“The Trend is your Friend” - Daryle Lambert's Antique and Collectible Blog – Pottery vs. Glass vs. Paintings.

William A. Slaughter - The Best of the West

Money that you have to invest into inventory should seek the greatest returns possible. What do I mean by this? First, if you are buying items to resell, your cost has to be low enough for you to get the return that will satisfy the rules of buying set out in our guide “31 Steps to Your Millions in Antiques and Collectibles.” You will find this very difficult if you are trying to buy items that are in a downtrend because most people don't want to sell their items for less than they have sold for in the past. Yes it is easier to make a profit from items that are trending upward. This is another reason that we don't have to buy everything we see that might be a bargain.

Let me give you some examples. I was attending the sale at Arlington raceway and ran across several Roseville pieces. I thought that if I bought them all I would make a niffty profit. However, the market trend for Roseville had already turned down and when I began to sell those pieces there wasn't a market at the level I thought they should bring. I continued to list these pieces as the market for them continued to slide and at the present time I still own two pieces and hopefully when they are sold I will have broken even. Thank goodness for the rules we use in buying because if I had not negotiated at my price and bought them near where they were priced by the dealer I would have lost my shirt. In Chicago a man without a shirt could get very cold. It would have been best for me if I had passed on these pieces because I knew the market was already declining for them.

Then you must be asking what should we buy? For the past year my major focus has been paintings and I feel the market for art is still very stable and even going up in these treacherous times. During this year I haven't had to sell a single painting for less than a 100% gain. Yes there have been times where I have purchased a painting for $500 that I valued at $3500 or more that just reached $2500 when sold but who would argue with that return.

I just recently purchased a group of paintings that I believe will make the first half of my year a success. This is a market [ Art ] where time works on your side and even if you find that the price you wish for a painting is difficult to achieve just wait awhile and it may even bring more than you thought it would. I do hang a few paintings on my walls at home, in fact Vickie my wife says that there is a painting on any vacant spot in our home. To share with you what can happen, I purchased a painting by a well known artist for $1000 within the last five years and hung it on the wall. Since I use this to decorate with I made very little effort to sell it, but if I had been given an offer of $5000 I am sure it wouldn't be mine today. But let's look at what the art markets have done to its value. I just got a call yesterday and priced it at $12,500 and really don't care if it sells or not. This is the type of market that we want to spend our money in and not those that are in decline.

Let's give thumbs up and down. Art, some glass, toys are differently up while most pottery, figurines, porcelain are down. If you are interested in how I rate other fields just send me an email asking for my opinion and I will be more than glad to give you an answer.

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