Brimfield Antiques Shows dealers talk of declining interest in traditional antique furniture and stronger market for furniture that once was used in factories.
BRIMFIELD – Sitting in a tent on Route 20 for the week with a truck load of antique furniture not selling well, Gary LaMothe longs for the 1990s, when he witnessed much greater appreciation for his specialty and what he saw as a more knowledgeable throng of buyers.
“Antique furniture has taken a big hit in the last five years. We are selling it for about half of what we sold it for five years ago,” LaMothe said Friday during one of many slow periods for his Rock-n-Glass Antiques Center tent at the Brimfield Antiques Shows.
The giant antiques shows along Route 20 have run since Tuesday and will continue Saturday and wrap up Sunday.
LaMothe and his wife, Carol, have been bringing their antique furniture and glassware to the Brimfield shows for years from their base in Burnt Hill, N.Y.
Gary LaMothe still speaks with great enthusiasm about the drop-front desk with a hand-carved design that he is offering for sale at $895 this week, even though he says that like most of the furniture he brought, the same piece could have brought in twice as much just five years ago.
“There used to be an equilibrium. Older people getting rid of this kind of furniture and younger people buying it,” LaMothe said. “Now, the younger people are not buying it.”
LaMothe lamented what he sees as “a throw-away age,” an era when people are buying expensive electronic equipment they know they will be tossing out or tossing aside in a year or so and feel much the same way about furniture, which he says they purchase new, on credit, and without any feeling that they will have it for a lifetime.
It was not hard to find several dealers of antique furniture who had similar, pessimistic views and a bit of admiration mixed with jealousy for those selling industrial furniture, something that has been growing in sales the past few years at Brimfield and other outlets.
“When you see the rivets, people really love that,” Kevin Browne, of New York, said as he was showing a table that was once in a factory but is being marketed at Brimfield for someone’s kitchen.
“Antique was popular. I think it got a little stale,” Brown said. “Most of the new generation wanted modern, and the industrial caught on. The raw, steel look has appeal.”
Browne works for Olde Good Things, which, at the Brimfield shows and at its New York and Los Angeles stores, offers many tables, carts, cabinets and other items once used in factories, now sold as solid pieces of furniture for the home.
Architectural and altered antiques is the catch phrase for Olde Good Things, which can put a gloss on a sturdy old factory table, replace the legs with new and offer it as a kitchen island.
Jeff Izzo brought industrial furniture and some 1950s furniture from Sterling, Conn., to the Brimfield shows this week, and sold them all on opening day.
“I know that is what is selling,” Izzo said. “It is hard to find because everyone is looking for it.”
Ray Morin from Woodstock, Conn., sees the same changing trend but is not ready to give up on selling antique furniture.
“It’s not warm to me,” Morin says about the industrial pieces and the furniture of the 1950s, which he says is popular today.
Morin is offering an 18th-century setback hutch for $2,200 this week, lamenting its potential to bring in twice that amount a few years ago and now hoping that someone with the right country house will meet his price.
Furniture is not the only category with changing trends.
Morin said ornately crafted Hummel figurines were immensely popular at Brimfield and similar venues in years past, but now he said, “Hummels are dead. Good for target practice.”
Dramatic increases in the price of silver bullion have brought change to the marketing of low-end pieces of silverware but not to the high-end pieces.
Robert Lloyd said spoons he sold just last year for $25 are now worth $35 just for their metal, but an engraved silver tankard made in London in 1621 has historic and artistic value far greater than the price of its metal, so he is offering it this week for $28,000.
Linda Walsh, of Monson, sells collectibles from China and other Asian countries and finds her success from year to year depends more on the types of collectors passing by than any particular trend.
Glass buoys from China are selling well at $15 apiece for Walsh this week, something she attributes to having the good fortune of seeing many customers from coastal areas.