As a website owner, I use a lot of tools to assess traffic patterns on my sites, and while doing so recently, I decided that I could use one of them to roughly judge global and U.S. trends for the antiques industry. I wanted to know how the public’s interest in antiques currently stood against historic trends.

Google “owns” web searching globally with an 81% market share that may someday soon become 90% (Yahoo is a distant second at 10% and MSN at 3%).  I reasoned that if any data out there can best capture the public’s interest in a particular topic, it is web search traffic.

My not-so-scientific methodology is not meant to be a precise view of the industry, but it should be an interesting window into the general trends over time.  There are some obvious errors with my methodology such as not having normalized for search traffic increasing overall since 2004 as more people get online.  However, for all I know, Google may have already done that for me within their data.

The charts below shows a relative scale of Google web search activity on a scale of 1-100 from 2004-present.  A datapoint of 100 anywhere in the chart denotes the peak of search interest over the past 5 years.

Let’s analyze each one individually (images can be clicked to expand size).

Continue Reading »

James Conrad and Steve Sika commented on a recent post about a pair of high-end Neo-Grec chairs that were being sold on Ebay (unsuccessfully) and I thought I’d move Steve’s question into it’s own post as it deserves some more visible discussion.  Here’s what Steve had to say:

I continue [to] ask myself if a fine auction house adds credibility to an outstanding item?   I was always under the impression that outstanding items  sell themselves regardless.  With all due respect to the auction industry - MOST do a FANTASTIC job…..but does selling on eBay as an individual “lessen” the value or credibility of an item or a sellers reputation?   I would like to hear your thoughts on this.  Steve Sika

My feeling is that yes, your higher-end antiques (not those with 3 digit sale prices) will perform better at auction houses than they will on Ebay.  One need only look at the price difference from here to here to see recent concrete examples (the latter link with 5x-7x the price on the former).  I believe that the discrepancy between Ebay and Auction prices is due to how Ebay tends to push those higher-end buyers away, taking their deep pockets elsewhere (and the price competition with it).

When I refer to selling at auction, I am referring to a quality auction such as Cowan’s, Flomaton’s, Fontaine’s, Neal, etc. and not your local basement clean-out auction house.  I’ve seen dealers buy at one lower-end auction and drive their truck 30 miles to a higher-end auction and flip the items for a 40% gain, so not all auctions are created equal. Continue Reading »

In deference to Rare Victorian visitors from the UK and Canada which represent 2% and 4% of the traffic to this site, respectively, I have added country-specific links to the “Shop For Antiques” page. Don’t worry, I’m paying attention that you’re out there! It’s a start, anyway.

Sometimes digging through Ebay for Victorian Antiques can be like hunting for a needle in a haystack unless you have some trusty searches set up. I’ve added a “What’s Hot” search on the left side of the page to provide quick access to Victorian Furniture that has had at least one bid as well as a current bid price of at least $400. The latter will filter out some of the items that have seen better days. The theory is that the collective wisdom of active bidding will point you quickly to some good items.

Using the search a few moments ago turned up the pedestal to the right which has seen 16 bids taking it up to $1,800.

Click the link to go to the “Hot” search.