Rebounding Antique Market?

I am not sure how I missed this NY Times article, but I saw it listed on a linked in discussion board.  I guess old age (senility already)  is starting to set in. It is exactly the type of article I wish to post and promote on the AW Blog and, it is also has some positive comments on the direction of the antique market. It is a good article on the status of sales in January for the antique market, and focused on the Winter antique show. Many experts and dealers consider the Winter show to be a barometer of things to come for the rest of the year.  From the article the results are very positive.  The show saw over 22,000 attendees, up over 20% from the 2009 show.  Sales, according to dealers in the story were very positive on both the high end and the middle market. The article states sales were strong early, which is the norm at the Winter show and was reported here on the AW Blog, but sales were also reported to be strong at the end of the show as well. The article does state that prices in general have fallen nearly 20%-30% from over the past year. Yet there appears to optimism that perhaps the bottom has been hit for the antique trade and decorative arts in addition to the recent and strong fine art sales, and that things will stabilize and then hopefully improve and strengthen.

Some great quotes in the article to support a market analysis of antique furniture.

The NY Times article states

The slow sales of last year, however, have made dealers’ inventories particularly interesting and full now. And collectors’ reluctance to sell in a weak market has made great pieces scarce, but strong performers when they appear. (There is the relative reassurance of a venerable-looking object as an investment haven, in contrast to a technology stock or bond.)

The antiques market’s eagerness to survive has made prices for much midtier material very attractive. Dealers said prices were generally at least 20 to 30 percent lower than two years ago.

And, as Alan Granby, of Hyland Granby in Hyannis Port, Mass., maritime art and antiques specialists exhibiting at the armory, said, “Midrange things can still be the best in their field.”

Categories that are victims of changes in taste are especially well priced, even for outstanding pieces. The enthusiasm for modern design among younger buyers and the graying of the market for older and formal genres have produced unexpected opportunities in traditional pieces, which typically are too expensive for first-time collectors.

“Collectors are going after A-level material,” John Smiroldo, founder and publisher of Antiques and Fine Art, a bimonthly magazine based in Watertown, Mass., said of the auction and show scenes. “But you can get A-minuses for pennies of what it will be trading for in four or five years. As far as I’m concerned, American furniture is free right now — for killer stuff. And high-style English furniture is down, down, down.”

To read the full article, click HERE.