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Discover Mid-America — June 2007
Why eBay is good for the trade on the ground
By globally and sometimes exponentially increasing the availability of antiques and collectibles once considered scarce, eBay has had an undeniable impact on the antiques and collectibles market. Quantifying that impact is the rub. On one hand, you can buy almost anything cheaper — often much cheaper — on eBay than you can anywhere else on the secondary market.
Still, buyers have continued to visit — and buy from — shops, shows and real-time auctions despite the existence of eBay. The real question, then, is not "What it went for" on eBay last week, but why so many folks would spend more for it at a shop, show or auction. Here are some principles for understanding that counterintuitive reality.
The online auction "venue" runs counter to the psychology of antiquing and collecting. For most buyers, a significant part of the psychological "payoff" in collecting an item is the hunt for it. The climax of that hunt is finding the item and being able to pick it up, feel its heft and texture, see its color (unmediated through distortions of scanned or digital photography), inspect it for condition, appreciate its finer points.
There's a strong tactile dimension to this process that goes beyond mere inspection for condition to a deep appreciation for "the thing itself." You just don't get that on eBay and, for many collectors, this missing and primary element trumps eBay's considerable other advantages. A digital photo tells a buyer next to nothing about authenticity and condition.
In the March 2007 issue of Maine Antiques Digest, bottle dealer Thomas Haunton reported on an experiment he did at a live show in New Hampshire. Haunton set up ten bottles, some real, some fake, then asked the dealers and other shoppers who stopped by his table to take a "quiz" to identify the genuine antique bottles by look alone – without touching them. In other words, he was simulating what happens in an Internet auction.
Only 39 people agreed to take the quiz in the first place; an unspecified number declined — including dealers (at least some of whom, no doubt, were regular online buyers). Most objected to the "no touch" rule. No one who took the quiz got a perfect score; only five got all the correct pieces right, but each of those also chose at least two others that weren't right.
The top vote getter as a genuine antique? It was a 1970’s era repro, chosen by 28 (72%) of the 39.
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| Here's an arrangement of bottles I bought at various times on the secondary market. My interest in this case was more decorative than collecting. Still, at least one (perhaps more?) of these is an antique bottle. Could you tell which one(s) from just the picture? |
Observant buyers know there's no such thing as the "eBay price" on an item.
People who conduct formal, reliable, scientific research know that to interpret any given set of results, one has to understand the variables that drive those results. Here are the variables (among others) that can affect multiple eBay auctions of the very same item:
- Traffic on the site during the auction period
- Quality and completeness of the auction description
- Reliability of the seller (as seen in feedback and in quality of auction description)
- Presence or absence of reserve
- Opening bid amount
- Condition of item
- Number of bids by "newbies" (who tend to bid too high or too low)
- Condition and authenticity risks of the category (e.g., American art pottery, antique Chinese porcelain, etc.).
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| These miniature (3") plates were distributed by the Franklin Mint for its "World's Great Porcelain Houses" series. The set includes 50 contributions from famous makers, including Royal Doulton, Wedgwood, Herend and many others, some transferware and others intricately hand-painted. Each plate's verso bears the maker's mark and the country of origin (pictured here, left to right: Noritake's "Azalea" pattern, Zsolnay [Hungary], Kaiser (W. Germany), and Haviland Limoges (France)]. The Noritake on the left trades in a price range of $6 to $65. That meaninglessly wide span on an item this small illustrates the difficulties in trying to use "eBay prices" as the benchmark for fair market value of antiques and collectibles. |
When it comes to marketing and sales, perception is 9/10ths of reality. So it remains true that eBay generally exerts a downward pressure on values for many low- to mid-range antiques and collectibles.
But anyone who claims to be able to tell you he or she can appraise the value of an item on the basis of what it went out for on eBay last month is blowing smoke.
The genuinely scarce remains scarce
Scarce high-end antiques occasionally show up on eBay where they command the same stellar prices they go for elsewhere in the trade. Here the driver seems to be access to items that would otherwise be unavailable locally. Otherwise, it's hard to imagine why someone would risk bidding the same high price on eBay that they would pay to buy the item retail in a high-end shop.
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| I purchased this intricately painted Chinese vase in an antique shop where I paid a lot more for it than I might have paid for a similarly attributed item on eBay. I posted pictures to a message board for knowledgeable collectors and experts, and was told that, despite its intricate painting, it's probably of modern vintage. Still, I take that consensus on its age with a grain of salt. After all, I posted digital pictures and none of the experts who responded have ever seen or handled the lovely thing itself, so I have no regrets whatever. For that very reason, though, I'd never have bought it had I not been able to hold it in my own hands before purchase. |
For more contemporary collectibles, what's offered is a fairly narrow range of items, skewed to models that are currently being produced or were recently retired. One has a better chance of finding highly desired items in classical categories (e.g., glass and porcelain) at a local antique shop or auction than on eBay.
Preferred customers are not trawling eBay looking for bargains
We're so accustomed to thinking in terms of a global, Internet-driven market that we forget eBayers are not the universe of potential buyers. Perhaps no more than about 10-20% of an antique dealer's on-the-ground customer base consists of people who would also describe themselves as regular eBayers. The higher up in the quality pyramid of shops and shows, the narrower the eBay percentage of its customer base is likely to be.
Even the rich love a bargain. But, trust me, the celebrity set is not surfing eBay looking for high-end art and antiques. And you don't have to go very far up on the affluence scale to find people with discretionary income who wouldn't be caught dead buying at Internet auction — and not because they have some Ludite's aversion to computers.
It’s the "tactile dimension" of antiques and collectibles shopping that is the edge for dealers in shops, shows and live auctions — unless and until the technology geeks can invent some satisfying form of virtual touch. As for me, I'm not waiting around. I gotta get out to the shops. See ya!
(Note: As the result of a printer's error, a picture caption in last month's column, in which I has trying to make a point about the importance of spelling in internet auction descriptions, misspelled the maker's name of the item pictured. The correct spelling is LladrÛ (with an o). Point made again. You won't find much of what you're looking for in an Internet search by misspelling the name!)
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.
> Good Eye Archive — past columns
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