Featured Local Antiques Market 2017

Just in my surrounding area in 2017;

a). A large antique mall and a few smaller shops closed their doors. The antique mall owner decided to retire, one of the shops had their rent doubled so they folded, and another went out of business and declared bankruptcy.
b). One auctioneer died, one retired, and another seems has his health declining at a rather shocking pace. The latter looks like a totally different person each time I've seen him ---- really sad since he is my favorite in the area. Just fewer auctions and estate sales to go around, I wonder where all the stuff is going?
c). Two local thrift stores recently closed due to declining donations and rising rents. You could tell neither was covering their fixed expenses and were getting more desperate, raising prices and trying to sell more obvious garbage.
d). One of the better little auction houses in the area, that always had older collectable stuff went to an online format and then folded shortly after.

Kind of depressing. Fewer opportunities to find quality items and older accumulations are becoming much harder to locate.

Have any other forum member seen anything similar?

 

Similar situation in my area. The mall shows are history unfortunately, as they were great buying opportunities and long standing annual/semi-annual shows have folded. The upscale and collectibles type markets seem to be holding their own.
Ten years ago, I could attend an auction within a 1 hour drive of home every day of the week and two on Wednesday. With the exception of 3 auction houses, the rest have gone to on-line sales. I can understand the auctioneers reasons, with the cost of a facility plus staff, on-line sales are no doubt more profitable for them. I do miss the social aspect of live auctions, the camaraderie of fellow dealers and exchange of ideas.

 

Yes. Antiques is the only business I know of where the more shops the merrier.

 

Two antique stores here closed up shop, and the jewelry and junque store isn't doing too well. The antiques center north of here is now half shabby and upcycled furniture. The antique store closest to me is now mostly furniture and rugs; the smalls area is...small. The general auction houses are still going, but since I don't go to live auctions I don't know how well or for how much longer. There's only one traditional antique store with cases of stuff left, and it's a bit of a hike and the hours can be a bit erratic on weekdays. They're right off a highway in an upscale area and seem to be doing OK. The owner also run estate sales and he's a pretty decent guy. Estate sales have become thinner on the ground too, and lot of the so-called estate sales are really moving sales. The church sales are going away too, slowly, and one synagogue closed down.

I think it's everywhere, except maybe Florida and Arizona.

 

I think it is getting harder, but not impossible, to source good items cheaply.

Charity shops mostly send interesting items to specialist departments, while auction houses are moving to online sales, so there is often limited advantage in a good auction rummage if the auction house has taken good photos and has accurate descriptions.

If I were younger I might have tried clearance, but that is out of the question now.

Still, we are managing to get plenty at the moment to keep us more than busy, and we find that research and developing knowledge still counts for a lot in identifying incorrectly catalogued sleepers

 

I find myself in a forced retirement stage. The shop owners of the shop I've been in are also retiring. I could go to another shop in the vicinity but would rather not travel the distance nor face another possible closing.

Our area had quite a few large co-ops, so it brought a lot of people to the shops. We are the last of the rather large ones that hung on when others closed down.

I've been running 1/2 price sales, and have donated much to a local church, and the SAL.

The present owner told me I could stay as long as he will be there, without paying anymore rent. That might be for a few more months at best.

The real estate has been sold.

I plan to shop as usual....well not quite as usual, as I will now only be buying smalls to possibly sell on ebay.......

All good things must come to an end......sadly.

 

We have lost most of our antique stores here. There is one remaining but I don't know how they are still open unless they are selling stuff online.

I wouldn't even venture to go there because it is on a main street with a lot of traffic and there is absolutely no place to park without being given a ticket.

We really never had that many here, but the few that dotted the area are long gone.

The close by thrift shops remain, but their selection is terrible and their prices are too high. The one I used to go to years ago, had a great amount of goodies and the prices were great. Then they changed the person who ran the store and now if they think or know something is vintage, it has a sticker on it that says vintage and a sky high price. The few times I have been in there this past year, it was a ghost town.

There is one thrift store a bit further away that is ok. The prices can be negotiated.
The guy who runs it finds all his stuff as he picks up everything from
people who just want to get rid of everything with no hassle. So he gets most if not all for free. Unfortunately, this place is only open 1 day a week, on Sunday so that day I usually am at estate sales.

 

The market is holding its own here. We have no true traditional antique shops but do have multi-dealer shops that also sell antiques. Several bill themselves as antique shops but would say that true antiques represent less than 50% of their merchandise. A new one opened in Aug. that has a bit more and has plans to expand. As new kids on the block, they seem to be doing pretty well. Remains to be seen how they will do long-term. Really no high end goods to be seen anywhere. The market is in painted furniture and architectural salvage. Repurposing is where it is at. We also have a bit of a primitives market here as well. Not much of an MCM market here. Brown furniture is mostly dead.

Customers are cheap and the competition among dealers for their dollars is cutthroat. Supply seems to be pretty much endless and I buy mostly what I consider to be junk for very little and mark it high. It is not unusual to mark things 5X or more. I don't even consider buying anything unless I can mark it at least 3X. It is very unusual that I pay more than $20.00 for anything. Good antiques flounder on the shelves if priced at a competitive national level (ebay price). The customers want them only if they can get them cheaply. Consequently, most of the good stuff I find rarely hits the shelves here.

The shop I am in moves a lot of merchandise. Most under $50.00. Average furniture price is well under $200.00. We have about 17,000 sq. ft. and around 30 dealers. Would say the shop averages 50K per month. Rents are high here so would guess the gross overhead for most of the dealers to be approaching 50%. A few of the dealers who really hustle do significantly better. I work in the shop to offset my rent so get to keep 100% of my sales. There are shops that have significantly lower rent but none that move as much merchandise as we do.

 

Rural California tourist area.
16 Antique and Collectible stores on Main St. 2 are malls with 8 and 10 dealers.
None are true antiques stores per se. Most are more collectible, re-purposed, rustic. Many have been here for 10-20 years.

I don't call us antique stores anymore, I call us Memory Stores, because that is what most people buy. Something that reminds them of someone or good times.

Prices compared to other areas seem lower.

Myself, I'm half collectible and half new. I opened just before the 2008 crash. All the gift stores in town started shutting down. Locals were complaining that there was nowhere to buy small gifts. Since antiques weren't selling, I picked up some of the gift ware lines. Actually sell more new than old. Although the profit is in the old. Get many compliments on my mix and being something different.

My biggest compliment - Waiting Chairs. I have 3 positioned near the door, with a Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew bookshelf facing them. Men sit down and are happy. Women are happy to be able to have more time to look.


Next town 3 miles over has maybe 8 antique stores, one is a mall with 15 dealers.
One of their dealers has just started a once a month Flea market, which seems to be getting rave revues. I haven't been as I cannot buy anymore.

Sacramento is an hour from us and has a once a month flea. Stockton has a once a week flea.


As for the shops shutting down.
We're all getting older. Younger people if they are selling are selling online. The 40 year olds are not collectors per se, but decorators.
I'm afraid the true antiques dealers are aging out with no new collectors interested in opening stores.


Oh forgot to say,
We also have at least 4 thrift stores in the area.

 

Younger people if they are selling, are selling online. The 40 year olds are not collectors per se, but decorators.

I completely agree with this. Well said.

 

Talk about some of the prices at the thrifts......6 Rosepoint wide mouth champagne stems.....$150.00......being offered at a thrift that has everything donated.

 

There's a particular Salvation Army store that I go to once in awhile and whoever does the pricing there has recently taken to looking things up on 1st dibs....and using prices they see there. Its insane.

 

Once they start looking up prices a la ebay or other online sources, that is the end of any decent pricing at thrift stores I believe.
One of my local thrift stores does that and so I rarely set foot in there anymore.

 

i also believe the owners/employees at thrifts ,are taking the best things home .before they can get to the floor .

 

There was a thrift store here that had a large set of c.1980's Haviland that they had priced at over $600. I so wanted to tell them that first of all people who shop thrift shops are not usually in the market for fine china & if someone was in the market for fine china they most likely would not be shopping at a thrift store. Further more no one was going to pay that kind of money for that set of dishes. I went back to the shop about a year later & the same set of dishes were sitting there with the same price.

 

Not very smart marketing strategy. Just thinking of the shelf or table space a large set would consume. They could have had $10-$50 items in the same space and turned them over and over again.

 

Asses full of dumb.

 

Five years ago, we would have the choice of about 10 auctions per day and 20-40 on the weekends. Now there may be 2 or 3 daily and maybe 10 or so on the weekends. Some of our favorites and ones I did pictures for are sadly gone.

We have some very high end estate sales that one firm has cultivated, and I mean really high end!!!

The few GW stores have gone upscale in nice shopping centers, hired a very expensive CEO and priced items accordingly. Few 'nice' items reach the floor and those that do are priced at ebay prices.

There is only 1 antique mall within 10 miles of us.

Most of what I sell now belonged to our family or us - time to lighten the load. Our 'kids' don't want most of it
Patd

 

I call them Ill Will for good reason. I only go there because it's the only game in town. Some senior housing places have thrifts, but if you're an outsider you're not allowed in. We used to be able to shop there sometimes and I found the best stuff. Not any more.

 

My best buys come from a couple of Senior Thrifts.

I buy very little at the "donated" shops, but I do go at least once a week, because I have found a few really wonderful surprises.

It has to be a "sleeper" and sometimes they do get by the one doing the pricing.