In this age of 9 figure art sales, it surprises me that we still have occasional price resistance in our substantially less vaunted, but still respectable, sphere. Even our more astute clients will ask us, from time to time, if they’ll be able to get their money out of a purchase made from us. Of course, I can’t guarantee that any more than the salesrooms can about the work of Munch or Rothko or Cezanne. With all that, I’d assume that a money good purchase for, say, $125,000,000 would be of greater concern than a $12,000 Pembroke table, n’est-ce pas?
While none of us could guarantee the future value of anything- even cash- I will venture out on a fairly sturdy limb and promise that, when it comes time to sell the furniture purchased from one of the prominently advertising pseudo-chic chains, the value will be less than that for an equivalent avoirdupois of firewood. It mystifies me why and how the ability to purchase a roomful of strictly color and style coordinated cack so captivates prospective punters.
With all that, despite the prospect of getting better value from any member of the accredited antiques trade, making a purchase of a period article does have aspects that tend to, if not perplex, than to give the first time buyer a degree of pause. For example, using my favored exemplary Pembroke tables, we always have several on the floor. Always good representatives of what they are, but at varying prices. This sometimes begs question, as we would expect it might, and we cheerfully explain that it has everything to do with quality, condition, and rarity. We have a pretty good quality early 19th century example that is fairly priced at $2,500 but near at hand is an earlier example for $12,000. When one understands that the earlier piece, when new, represented a ground breaking design, that it is possessed of its original leather-wheeled casters, and has solid matched timbers to its top and leaves, the pricing difference is a bit easier to understand.
For us, and those dealers who survive in business, pricing is critical and, unless one wants to pursue this business as an expensive hobby, everything needs to be priced to sell. The dealer who upon pricing an acquisition using some kind of keystone formula with no consideration of reasonableness is what we would term in the trade ‘now defunct.’