Discover Vintage America — January 2012
A motivated buyer
needs a motivated seller
If you type “Spanish porcelain” into Google’s search field, my website, “El Portal Porcelana,” which deals exclusively in information about 20th century Spanish porcelain and has no sales component (other than plugging a book I wrote about the subject), will come up first among the several million listings for this topic.
I did nothing to drive or generate this traffic or cop this position in Google search results: hired no Internet guru, manipulated no search engine algorithms, paid for no advertising. The site’s position in search results appears to be driven by the Internet equivalent of “word of mouth.”
The site gets its share of international traffic, too,
particularly from the UK, where Lladró, the foremost name in 20th century Spanish porcelain, is even bigger than it is here, but I also hear
regularly from people in Japan, Australia, France, Belgium, Germany – and, yes,
ironically, even Spain itself. You probably can guess the number one question I
get in email queries generated by the site…Yep, that’s the one: “What’s it worth?”
– followed closely by “How can I go about selling it?”
Lingering effects of a
speculative market
The 1980s and early 1990s were a strange period of speculation in collectibles. People paid hefty prices to acquire collectibles as an “investment” and anticipated even heftier prices on future resale. The generator for collector interest in Lladró during that period was the secondary market Lladró auctions held in Florida and California. These auctions helped establish secondary market pricing for Lladró during the collecting boom of that time. Even back then, however, organizers often complained they couldn’t get better-heeled collectors to part with some of their most appealing items once it became clear the auctioneers couldn’t promise them the inflated gavel price of their dreams.
Here it was, a mere 20 years later, and people who were lucky enough to have bought these earliest Lladró pieces wanted antique prices for them. The culture’s expectation of instant gratification in all things means that people can’t even wait a decent few decades for the aesthetically worthy to be worth money. Nostalgia for the “hot market” lingers, and it blinds consumers to the realities of what has become, and has been for the better part of a decade, a soft market in collectibles of all kinds.
The current trough in the real estate market notwithstanding, a finely built house purchased at pre-inflated prices will have inherent value, but that saltbox ranch that someone paid a quarter million for back in 2002? One can only wince. Similarly, a well-made antique or collectible will weather the ravages of economic downturn – provided the owner didn’t pay too much for it in the first place.
Yet we see still see secondary market prices – on Lladró and
other things – set as if the economy were still going great guns and people
still had all kinds of discretionary income to “invest” in decorative arts. The
challenges of getting real on pricing in the trade are aggravated by pressures
on dealers from private sellers and consignors who expect to sell at pre-crash
prices. If the “book” from 1992 says the item’s worth $300, then by Jove,
they’re not going to make a penny less on resale – never mind that a dealer has
to be able to make a profit, too. On the other hand, dealers do well to
remember that the “profit margin” thing works both ways: the end-buyer wants an
“equity margin.” Even the most avid collector, one who collects to keep, wants to
feel there’s some room left in the acquisition price should the collector ever have to sell the item.
How motivated are you
as a seller?
And that, in turn, has ramifications for dealer pricing. A motivated buyer takes a motivated seller. If your consignors and sources of bought merchandise can’t sell the item so there’s room in it for you, then you might diplomatically suggest to them that they’re not ready to sell. Conversely, if you can’t price the item with a little equity left in it for a buyer, then I would submit you’re not ready to sell.
Ultimately, of course, the answer to the question, “What’s it worth?” is “Whatever someone’s willing to pay you for it.” And that answer is almost never, unless the item is truly extraordinary, going to be top dollar – at least, not in this economy.
So if you have lovely merchandise for which you know there’s a thriving collector market out there, and those pretties have been sitting in your display case long enough to sprout mold and moss, chances are they’re priced too high. Isn’t it better to make less profit – or even take a loss – than to have the eyes of repeat customers (a good portion of most dealers’ bread and butter) glaze over every time they pass your display because they already know exactly what’s there?
Peggy Whiteneck is a writer and collector living in East Randolph, VT. If you would like to suggest a topic she can address in her column, email her at allwrite@sover.net.