Antiquing during recession
There’s an old rule, as old as collecting antiques, that is that quality is always on demand and always sells.
It’s truly an antiques buyers’ market, with prices lowering as the recession worsens, but that applies to common pieces that will always turn up.
Antiques are not newly manufactured goods that can be made to order, if there’s demand for a piece, it’s irreplaceable and therefore the price has to go up.
With lower end antiques, assuming they really are so, it’s just too easy to wait for better times and/or for lower prices. If a piece sells, chances are that another of the same type, age or quality will be found.
During a recession, there are always people that want rare and/or quality pieces and that can afford them.
These pieces also prove as a valid long term investment, and therefore their value never decreases.
For antiques’ dealers, it’s a matter of focusing and specializing, with experience and knowledge to deal in the right niche, clients will never go missing.
We, at Old England Antiques for example, focus on truly antique furniture, at the very least 100 years old, historically restored by french polishing.
Antique furniture has also many pros that other items don’t; they are decorative, appreciate in value, they are restorable, and they usually serve a practical purpose too, such as storage, support, and so on.
For those reasons English antique furniture appeals to collectors looking for an addition to their collection, private buyers that want to add a piece to their home, and investors, for an almost certain long term return; consequently they appeal to antique dealers, because there’s always a market for English antiques, after all, we regularly see buyers from all over the world compete at auctions and fairs in England and the rest of the British Isles.
It takes a very deep depression to make all antiques lower in value and anyway the higher end ones will always be the last.