The Appraisers Post piece was very well received, and I asked Paul to expand on the topic for an article in the 2010 edition of the Journal of Advanced Appraisal Studies. Paul is based in the UK and studied furniture conservation for five years, three of which contributed to a degree in the subject. He has previously worked for Bonhams Auctioneers and no trades as a specialist dealer in designed furniture and works fo art from his home in Warwickshire, trading solely from his website at www.invest-in-antiques.com.
As you will see from the short excerpt, there are some terrific points very relevant to the personal property appraiser.
If you have not already done so, please remember to order you copy of the Journal of Advanced Appraisal Studies - 2010. The appraisers library will not be complete without it. For more information visit the website at www.appraisaljournal.org. Proceeds support the educational initiatives of the Foundation for Appraisal Education.
Order your copy of the Journal of Advanced Appraisal Studies at www.appraisaljournal.org.This article will discuss the use of the terms rare, very rare, important and scarce and their correct application. Clients come to me for advice when considering purchasing an item from another dealer or at auction, in some cases they are interested in objects described by the seller as 'rare' or 'extremely rare' or 'extremely rare and highly important'. My repeated response is laid out below.
Ask the seller why they think the object is rare, in most cases I can explain instantly why something may or may not be rare, certainly if I was describing something as rare I would make sure I could do this.
If someone hasn’t seen a particular model colour or design of an object it is assumed to be rare. Is this assumption correct? Is it arrogant to assume that if you haven’t actually seen something in the flesh there can’t be any others in existence? Or does something start off rare and slowly become less so with every example that appears? This was illustrated in the last few years when a small aesthetic movement table came on to the market.
The table in question was designed circa 1882 by the eminent architect designer Edward William Godwin (1833-1886) for his love interest, the actress Ellen Terry’s house in Kent ‘Smallhythe’ and so became known as the ‘Smallhythe Table’. A fine example with metal feet and brackets joined the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1990 (fig 1).
A plain example without the metal feet and brackets was sold through Sotheby’s in 2000 for £44,200 plus premium (i). After a six year gap another example of the same standard as the Met’s table but this time ebonised sold by a UK dealer for £65,000 privately, then later that year another table similar to the Met’s appeared on the market. Initially catalogued as a table of eastern origin with an estimate of few hundred pounds then swiftly re-catalogued as a table by Godwin the hammer fell in November 2006 at a huge £80,000 (ii). In March of 2008 a dealer sells a plain example in Sotheby’s for a hammer price of £36,500 (iii) (interestingly this table had been part of his stock for a few years and was always priced at that level). In May 2008 another example comparable to the Met table (now three in all of the level of the Met’s table i.e. with the fine metalwork feet and brackets) appears on the market, this time the hammer price is £40,000 (iv).
Could part of this be put down to auction fever on the day? Or can the keen bidding be attributed to a handful of collectors all having the relevant sized gap in their collections after waiting for their own example of a Godwin table of its type? I’m sure the assumed rarity took one of these tables past its recognised price band. Let’s face it, the example in the Met and the table still in situ at Smallhythe were the only tables known in 2000. When in the space of a couple of years the known collection has more than doubled, but was it rare to start with? Or more importantly is it rare now? In reality it probably is a rare model but the marketing practices of the internet age encourages the sleeping rarities to be put onto the market and find the right person with the relevant knowledge, more efficiently.
With the amount of antiques in general circulation around the world, whether they are in homes or endlessly being shunted around the trade, there can’t be too many undiscovered treasures left. But it seems there are, items often slip through a saleroom un-noticed by dealers, collectors or auctioneers and find their way into a front room quietly waiting for their next outing to the auction house where they will then be declared RARE.
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