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In a little over two weeks, July 24-28, I will be participating in Newport Design Week (here is the link to it, https://newportdesignweek.com/) put together by my friends Anne Fairfax and Richard Sammons of the well known architectural firm, Fairfax and Sammons. They are classical architects and have completed commissions up and down the east coast and are delightfully persistent in presenting the classical point of view of architecture. This includes the interiors of those buildings and so antiques have a place in their world, thankfully! The diminished market of today is a much tighter market meaning that people want to know exactly what they are buying and where the value lies, particularly as prices for great things haven't diminished in the slightest--in fact they have risen. How can that happen in a shrinking market?
I want to talk about value, a subject that got out of hand in the rising market 0f 1980-2008. Value always comes down to the dealer's understanding of the market. That is why auction houses, appraisers, restorers, unaffiliated advisers or experts really don't know nor can fully understand value. They all may be able to recognize something special, they may even give good advice about whether an item is worth buying, but there is an enormous difference between buying something out of someone's house or at auction than from a high end reputable dealer. The dealer will always be the most expensive, simply because they know the process, not just of getting a piece ready for the market, but what makes each and every item different. Some pieces will reveal a sensational provenance, for example, others won't but will have unique form or superb craftsmanship--there are lots of permutations and combinations that go towards the assessment of value. And, there is the process of restoration.
I own a block front chest of drawers which is quite a nice thing in my eyes. I add the caveat, "in my eyes", because the piece is quirky. To begin with, there are very few examples of English made block front pieces--which are essentially chests that have a shape when you look at the profile of the front of any drawer. My chest, for example, has an indented section in the middle that is about ten inches wide with the two outer sections being half to three quarters of an inch thicker. From the front, the two handles to the drawer are framed as if they were small drawers with a central recessed drawer where the keyhole is. What is the value of such a piece? This is a tricky question as I would guess that ninety percent of all non-dealers would not understand the piece. Dealer judgment would be based on the materials--a reasonable, not great, mahogany and the craftsmanship which I would rate as pretty good. But, I look at it as a rarity, but not so rare that it should have a huge price. Here is the piece and you can see my price for it. https://clintonhowellantiques.com/products/block-front-chest-of-drawers-with-writing-slides
In the long run, my calling the chest "quite nice" places it in a middle range. Some dealers might wish to elevate it, particularly if they could find more about the piece somewhere. Clearly, the key to value, at least with this piece, is in understanding its rarity and to take that as far as possible. The late Bill Reider, who was in charge of the European furniture at the Met for ten years or so, wanted to use the piece for an exhibition on rare forms of English furniture, but he never got the exhibition off the ground. If that had happened, the value would have accelerated as a museum, the Met in this case, had ascertained the rarity concept of the chest. Even then, however, different dealers would ascribe different values, which sounds confusing, but which is based on logic. Value therefore, is subjective according to which dealer owns the piece and how much emphasis he places on its desirability, knowledge he has accumulated from being a dealer. This logic is, I realize, partly circular, but also explicable. Confusing? Absolutely, which is why a good conversation about a piece with the dealer about how and why they are charging their price is always important.
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