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The advantage of getting older in the antiques business is that you can, occasionally, remember things that you have seen before. Oddly, an item you were attracted to once, even though it was not kosher, will likely attract you again. I know this sounds ridiculous as dealers should have steel trap memories and not be so stupid to want to buy a wrong item again and again. And yet, I will be the first to admit that something that appeals aesthetically once will appeal a second and even a third time. I have not, at least to date, purchased the same, incorrect, item twice, but I have looked at items I passed up not just once, but on second, third and even fourth occasions. Our own aesthetic response is like a reflex action and you can't help yourself until you remember that the piece was something you'd seen before and decided was wrong.
I ran across an item that I purchased from a very good dealer at the Winter Antiques Show about thirty years ago in an auction catalogue last month. The item was a very nice little armchair, having upholstered, arms and back with four cabriole legs that I bought and promptly sold to Mallett, the famed dealers on Bond St. in London. Mallett shipped the chair back to London and stripped the fabric to re-upholster the piece and, voila, the arm rests were added to the chair at some later date--they were not original. The chair was returned to me and I returned it to the dealer I bought it from and, as far as I know, he did the same. Lo and behold if I didn't see the chair again in a sale last month with its inappropriate arms. It still is a very good looking item. I checked it out, naturally, and remembered it--I still like it, but I didn't buy it.
The buying public has a hard time understanding that items keep coming back onto the market and I have to admit that I was surprised to see this chair still with arms, but then the person who put the arms on--if it was returned to him--had understood that the chair was really good looking with arms, and furthermore was a lovely small size likely to appeal for use in a ladies dressing room. The arms, therefore, were not removed and the chair was sold as it was and has re-appeared as a complete period piece. Items do come round and round in the antique market and what is really great is seeing things that you have sold which you would like to sell again--particularly if you have all the information on the item still in your data bank. I have had luck in this regard as well. This is a niche market and we sell and re-sell the same items time and again. No new items are being made to replace them after all.
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