Antique Trader Blog with editor Noah Fleisher - Vintage Fashion

Antique Trader 4-16 preview - Comin' at ya

Noah — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:19:49 GMT

Just gone to the press - yesterday, that is... Here's what you can expect for the 4-16 issue...

Atlantique City Day 2

Noah — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 13:04:22 GMT

Howdy folks. We made it through Day One of the March 2008 Atlantique City Antiques Show and, if I may speak for the staff and crew of Atlantique City - and I reckon that I can - Day one was pretty fantastic.

By the 9 a.m. early opening we had at least 2000 people lined up outside the door, many of them grabbing copies of Antique Trader and our various publications at the show, and the trafic flow was steady all day. While official numbers aren't available yet, I'd say we had at least 5,000 people come through the convention center and they seemed interesting. Quality is high, and uniform, and we heard some good comments from dealers.

The appraisal event went very well, too, highlighted by a superb Judy Garland dress, straight off the MGM lot, that ended up in - of all places - Milwaukee, WI. We have to wait and see if the pics cvame out, but I'll post them if I will.

At the end of the day we also hosted a gathering to fete Ellen Schroy and thank her for all her hard work - 28 years worth - on the Warman's Price Guide. Nice stuff, and Ellen is a great lady. She'll be missed on Warman's, but it's a good opportunity for Trader to get her byline in the paper, as we did with the 4/9 issue.

Sunday is usually a bit slower at shows, but there can be some serious buying going on, so we're keeping our fingers crossed for our dealers and ourselves, for a good day today, a smooth load-out tonight, and a nice easy flight home tomorrow morning. Last October we got delayed in Philly for 12 hours. Yuck.

Looking forward to getting home, getting back to work and regular blogging, and seeing my family. I love the East Coast, and have a lot of good memories from these shows and my childhood summers spent here, but I want to get back to Stevens Point, WI - wide open spaces, nice people and great beer - and get back in the swing of day-to-day life and work.

See you there.

Atlantique City - At last!

Noah — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:52:14 GMT

Howdy!

After a long week of vacation last week - agonizing, as you can imagine, spending so much time with my lovely wife and daughter in Phoenix and Las Vegas - I got into Atlantic City last Wednesday night. Travel was 13 hours from Vegas, with a few nighmarish waits in TSA lines at all airports.

It's time for good antiques and the Atlantique City Antiques Show.

We have spent two exhausting days getting the show ready, but as I write this morning, the show floor at the Atlantic City Convention Center looks beautfiul, there is a crowd of 2000 people waiting outside the door and we are hoping for a good show. We know it looks good, and quality is ubiquitous. Now we are waiting for the buyers.

The weather here is a bit chilly and overcast, which means good weather for antique buying, and the attitude seems to be optimistic, which is half the battle when there are such problems with the economy. I don't, however, have to tell any Trader readers that.

What I can tell you is that I'm excited for the opening of this show, proud of the hard work we've done and ready to see this thing come off a success.

If any of you out there are coming today or tomorrow, or go this weekend and read this later, give me a holler and let me know what you think.

I'll post more later today, hopeufully with some pics, but no promises...

The fashion of the "Queen of Mean" at Leslie Hindman Auctions

Noah — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:50:36 GMT

In about two months, Leslie Hindman Auctions will auction off the clothing collection of one Leona Helmsley, may she rest in peace... Hopefully somebody in her new location will sport her a glass of ice water now and then.

Helmsely's clothes are sure to be very fashionable, all very well made and all simply reeking of the bad vibes the woman made her bread and butter.

I lived in NYC when she went to prison, and can tell you that she was, easily - and still may be - one of the most reviled characters in the history of the city.

I'm a big fan of Leslie Hindman and her auction house, and would want to auction off this collection if the chance came my way - it interesting to note that it's not a NYC firm doing the sale - but I just can't say I would want anything that touched Helmsley's skin, or her closet or one of her houses, to be anywhere near me. The woman simply emanated meanness. I wrote about her after her death at the end of January after Christie's announced it would auction her furniture:

A ‘Queen’s’ legacy on the block

It was a bittersweet moment.

This morning, without ceremony, the e-mail from Christie’s Auction House entered my inbox. I get several a day from the venerable shop, so it was a good hour or so before I actually clicked on it and opened it up.

There it was. Throughout 2008 Christie’s, over the course of several sales at its Rockefeller Center location – conspicuously not saying it was proud to announce – will auction off the estate of Mrs. Leona Helmsley, the Queen of Mean. The legacy of one of the most reviled figures in the history of New York City will finally be dispersed to the four corners.

Helmsley once was famously quoted as saying, “We don’t pay taxes. Little people pay taxes.”

She denied ever saying it.

She never, however, denied smashing a teacup at a lunch with lawyer Alan Dershowitz. It seems a bit of hot water had spilled from cup onto saucer. This so enraged Helmsley, Dershowitz related, that she threw it to the floor and demanded the waiter fall to his knees and beg for his job.

She also famously fired one employee, with a casual flip of a hand, while being fitted for a dress. She fired hundreds of employees for the slightest indiscretion.

The stories about her in the city were myriad. She was endlessly lampooned on television, harangued by the paparazzi and the tabloids and mocked by comedians in nightclubs and comedy shows. It was a bonanza to any “little person” when, in 1989, under the prosecution of then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Guiliani, Helmsley was convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to 16 months in prison, plus another two under house arrest.

Legal observers speculated that Helmsley’s personality and wealth alienated the jurors.

Hmmm… You think?

A woman worth well in excess of $2 billion – at the time – who routinely stiffed contractors, never tipped at restaurants and sued her dead son’s wife until she was broke… Sounds like a peach to me. Why would the jury be alienated by such sweetness?

The year that she was convicted, 1989, I can remember that the most popular NYC costume that Halloween was Leona in black and white stripes. In the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade there were probably more than 200 Leona’s re-enacting her famous collapse in front of the Manhattan courthouse. It drew hearty cheers each time.

I don’t need to pile on. In fact, I’ll even point out that she was actually quite generous in her contributions to hospitals and that she established a fund of well more than $5 million to aid the families of firefighters killed in the 9/11 attacks.

Now the epic possessions of Queen Leona’s empire – mostly high-end fine art and furniture – will go to the highest bidder. All those things that she so highly coveted, that surrounded her to the bitter end, will go back onto the market.

Will they be worth more, or less, for having belonged to her? We’ll see. Let’s just say that I wouldn’t want to sit my daughter’s picture on a desk she once used, or my keister on a couch where she once snoozed.

Good thing I can’t afford any of it anyway. “Little people” rarely can.

Antique Trader 3-19 preview, comin' at ya'

Noah — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:45:09 GMT

Here's a first look at our March 19 issue, a special for the Atlantique City Antiques Show, which is owned by Trader's parent company, F+W Publications.

It'll be a glossy front with an extra 5,000 copies distributed at AC on March 29-30, 2008 at the Altantic City Convention Center.

I'll be there. If you are around and want to say hi, please do...

Is eBay trying to fill a leaky bucket?

Noah — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:34:34 GMT

I like this story about eBay after Whitman on the Forbes Magazine Web site, even if it is a bit too much re-hash and a bit too much corporate speak.

The writer, from Wharton College, outlines some interesting options that eBay and CEO-elect James Donahoe might take to shore up some of the problems it has right now. The article is, however, stictly from a business perspective and fails to approach the human side of the story, which is what we all know is going to drive the future of the business.

There still seems to be a disconnect between the corporate side of eBay and Wall Street to the nuts and bolts dealers who live and die in the trenches of online auctions.

One of the main thing I took away from the above article was thatr eBay will be looking to make inroads into Asia in order to beef up its revenue and return to the glory days of bazillions of dollars. Interesting philosophy, but if a bucket is leacking water from a hole, and you simply fill it at the same rate, there's certainly no net gain and - eventually - you're going to run out of water.

Probably not the best news for the antiques biz...

Noah — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 18:46:09 GMT

I have been criticized for reporting the negative before, but I'm a journalist first and the story is the thing. To ignore this news, and not analyze what it might mean for our business, would be irresponsible.

The overall January sales figures, as reported on Yahoo, by Reuters, were not too good.

That includes a lot of factors, especially big box stores like Wal-Mar and Target, and a lot of the items people aren't buying are things that they shouldn't be buying there anyway - art, furniture, etc...

A January lull is no big surprise to the antiques business; after the holidays and the lull in mid-level and flea market shows - a lot of high-end happens in the Winter, and you can't really count the health of The Winter Antiques Show or The American Antiques Show as truly reflective of the real health of the antiques economy - there is a lot of space. General line buyers are going online to auctions, or checking out shops or small shows nearby.

There are schools of thought that will consider an economic slowdown healthy for antiques, and I don't disagree with them. I do also know that when the economy gets bad - remember 2001? - the antiques business is one of the first to feel the lack of discretionary income, and one of the last to benefit when people come out of the stupor.

The above report, along a reported and well-documented contraction of the jobs market last month, don't add up to prosperity. No one wants to say recession, but the laws of economics are fairly immutable.

VBOE not on EBAY

Noah — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 16:49:25 GMT

Since it was mentioned in the 2-20 Trader, and on this blog earlier this week, here's what Specialist Auctions has released about its sale to compete with eBay.

I understand well and good that this is a press release from the company and they are representing their best position on the subject. I feel, from an editorial standpoint, that it bears looking at because it is one of the most public counteractions to eBay's recent changes.

Here's how they put it:

"SPECIALIST AUCTIONS TO GO HEAD TO HEAD WITH EBAY DURING “VINTAGE BLOW-OUT SALE”

VBOE on Specialist Auctions February 14 – February 21, 2008

In an effort to attract both unhappy Ebay buyers and sellers, the rapidly expanding UK-based site Specialist Auctions (www.specialistauctions.com) announced plans to compete directly with a long-held tradition of Ebay vintage clothing sellers: the popular “Vintage Blow Out Sale.” During this sale, many vintage items are sold for $19.99 or less.

Specialist Auctions is calling its sale “VBOE,” and VBOE is rapidly catching on. Numerous Ebay vintage sellers, some of them Powersellers, are signing up on Specialist Auctions in order to take advantage of the event, which, like VBO, runs from February 14 through February 21, 2008. Many vintage items will be also be offered for $19.99 or less.

During VBOE, buyers will be able to pick from a huge variety of vintage clothes, hats, accessories, jewelry, and more. Just like on Ebay. And Specialist Auctions is also offering collectibles, comics, in fact, anything that dates before 1989.

The recent changes at Ebay have prompted calls for a boycott starting February 18 and lasting at least a week. By moving to sites like Specialist Auctions, sellers can sell with a clear conscience—and not be held hostage to payment method Paypal, an Ebay subsidiary that recently announced it could put a 21-day hold on payments, even if the item was shipped to the buyer. Sellers on Specialist Auctions accept a wide array of payment options, including Google Checkout, Western Union, money orders, and bank transfers. Not only that, the only charge to sellers that Specialist Auctions asks for is 3% of the sale price of an item—no matter how high or how low.

So if you REALLY want to shop victoriously, shop at Specialist Auctions during VBOE!"

I trust you can decide for yourself.