Hey, here I am with Margaret Schwartz in New York, The Modern Antiquarian. Thank you so much for joining us. So I'm really glad to have you on. And I watched some of your interviews and I think, didn't I see somewhere where you said you became an antique dealer in one day?
Yes, thank you for having me on the show.
Yes, I became an antique dealer, like purely by accident. He had gone to London for a family trip, so I had done my semester broad there and I was just looking for something different to do. So I reached out to the Antiques Diva and they offer these antiques tours over Europe. Look, I don't think I wouldn't buy anything, but I'm curious about this, if there's any availability. It was very close to the trip. I was like, if there's
any availability, I'd love to do this. My mom is interested too, So they made some time for me and we went on a one day tour, and again not thinking I would buy a single thing, I ended up. The first thing that I bought was actually a chandelier for myself, a Morano chandelier that had these.
Oh yeah beautiful.
It was these beautiful lavender colored glass pieces.
So I was like, oh, yeah, that's this is great.
So what they call it once you've made your first purchase over there they call it they say you've broken your duck, which I have no idea.
There's a quirky British sayings.
And after that, yeah, the dam had broken and I ended up it was a long day.
I ended up filling a twenty foot container in a day.
Oh my goodness, Oh wow, you caught the bug quick. So I just want to talk the Morano chandelier I was in for a while. I was in California and the Bay Area, and I was in the original founder of Victoria's Secrets home and he had this Morano chandelier, like you couldn't believe. It was huge, and I had to take that thing down. I was involved in that. Oh my god, I can't That must have been very hard to pack in the container. They're very tricky and very fragile. You have to take them all apart.
Yes, and you do have to be very careful. But it was a much smaller one, so it wasn't it wasn't terrible. Each individual glass piece did have to be taken off and wrapped and all of that, but it really could sit in a box, in a couple of boxes, the actual frame of the chandelier and the glass. So anyway, that one wasn't terrible. I had a lot more pieces that were a bit trickier.
Now, when you first started, you're talking about feeling container. Was a lot of it for yourself or did you say, no, I'm going to do this for a business.
So I had a store at the time, and it was mostly new production pieces lines like Worlds Away into his Company and all of that. And I had always.
Liked vintage and antique pieces, but I.
Don't have a degree in that. I never felt comfortable with it. But when I was on that trip, I was just like, you know what, I'll figure it out. I'll just have to figure it out because there's no way in leaving the stuff behind. It's way too special, way too interesting, and so since and that was and it was actually like a week.
Before my thirtieth birthday. I oh, wow, yeah, so it's again. I totally fell into it. But yeah, I put.
Everything out on the floor, and I will tell you that I made every mistake in the book. I still do continue to make.
Yeah, yeah, there's the old saying that antique dealers learned by their mistakes, and that was good to ask you about that, because you know, when you're beginning, especially when you're starting, it's so hard to tell. And people are really good at I'm sure I'm making something look old that's not. They're really good at that.
They are, And every now and again, I'll still I'll make a mistake. I've transitioned away from furniture into more garden antiques, and the age of those are a little harder to fake. A Tina in the medal and all of that, but yeah, still happens.
Yeah. I just totally fell in love with it.
And when I put everything out on the floor, I didn't price anything the right way. I foss as much as I should have. I just followed the old school retail pricing structure, which is it wasn't a true Keystone markup right. I didn't just double the price, but I did the two and a half like a new Keystone markup, and that was a disaster. System might not make any money, so I it was just it was so silly. I just dove into this, and thank god I had people
helping me out. So the Antiquesteva, Tom mclarkanes and Gal McCloud.
I stayed in touch with.
Them and they were very generous with me, offering advice and wisdom and from kind of basic business things down to understanding what I was looking at.
So I really very fortunate.
I think that's a really good point to bring up, because if someone's new and getting into it, I always suggest that if you're in an auction or whatever, you see someone buy something really interesting that interests you. A lot of times people love to share the history and why it's what they bought and why they paid what they did for it. Sometimes people will say no, like they're protective and they want to protect their knowledge or whatever.
But more often than not, people will be glad to share their knowledge, and I think it's a good thing I do.
I am not a proprominent of gatekeeping at all. That's just not how I operate. That's just in my life. I don't think that's beneficial to anyone. So I am willing to share whatever knowledge I have. But I will say, in addition to the Anti Siva team, the people who have taught me the most are the collectors. Like they're so addressed with their knowledge, and I'm so appreciative of that.
They're so focused in whatever it is they collect, and you know, and so something I bring up a number of times too is how fakes and reproductions can really sour someone that's new, and so it's really good advice to talk to someone that seasoned that can tell you what to look for. I bring up every once in a while. Cast iron mechanical banks, for one, they're so good at faking them. You can't really tell. The only thing you can do is put them and measure them.
If they're a little tiny bit smaller than the patent size, then is probably okay. But if they're exactly that size, cast iron shrinks over time, so if they're exactly that size, then you probably got a reproduction. It's so hard to tell. They're so good at it all the way.
And one of the things that people have been frustrated with is lead working with lead pieces, because there's so many have the stakes in it right, and if you're if you're not aware of what led how that should betina, it really does put you off because they do these faux finishes that look very natural, but it's an alloy underneath and somebody, a friend of mine, a dealer friend
of mine, is she does not focus on garden. But she had these fantastic peacocks, these huge peacocks that were so beautiful, these garden ornaments, and she said that they were and I looked at her and I was like, I started to pick it up, and I was like, there is absolutely no way that this is let. There's just not And I started talking to her about it. I was like, look, there's oxidation right here.
I was like, you can.
See the alloy, cast iron, whatever it is, right underneath it. That doesn't happen, That doesn't happen of the age that they're saying it is, which it's not. I was like, the crown, the crest on the peacock would be melted right, it was fall over on itself. And I was like, there are just certain identifiers with lead that you really need to be pay attention to. And I was like, and not least of which is that this is not nearly as heavy as it would be if it were lead. Right,
It's so heavy for its size. So she was like, oh my gosh, thank you for explaining this to me. And it was an honest mistake. She didn't know so, and again, I make honest mistakes all the time, so it's a bit it could be tricky, but I'm glad that I am able to share that knowledge with people so they know what they're getting into. And they were still fabulous, and there were these beautiful, wonderful decorative pieces.
But she needed that knowledge to understand what.
The material was so that whoever she sold it to understood how to care for them.
Wow, in northern California, I haven't seen in a lot of places, but the antique dealers out there they prize what they call rusticated and it's a misuse of the term, but it just means something that has oxidation and say a gardener and or something like that. It's all rested and they say, ooh, it's nice to be rusticated.
You know, comes from the metal and that's the origin, right, that's the problem that is about how metal ages, and now it's more broadly used.
But yeah, yeah, But so garden furniture is really interesting. I had a beautiful set of French garden chairs from the late eighteen hundreds that were just absolutely very ornate wrought iron and they were had this beautiful green patina on I mean it was original, and boy, I tell you what, some people there's a lot of demand for them, because when I ended up putting them in auction, they
did really well. Can you tell me what are the type of pieces that you really like to deal with that excite you.
So I have really been loving the Four Seasons, the different models of the Four Seasons. Oh yes, it's yeah, not something that everybody knows and understands, so there isn't quite as much education, but there are and they're prolific. Right, you can get you know, you can probably get them at home depot right now.
But it's true. I got to be aware, so there's education there.
But I found this fabulous set of terra cotta Four Seasons. There were life size, there were taller than I am, and so beautifully molded and modeled, and if they had shrouds on them right Winter had her head covered. It was just this very unique style. So I've been interested in finding more like a different variety than there's a classic, like the typical neoclassical kind of styles that you see.
So that's been really fun.
But like the Arris furniture you're talking about from France, late nineteenth century, the aris urture is always a cellar people. I always love that they're beautifully made, But as you.
Were saying before, there are many that are reproduction.
And have this fake patina on them, which is it's easier for us to tell, so I can avoid them when I'm buying, but knowing the difference in eras based on the feet what those look like.
So the ARUs is wonderful.
And then I will tell you My biggest sellers are things that kind of keep the lights on.
Are those little stone garden animals right, the frogs? Yeah, yeah, deer and all of that.
So that's what I sell year round constantly.
That really that covers my fences.
Now. Also, I've heard people use the term cast stone, which basically yes, cement, yeah, is that something that you use?
Or it was a cast stone, marble de latte.
There are different definitions, right, So castone is actually where it's a limestone base, so that will be heavier than different kind of reconstituted composite stone, so that will be heavier. Marble de lata uses a marble base which wasn't used in Italy but really had a big resurgence in or I say big, but a resurgence in the mid century mid twentieth century in England. There were a lot of pieces made there, so it's interesting to see these materials
weave in and out of history. But there are differences. The marble de latte castone, there are serious differences.
And then there's.
Codestone, which is a totally different material that was created I think in the nineteenth century. I think your name was eleanor Code, so there's a lot of different things. That's what the lions in Travaldor Square are codestone.
Now do you ever deal with garden fountains?
I do.
I'm getting into those now and I prefer the cast iron ones.
I really like those.
But I found a marble de latte one recently that was just so spectacular I couldn't pass it up.
And I found this.
Incredible terra cotta fountain which was so beautiful. It has this swan motif right the base is the swan, and I can't resist to swan motifs. So for just that one, and yeah, I'm definitely getting more and more into them. But I will say I tend to avoid some of the neoclassical styles, like the pouti and any of the of that, so I do avoid that, but yeah, that there are plenty of other styles for me to be interested in.
So now I have to say, recently I looked on Facebook Marketplace and I saw a four season set, a really nice one and for seven or ten thousand dollars or something.
Yeah, yeah, they yeah, they are really senses of that terra cotta set that I have. Is in my research, I have not come across a single other set like it in scale and in detail, like the quality of everything a condition. Those set of those four seasons are very expensive. I think they're the most expensive things I've ever had, but but they're.
Beautiful. Now, speaking of Facebook Marketplace, I wanted to get your take on that because I got to tell you see the painting behind me, Yes, that is that's a circle of Marillo sixteen seventies, the Young Fruit Seller. It's a circle of It's after But anyway, that was, and that's a hand woven, very early canvas. The frame is bad, it's been reframed in a terrible frame. But that was on Facebook Marketplace as a print, and it's such a it's such a it's almost addictive to get on that.
For someone like myself, I don't know. Do you ever look at that?
And anytime I do so, I would love to ask when did you purchase that on Facebook Marketplace?
Was this recent or was this five years ago?
Nope, this was two years ago. It was I live in the winters in South Carolina and that was only half hour away in Savannah, so I went over and picked it up.
Amazing.
That is the dream, right that you find these kind of spectacular things when somebody doesn't know truly what they have or is interested in it. I dru's Facebook Marketplace all the time, but I will say the knowledge is out there now, right, like people.
Are more aware of value and.
Especially regionally, what things are going for. So I was looking what was it? I think somebody had a fountain that was just so spectacular and it was like fifteen thousand dollars on Facebook Marketplace. So people are on and she was a professional dealer, right, and people also are listing on Facebook marketplace. But even just somebody clearing out their house, they had a swan planter listed for I
think it was three hundre dollars. Like, I can't there's not margin in that for me, not enough even if I were able to negotiate them down, so it's it can be tricky, but every.
Now and again, you know that's some good vines.
And I do the pieces in person because sometimes they'll say it's been dish or whatever, but it's clearly maybe yesterday I thought of things.
Yeah, it's always good to look in person. And I have to say you're right about that, because I've noticed if something's really good, it's instantly gone. Yeah, and there's a lot. But when I first started looking a couple of years ago, when I bought that piece behind me, it was much easier to find something. And now everybody's and I've told a lot of my friends in the antiques world, hey, you got to check out marketplace. And I have a friend of mine, we're joking all the time.
He had owns a pretty sizable auction gallery and he's saying, we have to go to rehab because we're always on Facebook marketplace subject. Yeah. But and I looked when I was on some I've forgot a Caribbean island this enter and I saw I send them a picture of a chicken for sale and this is what you get down here. But no, it's a fun tool and it's always now I want to go back to just it's great to get a really good find. I personally, as an appraiser, if I go into a place and something is marked
a price, I'll buy it. But I don't go into a place and say, oh that, what do you want for that? Over there? They have to have a price already for it, because you just have to. It's like a code of ethics in a way. You have to be carried.
Yeah, I agree, you're talking about having everything marked. Is that or what's you know?
Yeah, if someone marks a price and I'm a willing buyer, I'm just going to buy it. But I'm not going to go in and say to someone look at something that's worth ten thousand dollars and say to someone, hey, I'll give you fifty dollars work, And that's criminal in a way for me.
It was the story.
I think it was in I think maybe it was in North Carotte. I can't remember where it was, but there was a teapot there. Do you remember the story from the Yeah, it was this.
Very rare anti caach pot.
I think in England. Yeah, I think the buyer was in England and they went in and this very extremely rare American teapot was for was listed at like twenty pounds or something, and they offered eighteen something like that, something like a start crazy, and then they sold it for I think six figures.
Now I would not do that.
I would pay the twenty eight pounds and rush on.
Out of there. Almost. You know, you feel bad for that person.
Do you give them some of the suns that were there's I'm sure most people would say no, that's absurd, but I think I would feel guilty, just not especially if I bid on it right.
Well, my dad had a story where he went on a second generation. He was at a yard sale basically, and he saw two beautiful lightship nantucket baskets or ten dollars apiece, and so he said to the woman, he said, hey, I can put them in one of my auctions and do really well. She said, you want to buy him or not. So he buys them, and he puts them in one of his own auctions and they bring something like eight hundred dollars. This is back when that was
real money. So he goes back to the house with a couple hundred dollars to give to the woman and she starts screaming and yelling at him, telling him to get out.
Oh my god, where was this? I have to ask?
Where was in Maine? This was in Maine, southern May Yeah, yeah, okay, So I don't know what she thought he was trying to do when he was bringing back the money.
But I would be more like your father if that were to If I were ever in that situation, I think it would feel a sense of obligation to the person that I bought it from.
Hopefully, there are so many stories, aren't there. You hear all these stories from people that are collectors. And one of the things I think is nice or that we may be losing a little bit of and just wanted to hear your take on it is I grew up long before the internet, and I was at this from a very young age, and I was out there and the stories that you have with these pieces, that makes
it all part of the fun. And then you get online and it's just click and you get it in the mail, and I just I think it loses some of that and just wanted your take on. You said just a minute ago that you like examining things in person, and to me, that's all part of the story and part of what you're doing and you're out there, So what do you think about online? I know you probably sell online. I know you do. I saw you. But what do you think as far as you being a collector? How that the different?
Since we're in the industry, You and I want the story and when I saw so, I do the Round Top Show down in Texas.
Oh, I love that show. I've been there, yees.
Yeah, yeah, it's a fun one. The community down there is really great.
The community they're so nice.
Yes, yeah, they're really great. We have a time together. I like being able to share the story with people down there. They'll sit and they'll listen to me. But online people just they don't even read the description a lot of the time. Right, how many times have I gotten a note saying, oh, this isn't the right size or something. I put the description in the description or the measurements. There's a whole section called dimensions.
I don't know that.
So people just they don't read the description at all. So being able to properly tell a story about something is really challenging, And especially on the marketplaces and firsted shares things like that, using that kind of flowery language isn't great. For the algorithm anyway, right, Like they don't like that. They just want the straight details at the age, the condition, the materials, and the original use. That's like my formula, right, that's how people will use it now.
But that's really those are the key things that I put in there.
And yeah, and the dimensions.
So it's yeah, some of that is lost, and that it does make me sad. I also do feel like so much of the knowledge is being lost in general from not enough people really re entering into this industry or really getting involved in this industry as much as
they should. I'm somewhat hopeful that may turn around because these gen Z kids are just green living is so important to them, and so I think they're starting to see, Okay, I'd rather save money and buy a pair of chairs that I know I'm going to have for a very long time than the twenty bucks at a big box store. So it's autiously.
Yes, I am too think. I hear a lot of people say it's always in cycles. Maybe there'll be a cycle of people getting back into it. I hope so. But when I attend to auctions, it's a lot of older people, but occasionally I see younger people, and I actually do go up and talk with them a lot of the time and ask them what sparked your interests
in this type of thing. So I like the fact that they call the ultimate cyclost auctions and things like that, and instead of if they are thinking in a green way, manufacturing furniture, for one, really affects the environment quite a bit. So if you can buy a nice piece, that'll be around forever. And I know simplicity. There's a lot of people now collecting Danish muttern and things like that that
are simplistic. And I know that you were dealing in the Gustovian antiques, which is really I had a beautiful silver chest one time. And did you deal mostly in later pieces that were like copies or did you deal in the period?
So I had some period pieces and one of my favorite period pieces is the Secretary that inside one of the pigeonholes was a letter that was dated. I can't quite recall what the day was. I think I think it was like eighteen oh seven or something like that. How it survived all this time, but it was a We had it translated because it wasn't Swedish. We had
it translated and it was a birthday card. Ah, I know, just like that's such an intimate personal connection to this piece and that somebody received that and cared for it to hold on to it, and it was just really it's really wonderful. So by bringing it back to the stories, right, being able to communicate that properly on a marketplace listing is challenging.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's Lee Keno from the Antique Scroat Show. I communicate with him now and then one of the twins of the Keno Twins, and we were talking the other day recently about how things have the story as they go through time, which is so intriguing to me. And that's a really good example of that. And if things could talk about their whole passing through. We're just guardians for these pieces and pass them along.
I completely agree with that that we're we're just custodians, right, We're just we're holding onto these for a little while, doing our best to take care of them and hope that somebody else loves them as much as we do in the future. In my own apartment, in my own home, I have a Gastavian almost like a farmhouse table.
It's very simple.
Yeah, and it's inside there's a single drawer, and inside the drawer are the family names and the years that they had it.
Oh isn't that nice?
Yeah?
And DC signatures and had the kind of a handwriting evolved over decades in a century.
So it's really special to me. It's really special now if I have that.
I think it was a king of Sweden visited France and then just loved the furniture and came back, And that is all through Europe. I spent a lot of time in Russia and there's very it looks like you're looking at Louis fifteen furniture Louis sixteen and fifteen a lot over there. And so the influence really went worldwide, like it did with all the American pieces like Chippendale and Sheridan and all the different things. But yeah, and I know that Canada when Canada had that French influence.
The original pieces are they're so expensive? Is were those pieces that you found and dealt with that were they very expensive pieces? To it?
With period Gustavian pieces can be a bit tricky too, because at a certain level of the market, a certain kind of price point and quality and all that you do need an export license with them, so I try to be mindful about that when I'm actually bringing things out of Sweden. But it's yeah, it's an interesting story, but being inspired from France. And then what I loved about it was that they brought it to Sweden and used the appropriate materials.
For that for that age, for that location.
It turned into more like pine and birch in those kinds of woods, and it was a simplified style to reflect more of the Swedish sensibility. And instead of having mahogany as much mahogany veneer they were painted to bring in that extra light understanding that.
History of it.
And there are the Stockholm pieces that are very expensive, rare, but I've never dealt at that exact level. Right, I'm a decorative dealer. I'm not a museum quality dealer. So that's that's what they have had to come up against as much as other other high level dealers.
Now, you worked with the Martha Stewart living at one time, you did some work on that, what's that like?
So I worked there for four years.
It was my first job out of college and it was fantastic.
It was really fantastic.
It was extremely high pressure and very stressful, and it was a very different time when I worked there, So it was a very different time.
But it was a pressure cut there and I but I loved it.
My my managers and the people that I got to work with all the time were fantastic. I was working on a project once and I spelled wax on my shirt because of this project was craft project I was doing. I spelled wax my shirt. So I went up to editorial and I was like, Hey, can you guys get this wax out of my shirt?
And they're like, gando problem.
And then an hour later they called me back and you got to go off with this and go get my clean shirt. So it was there were funny things like that you could really it was a very special place to work. There were a lot of quirky people who were celebrated, really honored and celebrated for their knowledge, for their just what their passions were. And there was a lot of editorial freedom back then. A lot much anymore, which makes me very sad.
Now you mentioned before antiques for entertaining. Can you go into what you meant by that?
So antiques for entertaining I think are and I do look antiques for modern life. That's my big thing is antiques for modern life, but antius or just using these things every day, like not saving them. And a lot of people talk about this now, but it's about bringing out these things that I use. My grandmother's china and it's very special to me because it was made in the town that my grandmother was born in. Yeah, so it's very special to me. But there's just no need
to save these things. And I think people treat these antiques and so there's these these very precious that.
I shouldn't be used every day, but it really should. They really should be using an.
Antique china cabinet or cupboard or something like that like this.
The storage is fantastic.
In there, and it's just they're not meant to live in a museum. These are pieces that were meant to be used every day. And I think of my grandmother every day when I use them. Right, she gave me her silver and she gave me this. It's Newcastle, Pennsylvania is where my grandmother or my grandparents, and they had this fabulous factory there Shenango Pottery and Castleton China.
So those were the two.
And I could go on for a while because that particular company has a really fascinating history with World War two and protecting patterns. But that factory really supported the town in a significant way.
So having that close to weight, using it every day, trying to.
Keep like the platinum rim, I do try to be careful about that, but whatever, I'm also going to put in a dishwasher because I'm a busy person and I have a lot of obligations.
But so it's just don't worry about it.
Don't mind if it gets little nicks and whatever like, That's just we're adding to the story. That's how I feel is that, don't worry if you nick a piece of furniture or something like. That's just you've left your little piece of story on this piece now in that furniture.
Ight now.
So yeah, yeah, I got to tell you preaching to the choir here because I think that's exactly right how I feel exactly that these things were made to be used, and that is the problem where we have as collectors over the years, shot ourselves in the foot. And I'll tell you my opinion on that. When it had to be people tucking things in the China cabinet and saying, oh, you can't use that. That costs a lot of money. So that's worth a lot of money. You can't use that,
so it loses that family connection of growing up. And like the chocolate pot as an example, having hot cocoa with my grandmother. And I remember that china set Nortoki, I don't even care, it's Nartokia whatever, like it became collectible, then stuff away, or you can't sit in that chair that windsor chair. The windsor chairs were meant to be sad and they last. They'll be around another several hundred years, you know, the way they made them in the beginning
or whatever, so men to be used. I like what you said about wearing the marks as part of the story, because there's so many things about antiques that you can I mentioned lee Kino earlier and he flipped over it eighteenth century American table and it said, what are these little scratch lines on? And people were coming back with all matches or pipe was the clay pipes from the
early times. Another thing that's really fun to see is a lot of early small chairs or youth chairs will be flat on one side, and you look at why is it flat on one side, the little kid was learning how to walk by pushing the chair along the floor. So generation after generation they wore the front of it flat by holding onto the back legs and pushing it along the floor. So yeah, these things all have stories, and I think that's it's precious.
Yes, it really is. It really is very meaningful. My parents are not They're not collected.
They have art that they really love, but as far as furniture, that's not really what their focus was on ever. But we did have I'm actually at their house right now. They are packing up and moving out of this house after forty years. So and here, but we did. The room behind me was this blue and white room when we were growing up, and that was like you did not enter that room like you did. It was apt for it in and it was just it was very funny. But now it's I just don't feel like it's like
that anymore. I feel like every space is used and every space is welcome to children. Right and now there are all these indoor outdoor fabrics that people are using. But I just I want people to feel free to not treat these things look so preciously. Just I really want them to be used and to be added, it's very important to me.
I'm very vocal about that.
It's pretty funny because when I grew up, we had what was called the good Room, and you couldn't go in the goodroom. It's totally off limits. It's so funny. Yeah, to hear someone else.
Say that, I will say.
My grandmother, the one that gave me the china that I have, which is so pretty. She and my grandfather did used to go to auctions and so they collected all these things that I do remember as a child's being in their home, sitting at this lovely little reproduction French secretary. But I just felt so fancy sitting there and what I just like having this kind of fun, And she had these wonderful memories of me doing that. So when she passed away, she left me that desk
and the desk chair that went with it. It's just, yeah, is it a particularly valuable a piece of furniture now?
But the memories for me are so important.
Yeah.
I live like people to share these stories.
Right. So what are you seeing in trends these days? And what you do?
It's so hard I really try not to focus on trends. I think that's a I don't know, I find it demoralizing, right, Like you're supposed to buy what sells a lot of people I think that come with that approach, and then it's just so not me. I just want to buy what I love and I'll find the right people. That's very much how I feel. So I evolved from gustav Well first, when I told you, when I started, I had no point of view at all. It was such
a mix of that first container. And then as I grew it became more about the Gustavian and painted pieces, but even beyond that, and think about it, I'm only I haven't even been a dealer for twelve years yet.
But then I grew into the garden antiques, and that was just by being over in England in the spring and there was this one dealer who had all these wonderful swanstone planters and just these adorable little garden ornaments, and so I ended up buying those, and the more I looked at them, they just brought me a lot of joy, think just looking at their face ornaments and thinking about being outside and creating these kind of beautiful garden spaces for people to go out and enjoy, and
a lot of that happened during COVID when we were all stuck inside and people wanted to bring the outside in, or we're finally really using their outdoor spaces. I feel like for so long people just took outdoor spaces for granted, So it's good to see.
People doing that.
But I just had happened to fall in love with it not long before that and had a decent amount of inventory. That was a good time to be an antique garden antiques advantage dealer. But it's I didn't have much knowledge about it then, but now I do know what we were talking about, like cast Own, Marvel, the latte and the different alloys of metals. It's there's a lot of fun for me, like finding quirky little details, and and I'm constantly learning and making mistakes.
I've been at this all my life, and I make mistakes all the time. So that's you're never going to get over that. But I liked that what you said by what you love, and I think that's such an important message too, because you're living with it. And when a lot of people do ask me, they'll say things, Oh, what should I invest in? What's trendy, what should it? And I said, just buy, just enjoy whatever it is
and just think of it that way. Don't buy it because you think you're going to make some money, and.
I don't know if that's really going to foster your growth in the industry, right if you're just buying what's selling, Like, how are you going to stay and interested and invested in growing your business if you're not connected to these pieces, Like I can't sell.
Something not that I don't love. How am I just how am I going to do that? I just wouldn't want to.
I wouldn't be like this is a lovely you know, like, yeah, I have to say and my friends tease me a lot because I'm like, oh my gosh, isn't this a wonderful piece? And now like you say that about everything, I was like, is that everything is wonderful?
So I completely agree with you for so many reasons.
Now, so what do you think the future is going to be? Do you think it's going to be unfortunately more online this trade are Do you think that people are going to get back to the basics a little more? It's probably anyone's guests, but just what your thoughts are.
Yeah, online is obviously here to stay and growing at first. Its cherish eBay has been around for however many thirty years, I don't even know how long, so it's nothing new. But really COVID led to a mass adoption of that being more comfortable buying online the antiques and everything, whereas I feel like before that people just want to see every little nook and cranny of an antique, so it's
not like that anymore. I do hope there is, and I do have some kind of optimism around it because of the roundtop shows and Brimfield and things like that. I feel like the attendance is just growing, so there is still an appetite for that. In individual antique shops, I don't know. I really hope that there's a revival, but I imagine that's very regional.
I do the collectives.
I was at a collective in Stanford for a very long time, and then I moved back to Manhattan. I ended up leaving that, although I still go there and love them, and again a wonderful community of people, the owners and the sellers there. And I'm in a collective in Manhattan now instead, and that's wonderful. So I know people still want to go see things in person, and I do think it's harder to sell things online, even though people are more comfortable with it, because you want
to hold these objects, you want to feel them. There is that emotional connection that you're just drawn to something. How are you going to experience that when it's just a little picture on a screen.
During COVID, I remember I reached out too pard me several auction halls, and I thought that Wes Cowen had from Cowen's Auctions out in Ohio. I thought he had the best response. He said, collectors are going to figure it out. Collectors have to collect and I thought that was such a good phrase, and he was right. And then all of a sudden, the group shops somehow took off,
like all these group shops. So I have a friend in Texas he says, oh, yeah, I'm super busy now, Like really, it's like all but the little small shops. Unfortunately a lot of them did go out, but yeah, they had the mask requirements. People were wearing masks and going into the big group shops and having a ball and spending money and yeah, so we learned to adapt
no matter what. And with that, things like auction Ninja came out, A number of things came out during that time, and yeah, we we just roll with the punches here. But I'm glad that things have been really since I started this show in two thousand and nine, things have just gone up and down. It's really hard to figure I would never want to really try to figure out the future myself because it's always I'm always wrong.
Yeah, and you think you figured it out right, Everything changes. There's no sense in predicting the future. But I and I do think some of the changes are really wonderful. Yes, collectors are going to always buy, but we want to grow our audience, right, You and I were talking about getting the younger audience involved. We want to meet them where they're at, and if they're digitally native, I think you just.
Have to be online with them. Yeah.
I am a big fan of kind of meeting people where they're at. I think that's really important to just not be intimidating, because it is a very intimidating industry.
Even for me entering it, I was like, I don't have.
Any knowledge, who am I to do this that I went in blind and just made it work. So it's important to just allow people to enter at their own level and grow, and over time they'll figure out what they're interested in, what kind of whether they're interested in a certain style or particular object or material, whatever it may be. Allowing them to explore and figure that out
and grow with that. But I even with the language that I use in my descriptions, I try to democratize it by saying, I think it's important that we speak their language right, meet them where they're at.
And so what you and I might know as a duchess breeze, people aren't going to know that.
So call it a shatyse lounge, you call it whatever it is, Like I will call it a chest of drawers addresser, like a comode, even though it's not a como, right, I still try and use these words so that people will still find my objects. I think that's I think that's helpful to people. They're not like, you just don't want to come across as snoody. I'm you just don't want to come across that way. You want to come across as knowledgeable and friendly and accessible.
That's really great points that you're bringing up here, Really that a lot and people can get into this that's the misconception for young people that think, oh no, they're too expensive whatever. But the market is definitely self adjusted for that. Where there were twenty thousand dollar pieces there now could be twelve hundred, and it's unfortunate for the people that invested that type of money and things, but it's down to the point where you can have a
beautiful piece of furniture that was all handmade. I'm just talking furniture, because other things, of course, that you can get such a great deal on and live with something wonderful that you love a fair price. I would say, dip your toe in and see what happens. But to take advice from people like my guests and other people that have been around a while, and so you don't make so many We all make mistakes, but it's always better the least amount of mistakes you can make. Anyway,
it's been really fun. Yeah, it's been really fun to talk to you, and I wish you all the luck in the future. I think you're doing a wonderful thing here and you've been a real pleasure to talk to.
Yeah, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Obviously, we're both very passionate about this.
I appreciate the opportunity absolutely so. You can find links down below to Margaret's all her links, her instagram I think it is, and website and all that all down below in the text. Thank you all right, and until next time.
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