|
ANTIQUE SHOPS
Antique shops are a great place to;
Check on what is going through the shops.
Check on price ranges of antiques at retail.
A great place to buy the antique you can't find anywhere else.
These outlets for antiques and collectibles usually are not a good place for the buyer who wants to resale or who is looking for bargains. The shops usually have a good cross section of collectibles and antiques to browse through and in most cases the prices will be reasonable. If not sometimes you can haggle the price down to some extent. Antique shops are there for one purpose as is any business to turn a profit. The owners of theses establishments have become educated over the years and know how to get top dollar out of their merchandise.
They know what the value of their items are and that is what they charge. Which is how it should be. The shop is one place that an amateur has to be careful, not to say that they are full of crooks but when someone is buying antiques, especially expensive antiques or collectibles the first thing they want or should want is authentication of the item they are buying. In most cases it is hard to find that documentation. In the case of furniture it is extremely hard to make sure what you are buying is actually what you are buying. Glassware is the best buy in antique shops. They have a large selection in most shops and the quality is usually the best with full sets of dishes and intact bowl sets as an example.
Antique shops also specialize in certain items which makes it easier to locate an item you cannot find anywhere else and the one plus for these shops are the owners have a network of their own they can tap into to find an item they do not have on hand. When shopping antique shops make sure the person you are talking to is knowledgeable about the item you are looking at. NEVER buy on the first visit unless you are absolutely sure the item you want is real and the cost is inline with the market. Locate the item, get the owners final price and then check other outlets such as magazines that cater to antiques, check the books that have the item listed and average price of that item. Also most of the antique books will give some indication as to an identifying mark which will help in making sure the item you are buying is real.
There is very little room to deal with the owner of a antique shop. There is always present a fixed overhead plus the owner is trying to make a living out of the business so don't expect to get a great deal on your item although it is possible to deal on the price with most shop owners. REMEMBER, most of the items in a antique shop came from estate sales, flea markets and yard sales. You will be shoulder to shoulder in most places with shop owners buying stock for their shops. Another aspect that has come into the picture is the antique shop owner now has in a lot of cases a computer in the back room hooked to the internet and is selling on eBay. So don’t expect to find good deals at antique shops. Use them for what they are. Another source to help you find out what is selling and for how much. In most cases their prices will be higher than what an item is going to sell for on the net but it is nice to know the information.
There is one more thing I would like to mention again. A child is like a bull in a china shop as we all know antique shops are full o glassware. Again don't take children on a trip to the antique shop.
There is a new type of antique shop now being used and that is the antique mall. A shop owner will rent out space to an individual to place their items in and the owner will in most cases watch over the items and sell for the individual. This makes it almost impossible to do any dealing or haggling on the price. If you have the time you can try to contact the owner of the item to make a deal but unless it is something you really want this type of antique shop can be a hassle. On the up side there will be a larger selection of items to chose from as you will have several different areas or booths to look at. The down side of this type of shop and I find to be very annoying is the pricing policy. I was in a small shop in eastern Kentucky which had several booths setup. Most had their items priced, but as usual the one thing I wanted was not priced. I took the item to the shop owner and he said he was not allowed to sell the item because it did not have a price on it. He lost money, the booth owner lost money and I left mad. Needless to say I don’t waste time in this type of shop.
As with any place that deals in antiques and collectibles the antique shop will usually have the same junk area as the flea market or yard sale. Sometimes you have to ask the owner where the lower priced items are or the junk areas. The junk area is the first place I go to. All of the booth owners will put their junk there so I have a good place to look for that treasure. There is one shop in particular in a small town in Indiana I always try to make two or three trips to a year. The shop has been in operation for over 25 years and has a really good selection of antiques and most important it has a huge junk room. The gentleman and his mother are the original owners of the shop and have figured out how to stay in business. He buys estates, works the internet and she runs the shop. The junk room is in an upstairs area and you can go there and stay as long as you want. The area is full of left over items from estate sales the gentleman has bought, granted there will not be a lot of items of great value but it is a great place to roam for a few hours and you can do this without interference. Best of all the people are friendly.
There are really two types of antique shops depending on the location of the shop. Shops that are located in suburbs or areas close to larger towns or cities are usually not a place I will frequent simply because they cater to the weekend flow of city dwellers out working the antique shops on the weekend and the prices of these shops are really over my means. They will have a larger more varied selection of antiques but again the price is to high for what I do. The small town out in the country away from larger cities will not have the selection of the larger shops but you can possibly deal with these people and they still cater to the junk room people such as myself.
Remember if you are a serious hunter then you will have only several items in your head you are looking for plus the knowledge of other things that are selling at the present time. Antique shops are usually small and can be searched out in a few minutes or you can simply ask the owner if they have a certain item. If I am in a strange town and spending the day yard selling I will always make time to stop in small antique shops for a few minutes to make a survey of the shops goods. Again most shops are small and can be searched out in a few minutes. EDUCATE YOURSELF ABOUT ANTIQUES BEFORE BUYING IN AN ANTIQUE SHOP.
©2005-2009 ELewis All Rights Reserved
