According to a recent article in the Daily Gazette out of Schenectady, NY, there are a number of pressures working to push down prices of Victorian furniture and other antiques and collectibles.
Current economic conditions, for one, are leaving people strapped for cash. Mark Lawson of Mark Lawson Antiques of Sarasota Springs says that more and more people are coming in trying to unload collectibles. In the past he saw this only once in a while, and it was often the elderly trying to pay property taxes. Now he’s seeing younger people.
As he explains, “Because of the economy, people are desperate to raise money to live or get by on. That’s really new.”
Unfortunately, what these people don’t understand is that the market has sunk because of online sites like Craigslist and eBay. Collectibles relatively rare in the past are now widely available and therefore less valuable. Hummel figurines, for instance, that used to sell between $100 and $200 are now worth no more than $30.
Also, the market has simply changed. Young people aren’t collecting. It’s not fashionable. Antique Victorian furniture used to sell well. Today the market for it has shrunk.
David Ornstein of New Scotland Antiques in Albany tells of a woman who brought him a Victorian marble-top table. He offered her $100, thinking he could get $150 for it, but the woman thought she was being cheated. “We’re caught in a tunnel we can see no end to,” he explains, “and I’ve been in this business for 30 years.”
Is there really no end to this? Or does this represent an unusual opportunity for the more astute? The greatest investors have always bought when the masses were selling.
And here are some earlier posts of mine that deal with the current market for antique Victorian furniture: Dec. 9, Dec. 8, Nov. 27, Oct. 25.