Probably not what glass lovers wanted to hear.
Gary Barnum, a well respected glass dealer and collector sent this to Trader; not very good news for glass collectors whose buying/selling season depends in large part on the Marietta Civitan Club Glass Show during the Fenton shows:

Everyone in the antiques business - collector and dealer alike - have an opinion about eBay. However you feel about it now, it's played a major role in antiques commerce over the last decade. The role, however, has been changing rapidly in recent weeks.

Ebay has suffered a well publicized decline in market share in the last year - something like 14% - in its auction business and has not seen it's Marketplace feature do as well as investors would have like to have seen in the face of Amazon and Google's growing share.

This all culminated last week when it was announced that Meg Whitman, the CEO who guided eBay to glory in the late 1990s, was resigning to "spend more time with her family." That last bit was mine... I just put it in for dramatic effect...

Whitman's resignation, and her successors pledge to amp up the Marketplace and "Buy It Now" features while de-emphasizing the auction business, along with a reduction in listing fees and a tweak to the feedback system - which many sellers fear will lead to shady buyers not being weeded out - have given eBay more press than its had in a few years. Whether it's positive remains to be seen.

Here's what Trader wants to know this week: With a leadership change, lower listing fees and a shift in selling focus, can eBay remain a relevant force in the marketplace?

Post your answer to the new Antique Trader Blog at www.antiquetraderblog.com/atblog, or send your response to noah.fleisher@fwpubs.com.

Wow. This is... Well, let's just say that some of the smartest people you'll meet can end up being the dumbest.

This story is being widel reported on most major news outlets. It seems that an archivist at the New York State Library in Albany has been scamming and then selling invaluable documents, just to pay his bills. He's been selling them on eBay, no less!

I just find this to be unfathomable, both ethically, and logistically. Daniel Lorello - who I had dealt with in my previous jobs with a couple of other magazines when I was living in The Hudson Valley for many years - was taking documents from the library and posting them online for sale. Now, I know you can sell alot of things anonymously on eBay - there are alot of fools and charlatans out there that never get caught - but alot of these things are of low value, both historically and monetarily. Somehow, though, Lorello thought that things like a letter from Vice President John C. Calhoun (pictured above) would go unnoticed. the troubling thing is just how much he stole, and how long he's been doing it.

Authorities recovered more than 400 stolen items from his house in Upstate NY. He plead not guilty...

"Officer, I swear I have no idea how those got there. It's a conspiracy!"

Wow... Just wow...

Just a few thoughts as I eat my lunch...    

Anyone who regularly reads my editorials in Antique Trader - Anyone? Anyone? - knows that I love to pick on the minutiae of the market, especially as it pertains to those that have and those that have not. The high-end is an easy whipping boy, because if you've got millions in the bank, it doesn't matter what the rest of the market is doing, or how it's trending; you will still be able to buy what you want, when you want it. The result is that, yes, the high-end is generally out of touch with the middle and low end of the market. Them's the facts.

A few weeks ago, however, when we asked the question of our readers: Can you still find good antiques dirt cheap, and where?, I got an email from Darylle Lambert, the author of "31 Steps To Your Millions in Antiques," pointing out, among other things, that if the economy tanks it's even better for the overall antiques market because people will want to put there money where their investment is safe and others will want to sell their antiques to meet their overhead. Regardless of how you slice it, at whatever level, we all know that your money is safe in antiques. Unlike most things, the money you put into a piece is going to stay there - as long as it remains in good condition - and, in most cases, increase as the years go on. Darylle is a smart man, and he makes a good point; one that I've been thinking about for the last few weeks since he wrote me.

I have to say that I agree with him, and - even if there is much turmoil and change in the antiques business right now as dealers get in or out of the business, as the best stuff becomes harder to get and as a segment of the antiquing population dies off - I would say that the market in general seems to bear out his theory. As things have gotten diffifult in the last few years it does seem that people have been drawn to auctions and shows just as others have been drawn to sell off their collections to put some cash in the bank. If they aren't spending big bucks on the items that make a dealer's, or auctioneer's day with a single sale, they are indeed spending. In times of turmoil - like now, with a looming recession and an uncertain presidential election - people are going to turn to comfort objects. They might not buy a Chippendale highboy for a few hundred thousand, but they're going to pony up $75 for that good condition 1962 copy of a Scrooge McDuck comic, or for anything that takes them back to a safe place in there lives. I myself, being a kid of the 1970s, go back to the arcade games and cartoon characters that populated the simpler days of my early life and I have been buying things that take me there.

There will always be examples of people who can find something cheap and make a healthy - sometimes hefty - profit off of it, but more to the point, I think, is that people will always be willing to spend something that reminds them of the uncomplicated times in their lives, be it tin soldiers, ceramic cups or postcards. This is what makes the heart of the market beat, even if it's the million dollar sales that make it pound. We all need the thrill, but me? I'll gladly take a steady pulse over a racing one.

The Los Angeles Times reported last Friday on Federal agencies raisding American Museums, all in Southern California, to recover artifacts stolen from South Asian Countries. The AP is reporting the same thing.



As a longtime lover of Asian art, particularly the sublime Buddhist art of Burma, Bhutan, Thailand and Cambodia, this is a disturbing story, especially when you consider that the museums in the story continued to pursue stolen goods long after they knew it was a crime, that the goods were stolen and long after federal agencies had made it clear they were cracking down and foreign countries were looking to get their cultural heritage(s) back.

The looting of the aritfacts of other nations is nothing new; it's been going on for centuries. In fact, a lot of people got fabulously wealthy on brokering stolen good - particularly Asian, because there was so little oversight, with many Asian government officials actively participating for a cut of the cash.

In recent years, Greece and Italy in particular have gotten very proactive about recovering the artifactsof bygone eras in foreign museums, and there have been several high profile lawsuits to bring this to international attention. This latest offense, though, as reported in the story linked above, is a bit much to handle.

I personally love seeing these artifacts - they are often unparraleled in beauty and craftsmanship, but I don't want to participate in the pillaging of another culture. In this editor's opinion, it's been long enough that affluent countries have taken advantage of their wealth and power to deplete the material culture of ancient societies that deserve to keep it for themselves, lest they forget from whence they came.

Worse is that the museum's are claiming ignorance to the crimes. Considering the relatively minor offenses that many people get put away for many years for, their claims ring particularly hollow. The ring of theft of Asian antiquity is well-documented and well known for many years.