Collecting 101
A New Fine Art Registry™ Series
The Joys and How To's of Collecting Art, Antiques and Collectibles
by
Fine Art Registry™
If you are familiar with this website, you have seen many mentions of collecting art, antiques and other collectibles. And as interest in Fine Art Registry expands wider across the Internet, the site is attracting visitors who may have an interest in collecting but don't know much about the subject and don't know where to start. Collecting is, after all, a gigantic subject. It isn't much of an exaggeration to say that virtually anything that has ever been made by Nature or Man since the beginning of time is fair game for a collector. From gemstones to the antiquities of the Sumerians to last season's Upper Deck baseball cards, almost anything you can name is collected by someone somewhere.
It is time then to provide the basics of collecting for newcomers to the field. This may sound over-adventurous, but if you talk to enough collectors, dealers, sellers and aficionados of particular subjects, there are certain things in common, particularly when speaking about man-made items or artifacts.
We are going to start simple and keep it simple. If you've thought you might like to take up collecting as a hobby, an avocation or even as a profession, hopefully, we can present enough information and resources here to get you started. Or maybe you simply have boxes of stuff in your parents' attic from when you were a kid – stamps or coins or Tonka toys or comic books – and wonder if any of it is worth anything. We can almost guarantee that if you pull it out and start going through it, you're going to get back in touch with your past in a hurry. Flipping through an old comic book can, like magic, transport you back to the time you snuck into your brother’s room when you were supposed to be napping and took your favorite from his collection and maybe never told him since. Or, you pick up your old stamp collection and suddenly you're sitting on the porch with your sister, making her point out on a globe where in the world these cancelled stamps came from.
Maybe that is the appeal of any type of collecting – that it connects us with our pasts, as individuals, as part of a family, a group, a civilization. And, sure, collecting can be big business (on just the illicit side of the ledger, trafficking in forged or stolen antiques and collectibles trails only drug smuggling and illegal arms dealing as a cash generator across the planet), but money alone can't explain the joy of holding some particular item that resonates deeply with you as you turn it over in your hands, feel its heft or admire its translucence and then let it transport you on the wings of your imagination. Neither can money provide the utility of many antiques – furniture, silver or tableware, lamps, timepieces, etc. – or supply the enjoyment that a truly fine painting or porcelain figurine brings each time you look at it. Money, basically, just sits in the bank or a portfolio.
An Emotional Connection
This brings us to our first basic – collect your passion. Collect things that you love and will cherish and enjoy. If investing has to be part of the picture, know that some fields offer investment potential for the knowledgeable collector. "Knowledgeable" is the operative word here and gaining knowledge about something you're interested in can be compelling, effortless fun and one of the joys of collecting.
Gaining knowledge is a big part of the allure of collecting. A Revolutionary War buff may only collect a few pieces of memorabilia from the period, but in researching those pieces, in talking to dealers about them, in reading accounts of who owned the piece, in meeting others of like interest at antique shows and conventions, she can amass a vast storehouse of information that is personally enlightening and rewarding in itself.
Collecting is quite different from simply dealing. A dealer buys and sells things and may never form an attachment to a particular genre. For a dealer, it's mostly about the money and he buys and he sells. But dealers, obviously, are important to collectors since they often have the artifacts the collector is looking for.
Now, why the individual collector is seeking something in particular goes much deeper than money. Fine Art Registry™ Founder and CEO, Theresa Franks, sees this broader, more meaningful side to collecting, particularly when involving articles of historical significance. "We all have a duty to preserve certain things," she said recently, referring to one particular archive from her collection.
"This Boynton family came over on the Mayflower," Theresa says, indicating the box of papers she collected some years ago. "There are photographs in here of documents dated from around the time of the Mayflower. These important people came over and started the businesses in Boston; they were the first ones in Boston. As far as I'm concerned, I have a responsibility to that archive. I have a responsibility to care for it, to make sure if I die that it goes to the family or a museum. Maybe it's a missing piece out of the museum's collection. Maybe someone's researching it.
"I say we are stewards and we need to take care of these artifacts. It's important if you're collecting that you love it, that you love what you're doing and make sure it has a good home. It's part of our cultural heritage and if we don't appreciate it and it's gone one day, we don't have any identity. Where's our identity then?"
Yes, if you collect in the particular genre that fuels your passion, you can count on being rewarded handsomely for your efforts: in knowledge, in history, in the people you meet and the stories they have and, sometimes, in the satisfaction of having been a caretaker for part of our collective past.
But, we're getting slightly ahead of ourselves and we should really begin with some basic building blocks.
Terms and Definitions
Collecting, as a hobby, involves acquiring items that one is interested in and involves their search, acquisition, cataloging, inventory, maintenance, storing and display.
Generally, the term antiques is used to categorize items more than 100 years old. Automobiles older than 25 years are considered classics, if not genuine antiques, and there are furniture experts who won’t consider a piece an antique until it is 150 years old.
Collectibles refers to items newer than 100 years old. They can even be brand new.
Vintage is used by some dealers and collectors to describe older collectibles. While there are differences of consideration, items between 25 and 50 years old can be classified as vintage.
There is another term, antiques-in-waiting, which refers to items not yet in the antique class but already so desirable that some collectors feel they deserve another appellation to distinguish them from mere collectibles. Tiffany lamps, they reason, should be distinguished from Depression glass, the mass produced dinnerware manufactured around the same time.
Then there are repros, or reproductions. These are items made to look like the real thing, but, when money is in the offing, these sometimes can be meant to deceive unwary buyers. When the genuine article is unavailable but in high demand, some companies will reproduce the item clearly stating it as such. So, knowledge of your field of interest becomes a necessity to avoid the risk of being defrauded about a piece. Of course, even the experts get fooled. The Getty Museum in Los Angeles still displays a statue represented as from Greek antiquity that may very well be a fake. (To their credit they acknowledge the possibility.) And Han van Meegeren made a profession out of forging Vermeers.
Knowledge is All-Important
This leads us to our second basic – find out. The more you know, the more you'll want to know. To one degree or another, you're dealing with living history. The settee you're using to decorate your foyer has a history, whether it was handed down through your family or bought at auction. If you inherited it, the history probably came with it courtesy of family members. If you bought it, you owed it to yourself to know all about it before you bid to avoid paying antique money for repro quality.
You can find out by looking up your subject online. There are other people interested in your field, too, and many fields have associations, websites, magazines and newsletters on the subject. Your library has books on collecting in general and on specific subjects. Publishers put out very voluminous guides annually that are packed with useful information including descriptions and buyer's prices.
For starters there are (just in the U.S.):
- The National Art & Antique Dealers Association of America
- The Antiques Council
- The Antiques and Collectibles National Association
States and counties often have their own associations as well. Similar associations exist in nearly every country. Then there are countless associations devoted to specialties: dolls, coins, stamps, you name it, there's probably an association devoted to it.
The Dummies series has a volume on antiques, which gives a good overview on the subject with an emphasis on furniture. Among other such handbooks, Warman’s Antiques & Collectibles Price Guides, issued annually by Krause Publications, is 800 pages of informtion, prices, pictures and descriptions of everything from Abino Ware to Zsolnay Pottery.
You'll find that most collectors are more than happy to share their knowledge. Talking to people who share your passion in a certain field is definitely not like trying to coax someone to give you the formula for Coca Cola.
There's no shortage of information about your particular interest and no shortage of people willing to talk about it. What could be more enjoyable than two people discussing a subject fascinating to both? That's one of the real joys of collecting: meeting people with interesting stories about different pieces, how something was manufactured, the twists and turns an object took on its way to her antique shop or his collection. Of course, if you're going to make a serious investment in a piece, it's your responsibility to know exactly what you're buying. Caveat emptor ("let the buyer beware") never applies more than when buying expensive pieces of art, antiques or collectibles.
Quality
And a prime consideration in determining whether to invest in a particular item leads to the next basic: the item's condition. Items in mint or near mint condition (meaning that they are in their original, unused state or nearly so) are worth far more than items that show even slight damage or varying degrees of wear. Given the option of buying one item of superb quality or two items of lesser value for the same amount, you're probably better off buying the one gem. In financial terms, this is important, since a high-quality item will likely never go down in value, but only increase.
Record keeping and Provenance
The final basic, which relates to each of the above, is Fine Art Registry™ itself. A collection of any size or value must be catalogued and inventoried. Registering a collection in the Fine Art Registry database establishes a permanent record and enables its provenance to be tracked from that point onwards. Along with its cutting edge technology, Fine Art Registry has begun to standardize how the art, antiques and collectibles markets operate.
Collectors or art buyers use Fine Art Registry to gain the security of knowing that they are investing in a genuine piece of art, antique or collectible that is permanently registered and recorded. When a piece changes hands, Fine Art Registry provides secure electronic transfer of ownership so there is a permanent, easily accessible record. This is invaluable for tracing a piece, establishing authenticity and for insurance purposes.
As well, Fine Art Registry, unlike any other Internet site, is a source for general information about art, resources for artists and collectors including legal issues, how artists can use the Internet to market their work and now, this series on the adventure of collecting.
It's a simple activity:
- Collect what you love
- Find out about it
- Quality over quantity
- Record it with Fine Art Registry
But it can provide for a lifetime of satisfaction and enjoyment as well as preserving history for a future generation.
We've conceived this as an open-ended series and we'll be covering many aspects of collecting art, antiques and collectibles of every stripe, from the financial, to what to ask a dealer, to ongoing scams such as the one currently operating on the high seas that separates cruise line passengers from big money for second rate prints. So, welcome aboard and we hope you find the ride enlightening and entertaining.
— Fine Art Registry
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September 14, 2007
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The views and opinions of individual authors/contributors expressed on the FAR® web site do not necessarily state or reflect those views and/or opinions of Fine Art Registry® or its agents or subsidiaries.
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