ANTIQUE COLLECTING
in the 21st CENTURY

By Bill Hogan   

Editor's note: the opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect policies of the Canadian Antiques Roadshow.

There have been absolutely massive changes in the antique collecting world in my thirty-five years as a collector-dealer. Perhaps casting an eye backward might just illuminate the future of collecting in the 21st century.

The most stunning change has been the very rapid shrinkage in defining how old an antique must be to be called an antique. When I started as a dealer thirty-five years ago, an antique was something made pre-1880, or roughly 100 years old, but ‘antique’ was more determined by the fact that pre-1880 items tended to be handmade, while post-1880 artifacts were produced in a factory or had an assembly-line type of manufacture. I distinctly remember rejecting the oak furniture in a Niagara-on-the-Lake home, while I took only the earlier pine and the paintings and silver. I advised the estate to contact a used furniture dealer for the oak. In other estates we left the 1920’s wicker behind with the rubble for garbage pickup.

Ten years later, in 1880, we handled better oak, but left behind 1930’s furniture. Books on antiques were beginning to be published, so factory-produced artifacts like country store items, 1900’s toys, manufactured pottery (Moorcroft sold for under $100 in 1980!), and granite ware were collectible.

By 1990, ‘antique’ dealers were handling 1930’s furniture like dining room sets, cedar chests and end tables. There were books on everything so the collectibles part of the market boomed. Fountain pens, doorstops, bakelite radios and costume jewellery entered mainstream shops while even Pez containers and Red Rose figurines were collected as ‘nostalgia’ at shows.

In March 2000, Toronto hosted Canada’s first Collecting the 20th Century Show and, along with Tiffany and Lalique, there was a strong emphasis on 1950’s furniture, 1970’s and 80’s Italian and Scandinavian glass, and even 1990’s Memphis pieces (that sold!). And those were at serious prices!

So, in thirty years the benchmark for ‘antique’ has moved forward 70 or 80 years. What does this tell us? You guessed it. Before your metal and glass patio set or your Ikea furniture is even properly worn out, it will be in antique shops. Yes, aluminum and jadeite kitchen ware are already collectible and about to enter the mainstream. What’s next? Shopping bags (save those old Eaton’s bags NOW) and record album covers will have their day! Not modern enough for you? How about graffiti as the next hot collectible? Or framed junk mail?

The next most profound change in the antique world has been the proliferation of knowledge through books, especially price guides and ultimately, the Internet. There weren’t ten books in print on Canadian antiques in 1970. In 1980, my wife and I published our own book on antiques because no publisher would take a chance. By the turn of the century I had bought myself over 1000 books on antiques and still subscribe to ten magazines and read reviews of the ten to twenty books a month that are currently being published. The local Chapters store has a huge selection of books on antiques and a Toronto store boasts thousands of titles in stock. What this has meant is that it is now quite easy for anyone to become an ‘expert.’ This means right now there are more antique dealers, a public that can educate itself on values very easily, and a blurring of lines about what is of merit in antiques and what is not. (I don’t care if there’s a book out on Smurfs or Beanie Babies; they don’t belong in antique stores or at antique shows.)

With the proliferation of knowledge and information-sharing now brought about by the Internet, likely there will be an even greater blurring of those lines and ultimately the serious decline of the antique dealer, shop or show as we know it. The public will sell antiques directly to the collector without the antique dealer as a middleman and dealers will close up shops to sell what merchandize they do get to the Japanese or Americans or whoever has the richest economy at the moment via the Internet. Serious antiques will be sold on the Net; Canadian collectors will buy there.

The third massive change in antiques has been the decline of the small shop, the large ‘barn’ antique shop and the little local antique show. Thirty years ago, people ‘antiqued’ on the weekend. Young couples from Toronto drove the countryside looking for bargains in the ‘sticks’ (read Niagara, Port Perry or Barrie or anywhere that used to be about an hour’s drive from Toronto). They visited quaint little shops or big barns of rough stuff or the small town show sponsored by the IODE.

Now people don’t have the time. Big shows, like the outdoor ones at Christie or Aberfoyle in Ontario are hugely successful-10,000 in attendance per day. The Indoor-Outdoor show in Toronto boasts the largest number of dealers indoors in Canada and gets lineups around the block. Space is too expensive for barns of rough antiques now. Everything is refinished and the barns now usually house twenty dealers, not one.

What’s the future? More of the same. More small shops and shows will close. Dealers are already closing shops to sell on the Internet or at the giant outdoor shows which now run six months of the year. If you want to collect in the 21st century, be prepared for intense once a month experiences or shopping on the Net. And there won’t be any bargains because everyone will know what everything is worth. Then again, every year dealers have told me the same thing—the antique business is over, there’s no future, etc etc. Well, somehow hundreds of us have found a way to redefine our business and change with the times. I just never thought I’d be buying record albums for their covers.