The recession is over, so you know. That’s what the Fed is telling us, anyway, and making this determination using a variety of (arcane) measurements. My frontline assessment is conditioned by whether or not I’ve written an invoice today. When not, I am inclined to agree with my sainted grandmother whose folk aphorism, expurgated for the delicacy of my devoted readers, was that it is hard to appreciate the daylight when you’ve fallen into the privy.
With all that, we do seem to be clawing our way out- of the economic privy- although it is hard to tell in the antiques trade, with the epidemic of gallery closures hardly abating. The auction houses, which should derive some benefit from stock disbursals the result of closures, are yet in trouble, with relatively few buyers and not enough consignments to make operations profitable. But therein are the green shoots, actually, because amongst the dross, goods that are of fine quality and fresh to the market are garnering significant attention (read ‘selling for big money’).
This is the thing that we’ve seen all along, even in the darkest days, with the good goods selling, and the mediocre material just sitting there. This is hard for all of us to communicate to clients, who immediately assume that anything offered for sale, either privately or at auction, is necessarily a distressed sale. That has exacerbated already tough trading conditions, because our clients, who are in the market only when the spirit moves them, do not see movement within the trade to the point of vivacity if a piece is truly worthwhile. In spite of its overall decimation, trust me, there are still plenty of trade buyers out there. As a consequence, it is doubtful that a private buyer, either collector or interior designer, will even in this environment acquire a ‘sleeper’.
The better pieces are still, then, with alacrity being acquired for resale by the trade. What buyers need to consider is that, if the beige book is right, while one may not necessarily find a bargain out there, when the green shoots become in the fullness of time the tree branches of economic recovery, one might regret not having made a purchase right now.