in the middle — good, functional, reasonably priced but without the special or exceptional quality to lift them out of the middle — tend to hang around.
My question is: do buyers really think about this, or is it an unconscious thing? Maybe it’s because when people walk into our booth at a show or into a shop and see something they like, they have an immediate, visceral (emotional?) reaction. If they like a piece, they then begin the process of deciding whether they want to own it. Do online shoppers do this in reverse? Or is it that the emotional reaction when you see something in person is just that much stronger.
Either way, the idea that online antiquers are more demanding about condition is interesting and perhaps instructive if it is in fact correct.
– Lisa
