The "Ds" That Drive the Antiques Cycle
The antiques business is a recycling enterprise that relies on a steady stream of worthy old objects entering the marketplace, usually due to change and tumult in the lives of their previous owners.
Three of the widely recognized types of upheaval that initiate the transfer of antiques from one owner to another are Death, Debt and Divorce, often referred to in the trade as “The Three Ds.”
Two additional “Ds” that we commonly see as reasons for antiques being offered for sale are Downsizing and Deaccessioning, which are also due to changes in the lives or priorities of antiques owners.
While we don’t always know which of the “Ds” caused an antique to come on the market, we can always be sure that the object was previously owned, probably more than once, and therefore has a story or two to tell (if only it could talk!) about why it was passed along.
But this year we’ve been hearing more of those stories than usual as we’ve had an abnormally high number of direct requests for estate appraisals and queries about furniture that someone has recently inherited, or acquired when they purchased a second home.
This has spurred us to look back on examples from our own business, as well as from within the antiques trade as a whole, that illustrate how “The Five Ds” drive the antiques market.
Death
Everybody knows that death is a major reason that antiques come on the market, in part because dealing with the possessions of deceased loved ones is something that most of us end up doing sooner or later.
Also, “estate sales” that liquidate a person’s belongings after a death occur regularly within walking or driving distance of just about all of us. So it is no surprise that the transfer of possessions after a death also plays a huge role in supplying inventory for antiques dealers.
The most notable example for us occurred early in our specialization in rustic antiques when we were given the opportunity to purchase an important Adirondack collection after its owner passed away in 2001.
The Birch Cottage, one of the buildings at Hemlock Ledge in Tupper Lake, NY.
Dr. Richard S. Marrus was a tireless collector who had filled his Adirondack Great Camp “Hemlock Ledge” with significant rustic furniture originating both within and beyond the Adirondacks.
After taking the leap to secure a loan larger than the mortgage on our starter house at the time in order to purchase the collection, we embarked on the exciting process of handling, studying, researching and finding homes for all of Dr. Marrus’s antiques.
We can say from this experience, and know that most antiques dealers would agree, that it is truly a privilege to play the role of liaison between the old and new chapters in the lives of exceptional antiques after their previous owner has taken leave.
Debt
Typically a person who sells a single antique or even their entire collection to raise money to pay debts does not reveal the reason for parting with their possessions.
Occasionally though, some high-profile collections come on the market when it is no longer in the collector’s power to control the story about debt being the reason for the sale.
A blockbuster example was the debt-settlement sale of the Ralph O. Esmerian collection of American folk art. His possessions started to be dispersed at auction in 2008, at which time Esmerian, a professional jeweler, owed $87 million to Merrill Lynch, $11.5 million to Sotheby’s auction, and $7.5 million to Christie’s auction.
This 1846 painting by Edward Hicks titled “Peaceable Kingdom with the Leopard of Serenity” from the Esmerian collection sold for $9,673,000 at Sotheby’s in 2008 to pay down Esmerian’s debt to the auction house. (photo: wikimedia.org)
His saga made big news in the antiques world in part because he had promised to donate his folk art collection to the American Folk Art Museum where much of it was already on display. Instead, his collection ultimately hit the auction block at Sotheby’s In January 2014 where it sold for $12,955,943, setting a record at the time for the highest total for an auction of American folk art.
This circa 1875 carved pine pheasant hen weathervane from the Esmerian collection sold for $449,000 (sothebys.com)
On a much smaller scale, we have been aware a few times that a person was selling something to us because they needed to turn the object into money for a debt payment.
A few summers ago we were invited by the former owner of a rustic home to purchase furnishings from his storage unit. When we had made our selections and were ready to pay, he asked us to write the check directly to the storage company. Apparently we had been called in after the company had threatened to take possession of his goods in exchange for many months of unpaid rent.
Divorce
This wedding figurine was ironically one of the lots in a recent Los Angeles Auction House sale titled simply “Divorce Settlement Estate Auction”
Dispersal of antiques and art at auction due to a high-profile divorce can elicit as much as attention as an auction due to high-profile debt.
A divorce-sale-to-be (currently delayed due to the pandemic) that we’ve been reading about in the trade papers for months will sell 65 works from the art collection of New York real estate mogul Harry Macklowe and his ex-wife Linda. The sale is expected to realize upwards of $700 million in proceeds.
Alberto Giacometti’s Le Nez from the Macklowe collection is expected to sell between $35-65 million (from news.artnet.com)
Surely unbeknownst to us, a number of the antiques we’ve acquired over the years have come on the market because of a non-publicized, non-celebrity divorce.
But we have occasionally known that an antique we purchased had quietly ended up at auction because of a divorce of collectors or antiques dealers with whom we had been acquainted.
We were happy to play a role in relocating those antiques from a home that was breaking up to the home of appreciative new owners.
Downsizing
When active empty nesters move into a smaller home or frail elders move into assisted living, they let go of possessions that they can no longer accommodate. If they owned antiques and art that are not remaining with family, those treasures typically enter into the commercial market.
A large standing “empty coat” sculpture we purchased in 2019 from a storage pod in the yard of a woman who had just downsized from a large to a small home.
Another cause of downsizing that we encounter perhaps more than other dealers given our rustic antiques specialty, is the sale of vacation homes.
Whether the owners are simplifying their lives by consolidating their properties, or are letting go of one vacation place to acquire a different one, they disperse furnishings.
We have partnered with a number of vacation home owners who were also rustic antiques enthusiasts, to sell things from the second homes they’re leaving behind as their lives move forward.
Deaccessioning
While Downsizing leads to Deaccessioning, not all Deaccessioning is due to Downsizing. Through interacting with clients over the years, we’ve encountered multiple reasons behind decisions to deaccession antiques.
For instance, collectors sometimes sell or consign pieces of art or antiques to free up money or space to acquire something different for their collection. There is no net deletion of possessions as there is in downsizing, but rather just a change in the composition of possessions.
Another type of deaccessioning happens when people are ready to let go of pieces they’ve inherited from parents or grandparents. Sometimes those are things that have never really fit well in their homes, decoratively or physically, but that they’ve felt obligated to live with.
We have also often seen heirs keep inherited pieces in storage for years due to sentimental attachment, or on the hope that someday they’d have a larger or different type of home where the furniture would fit, or that eventually their kids will want everything.
But shifts happen. When lives, minds, emotions or financial circumstances change enough to cause heirs to release pieces they’ve been hanging on to, we and other antiques dealers get a call.
But even when inherited pieces are beloved and valuable possessions enjoyed as core elements of a home’s decor, people sometimes decide to sell them as a step towards putting their affairs in order as they age. They reason sensibly that passing along cash to their heirs from the sale of valuable possessions does their family a huge favor, as it makes settling their estate far less complicated or contentious in the long run.
Another cause of deaccessioning that we’ve been involved in happens when people buy fully furnished rustic camps and then sell some of the older pieces to make room for something new.
Or more radically, a new owner of an old rustic abode that was purchased primarily because of its prime scenic location will decide to completely renovate the home and redecorate it in a different style.
In these cases the new owners have no sentimental attachment or sense of obligation to the furnishings that convey with the old rustic home, so it is lucky when they call in an antiques dealer who can make sure those things find appropriate new homes.
The final cause of deaccessioning antiques that we’ll mention is itself a D-word – Discovery – namely, discovering that some unassuming object in one’s home has significant financial value, and therefore is a prime candidate to deaccession.
The proverbial “attic find” that is worth so much money that the owners can’t resist selling it, is of course the ongoing story line that propels the long-running momentum of the popular TV appraisal show, “Antiques Roadshow.”
In our case, we frequently get contacted by people who are contemplating selling something, depending on its value. Several times those calls have led to exhilarating finds of important objects that, yes, the owners do usually decide to sell after hearing what those possessions are worth.
The top of an early 1900s mosaic twig table discovered in an Adirondack home with the twigwork initials “AGV” — made for Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt.
The Current and Age-Old “D”
One “D” that we haven’t mentioned even though we’re all coping with it on a daily basis, as has humankind throughout history, is Disease.
Although we have not seen it happening yet to any great extent, we expect that this pandemic will become a catalyst for antiques to hit the market by way of any and all of the five Ds mentioned above.
This is because society in the throes of the coronavirus pandemic is experiencing the D that underlies all of the Ds that spur the antiques cycle: Disruption.
While death is the ultimate and most unfortunate disrupter of lives, everyone who is living through the pandemic is experiencing disruption on some level. This has led many to reconsider and reevaluate their lives and lifestyles, and letting go of homes, possessions and partners is bound to be an outcome.
But where there is destruction of old ways there is always growth of new ways. On the up side, people are putting positive energy into their homes as their trusted refuge from the pandemic through two creative Ds that drive the acquisitions rather than the dispersal end of the antiques cycle: Designing and Decorating.
Just in the past few weeks we’ve been working with one set of clients who is selling their mountain vacation home and all of the rustic antiques within it, and another couple who is purchasing an empty lakeside retreat that is ready to be filled and decorated.
Thus, the cycle continues, keeping the antiques business humming along as we bear witness to life’s inevitable transitions and the timeless stability of antiques that will outlast us all.
