Rinker on Collectibles

Linda, my wife, and I traveled to Edinburgh, Scotland during the city’s August Fringe festival, an event which features hundreds of theatrical performances from stand-up comics to full theater presentations. Edinburgh was crowded, very crowded.

Linda is the Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, Connecticut. The primary purpose of our visit was to attend one of a month-long series of performances of “Romeo and Juliet: A Rock and Roll Love Story” by members of West Conn’s Theater Department.

Of course, I found time to check out the Edinburgh antiques and collectibles scene. I visited a number of shops and attended a flea market and boot sale. A boot sale, in case you are unfamiliar with the term, occurs when a promoter utilizes the floor of a large parking garage or a field and rents a space just slightly wider than the width and length of a car. The sellers open the trunk (known as the boot in England) of their car and sell from there. Actually, most put their merchandise out on a table or two. The vast majority of the sellers are boot sale professionals, i.e., they set up week after week. However, there are individuals who set up on a one-time basis, hoping to generate a little cash from the objects they have sitting around their house. In American parlance, a boot sale is equivalent to a swap meet. Most of the material being offered for sale was manufactured within the past fifteen years. One has to dig deep and look extensively to find any hidden treasures.

Sal Trapani, Chairman of West Conn’s Theater Department, is an avid flea market and boot sale aficionado. Sal joined Linda and me on our flea market and boot sale excursion.

Poor Sal! When I go to a flea market or show with someone, I cannot resist doing a running commentary about the objects I see. Comments range from “that is a reproduction” to “wow, is that overpriced.” Linda has grown accustomed to this practice. It was a first-time experience for Sal. Deep inside me is a teacher. Flea markets and shows are my classroom.

As we shopped the Grassmarket flea market, I noticed a large-sized copper luster milk pitcher. For my readers who are unfamiliar with copper luster ware, it is earthenware with a copper-like glaze. The milk pitcher dated from the 1840s-1850s. It was a period piece, not a reproduction (a later copy). I checked it very carefully. The milk pitcher had an applied, blue glazed, floral relief pattern around its center. It was in fine condition. What do you think the asking price was? Take a guess.

The answer is five pounds, roughly $11.00 US. Clearly here was an antique that no one wanted. Although tempted, I did not buy it. I mentally excused my lack of purchase based on the fact that I would have to transport it on the plane in my over-the-shoulder carry bag. In truth, I simply had no desire to own it.

The 1920s through the 1960s was copper luster ware’s Golden Age of collecting. It was a high-end item. The $11.00 milk pitcher would have been valued between $85.00 and $100.00 at that time. Interest in copper luster began waning in the 1970s and virtually disappeared by the 1990s. Today, as the old phrase goes, “you cannot give it away.”

You rarely see copper luster ware offered for sale. Buyers are minimal. They are non-existent at some shows. Dealers are not dumb. They are not going to offer merchandise that they cannot sell.

What happened to all the copper luster ware that survived? If it still is in the hands of collectors, those collectors are most likely to be in their eighties or older. They refuse to sell for pennies on the dollar they paid. They would rather die with their treasures than face market reality. If the copper luster ware is in the hands of dealers, it has been put into storage with the hope that someday the market will turn around. It will snow in hell first.

Unfortunately, more and more copper luster ware is heading to the landfill, sent there by estate executors who cannot find anyone who will simply “take it away.” In the twenty-first century, an object, no matter how old it is, has no value without a buyer.

Copper luster ware heads the list of previously collected antiques categories that have permanently fallen from grace. It is not alone, far from it. The list is a long one, now numbering closer to fifty than twenty-five categories.

All the major antiques and collectibles price guides have been published for twenty-five years or longer. Obtain a copy printed twenty-five years ago and compare the collecting categories included against those in the present edition. If the editor did his job properly, you will have no trouble making a list of twenty-five or more categories that have vanished—no better proof that collecting should always be about the love and never about the money.

A series of e-mails from Scott Beale, a New Jersey collector who collectors Victorian art glass sugar castors and condiment sets, also helped trigger my reflections on this topic of disappearing antiques collecting categories. The inability to find sugar castors, especially at affordable prices, at today’s antiques shows and in malls was one of Scott’s many laments about the changes taking place in the antiques and collectibles field.

“Rinker on Collectibles” began as a column about twentieth-century collectibles with emphasis on post-1920 objects. Today, I try to keep the column’s focus on the post-1945 period as much as possible. Since I now define an antique as anything made before 1963, many twentieth-century-based collecting categories are members of the vanishing collecting category phenomenon.

The assumption has always been that once a collecting category was established, it would be collected forever. This has not proven to be the case for copper luster ware. I do not have to resort to the nineteenth century to find examples. Pong and telephone calling cards are more recent examples.

An old adage in the trade is “there is a collector for everything.” I support this. I rest uneasy with the thought that objects can reach the point where no one truly wants them. I live on the faith that there will always be a few individuals who will keep a collecting category alive.

Not implied in the “there is a collector for everything” contention is the assumption that the collector will pay top dollar. In fact, implicit in the concept is that he or she will not. The survival of a collecting category in distress is directly related to the affordability of the objects within it. The higher the per unit price, the greater the chances the category will disappear.

Newspapers, magazines, and other media are filled with stories about endangered species. The standard story focuses on some biological specimen, e.g., animal, plant, etc. It is time to apply this concept to the antiques and collectibles trade. There are endangered collecting categories. Some will become extinct. It is just a matter of time.

Is it conceivable that no collecting category will last forever? Such a thought is blasphemous. Everyone assumes there will always be high-end collectors for American furniture and other decorative arts. They may be correct. However, will there always be high-end collectors for duck decoys, early lithograph and painted tin toys, and a host of other collecting categories?

Collecting as we know it is a relatively recent phenomenon. While there are historical precedents dating back to the seventeenth century and earlier, the modern collecting concept is just a little over one hundred years old. One hundred years seems like a long time to Americans. In the rest of the world, it is a much more compressed period. A 12th-century chapel is the oldest portion of the Edinburgh Castle. Close to nine hundred years—now that is old.

Every once in awhile, I find myself reflecting on the state of collecting fifty, a hundred, and several hundred years from now. The one thing I am certain is that it will be very different from what it is today. Many of the antiques and collectibles I know will be gone.

In fact, I am absolutely certain this will happen to one antique with which I am very familiar—ME! Not a comforting thought, but I can live with it.

Rinker Enterprises and Harry L. Rinker are on the Internet. Check out www.harryrinker.com.

You can listen and participate in WHATCHA GOT?, Harry’s antiques and collectibles radio call-in show, on Sunday mornings between 8:00 AM and 10:00 AM Eastern Time. If you cannot find it on a station in your area, WHATCHA GOT? streams live on the Internet at www.goldenbroadcasters.com.

SELL, KEEP OR TOSS?: HOW TO DOWNSIZE A HOME, SETTLE AND ESTATE, AND APPRAISE PERSONAL PROPERTY (House of Collectibles, an imprint of the Random House Information Group,$16.95), Harry’s latest book, is available at your favorite bookstore and via www.harryrinker.com.

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