When to Buy?

by George Wells

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With the most discreet nonchalance you can muster, you glance at the price tag. After you perform a bit of mental arithmetic, your blood begins its inevitable rush toward your feet. The piece is no steal. In fact, we’re talking mortgage money here. And yet, in all of your years of collecting, this is the first one you’ve ever seen. So you turn to your mate, only to see that pillar of courage recoiling in fear of what has just possessed you. As the room darkens perceptibly, you hear your sweet love babble something about "Are you out of your mind?" or "It’s YOUR money" and for the moment, the joy of collecting escapes you. What are you to do?

If this doesn’t sound familiar, you’re either very well-healed or your central nervous system is a bit off its game. If, on the other hand, you come here often, perhaps a touch of philosophy will help. All you really need in order to make the correct decision every time is the ability to distinguish between three pairs of related terms: collecting versus dealing, possible versus impossible, and lust versus love.

If you collect, you can afford to pay amounts which are prohibitive to dealers, because dealers are not buying the years of enjoyment that owning the piece will bring you. (As a dealer, your only consideration is the likelihood of a quick and profitable resale. Period.)

Now that we have established that, as a collector, it’s OK for you to pay dearly on occasion, can you swing this deal? Of course! Although some of us should do some serious soul-searching before coughing up $20,000 for a foot bath, most of us could find that kind of dough if our child was kidnapped. Nothing is impossible.

It all really boils down to a question of love. When we talk about loving dishes, maybe we should think about getting professional help, and maybe not. I am convinced that what often begins as lust (for pretty and shiny things) can grow into a much stronger emotional relationship. The psyche of Flow Blue and Mulberry collectors is demonstrably and beneficially influenced by the coveted hollow-ware to an extent unexplainable in terms of simple lust. Think of a favorite piece in your collection, and remember that exquisite moment of initial contact, that blossoming of love at first sight. And think of all the times you’ve re-examined the piece, searching for chips, hidden repairs or other signs of infidelity.

To some of us, prized possessions are extremely important. They represent in certain material ways "who" we are, or they constitute a significant element in the tapestry of environment we surround ourselves with. If a piece belongs in this tapestry, you should be able to recognize it as such and, barring any significant probability of soon finding a similar piece more reasonably priced, you should buy it. Consummate the relationship!

Ten years from now, if you don’t buy this piece, will you regret it? The answer to this question will guide you right every time!

EBay Versus the Convention

by George Wells

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You might get a sense that while the world turns and things change, our Club just keeps plodding along with blinders on. Not So! In fact, we carefully monitor the various market venues which compete on one level or another with our Convention, and you might be surprised with what we’ve found!

It is no secret that EBAY has changed the complexion of the collectables market. Buyers who previously had to travel in order to find "material" now enjoy shopping in front of their home computers. Judging from the declining participation seen at antique shows, antique malls and shops, the much-revered "buying trip" may soon become a thing of the past

Make no mistake; EBAY has had many positive influences. We are being constantly exposed to a far wider selection of merchandise than we ever could have found by traveling. We have learned - at times painfully, just how common some items are, and we have also learned how rare others are. (Interestingly, the on-line indices of the "great-and-truly-rare" have shown little weakness through the current economic slowdown, mirroring the market performance of other top-quality, investment-grade collectables.) Additionally, EBAY has brought together many collectors and sellers who would not otherwise have met. Surprising as it may be, there are actually some really nice folk out there who are not yet FBICC members!

Oh, EBAY has had its negative influences as well. Some people think that it is EBAY’s fault that the prices of flow blue plates have fallen. The real cause is that plate prices are particularly vulnerable in a generally weak market, combined with the EBAY-provided proof that plates are really more common than many of us thought. (The Internet is showing us a significant percentage of all the flow blue on the world-wide market at any one time - powerful information!) The worst effect, though, has been an epidemic of laziness. Sitting for hours in front of your computer simply doesn’t have the same aerobic effect as running the Brimfield gauntlets! And once multi-dealer malls like the great "Noah’s Arc" in New Hampshire shut down, they’re gone for good.

Several years ago, the FBICC Board became concerned that EBAY might be threatening our Club’s Convention Auction. We were afraid that our revenues might suffer if ERAY succeeded in siphoning away from us some of our members’ consignments. In fact, three years ago, EBAY’s fee structure was quite competitive, and in response, we lowered the fee charged on un-met reserves of over $1000 to "level the playing field." Since then, some interesting things have happened.

First, after an initial bubble of enthusiasm, many buyers have turned away from EBAY (and other on-line auctions) as a preferred marketplace for buying antiques. Some have been burned by sellers who misrepresent their merchandise. Buyers have found that the customs and policies of EBAY are stacked quite favorably to the advantage of sellers, a bias EBAY initiated to attract sellers in the first place. But since then, EBAY has failed to develop compensating protections for buyers. (EBAY did institute an "escrow service" for this reason, but the seller must agree to use it, and there is a cost. As you might imagine, the sellers who perpetrate the greatest mischief are also the least likely to agree to use the service, and it has not caught on.) While EBAY does have a "feedback" feature, sellers can easily escape negative feedback by changing their EBAY seller "ID." (Watch out for those little "dark glasses" symbols behind the seller’s "ID".) To make matters worse, EBAY has not found an efficient way to police fraud or to apply pressure to misleading sellers, so that it has become a truly dangerous marketplace. That doesn’t mean that everyone selling there is a crook! But over the past two months, I have received over $3000 in refunds on items I returned because of misrepresentation of condition. It is good that the sellers made those refunds, but it is annoying that the items were misrepresented in the first place and that I had to re-pack and ship them off. (It is all too convenient for a seller to state that an item is perfect, to hope for the best, and when caught in the ruse to claim ignorance. While I am certain there is plenty of ignorance afoot, innocence is far more rare! And while I waited almost three months for one of those refunds, other Club members have completely failed to obtain redress when they were defrauded. The pleasure of submitting negative feedback is a poor substitute for a proper refund.) Also, for some mysterious reason, breakage resulting from improper packaging items is way up.

Worst of all is that EBAY has slowly and methodically inched its fees skyward, and there has been an explosion of on-line payment options (which cost MONEY) so that it now costs about twice what it cost in 1999 to sell a $100 plate. I understand how EBAY might have an interest in keeping its profits up while the market drops, but the result has been that it is now much less competitive. To sell that $100 plate, let’s say the seller selects a $50 opening bid, cost: $2.20. If he selects a reserve of $90, it costs him another $1.00, which is refundable if the item sells, and the little "gallery" picture that almost every seller uses costs another $.30. If the plate sells for $100, the sales commission is $3.37, and if the seller accepts "Paypal" payment, the most common and preferred payment method, the $100 gross will cost him another $3.20, plus another $1.00 if the buyer is from abroad. Assuming the reserve is met and the reserve fee is refunded, the $100 sale to a same-country buyer cost the seller $9.07 (9.07%) not counting the time taken to photograph and upload the listing, communicate with bidders as needed, receive and clear payment, and pack and ship the item before the buyer gets too impatient. Finally, EBAY used to refund fees if a buyer undid the sale due to any number of reasons, but that option is no longer available. The fee is charged, and it is simply a loss to the seller if the buyer doesn’t pay, or if he returns the item for just cause. This is a HUGE new cost!

Well, maybe the cost increase ISN’T the worst part! The amount of misrepresentation on EBAY has gotten so bad that any buyer with a lick of sense will ASSUME that an item is significantly worse than described. And he bids accordingly. That way, he won’t be disappointed if an item arrives with some unheralded "issues," and he just MIGHT get lucky and be pleasantly surprised when he receives a piece which had been accurately described. But the consequence is that EVERY honest seller is penalized. Yes, there is the possibility of a seller becoming so well known for his or her honesty that their descriptions would be trusted, but even after I had been selling for several years, WITH A 100% SATISFACTION GUARANTEE, and without receiving ANY negative feedback, I would still receive emails from buyers who told me how surprised they were by the high quality of my merchandise. Even back then, two years wasn’t enough exposure to overcome the system’s distrust. So that $100 plate mentioned above would probably only be bid to $60, because everyone assumes it has a small chip or some other dirty little secret.

ON THE OTHER HAND! The FBICC auction enjoys the advantage of having a professional jury which specifically looks for both reproductions and restorations and advises members of its findings. Our auction also gives the buyers the opportunity to inspect the material BEFORE the sale, so there are no unpleasant surprises. The sellers don’t have to go to the trouble of photographing and listing each item on­line, and money exchanges are clear-cut and virtually instantaneous. The buyers don’t have to contend with the costs and the uncertainty of sellers’ shipping practices. And consider the convenience and usefulness of having a printed catalog full of vital information to use during the auction and which can be kept for reference in the future. Also, the anonymity of the seller is preserved, removing any political "baggage" from the pieces sold and allowing a dealer to sell a single treasure into a market where two or more "friends" might be insulted not to be given a first right of refusal.

Considering the advantages of our FBICC auction as opposed to the significantly less attractive and quite problematic EBAY auction, our 10% commission (which goes to support the FBICC, not to an auctioneer or to shareholders) is a REAL BARGAIN! Its only drawback is that the number of consignments is limited, so don’t wait for the deadline to submit your lots!

THEN there’s the FBICC Convention Table Sales! There is simply no equivalent experience anywhere else on the planet! At any given time, there will be between 1000 and 2000 listings for flow blue on EBAY. If you take away all of the lots that our jury would exclude (reproductions and stuff that isn’t flow blue at all) you would be left with about 200 lots, most of which will be insignificant saucers and plates, a very modest selection at best. By comparison, the selection offered at the Club’s Table Sales is overwhelming! When you walk (or run) through those open doors, you will see more flow blue in an instant than will be listed on EBAY over the entire year. And the dealers selling it are staking their professional reputations on the quality of their offerings and have a vested interest in your continued satisfaction. Without even mentioning all of the great educational programs, displays and social events, is there any wonder why the FBICC National Convention is the premier flow blue event of the world?

See you there!

What's It Worth???

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Ouch! Not an easy question to answer, for many reasons. Why? Well, do you want to determine something’s value "for insurance purposes" or do you want to make sure you can resell it at a profit? Maybe you want to know its "fair market value" because it’s part of an estate being split amongst siblings. The IRS probably lists about fourteen hundred different grades or levels of "value", and while the variety keeps accountants employed, it only adds to the confusion over the question of "worth".

On top of the many different grades of value is the fact that any given thing is worth an entirely different amount to each and every person you ask. A person more wealthy than yourself will understandably pay more for a desired object than will you, because time is money and his/her time is worth more than yours. Or you may pay dearly for that one last piece you still need to complete a series or a set - much more than a less motivated buyer. No one would question your sanity.

The "worth" or value of a thing is not fixed, but rather depends upon the motivation and capabilities of available buyers. On top of that, the flow blue market fluctuates with the economy and with the changing tastes of flow blue collectors. Still, YOU have found a piece of flow blue that YOU like, you’re not sure if the price is FAIR, and you’d like a straight answer to the title question.

OK, accepting that value is a terribly relative concept, let’s look at some of your options. A logical way most folks try to find out "what it’s worth" is to get some expert advice, and the usual choices are to either ask a trusted friend or to consult a price guide. You will find, however, that those options rarely will give you the information you need.

First of all, asking a trusted friend is a BIG mistake. If your friend knows this field better than you do, chances are he (or she) might PERSONALLY be interested in your find. Conflict of interest time! Not good for the friendship. Or else the question puts them on the spot, because they have to consider their complicity in ruining your personal finances, or some other muddy issue. And if your friend DOESN’T know the field all that well, then why ask in the first place.

Next, let’s dispatch the notion that price guides are the answer. They’re not. Their information is dated before it gets published, and almost always reflects interference from variables (such as auction fever, item condition, seller and/or buyer ignorance, etc.) which cannot be quantified. (When was the last time you saw the phrase "It snowed that night" next to a ridiculously low price in a "guide"?) Granted, most price guides state that their prices are for items in "fine" condition (or some other ambiguous, nice-sounding term.) When did you ever see an auctioneer who was really good at detecting AND REPORTING hairline cracks or well-done restorations?

Price guides also tend to become dated as markets change. Some try to avoid obsolescence by publishing regularly and frequently. These guides necessarily focus on a limited amount of fresh data, and their results are overly influenced by the interferences mentioned above. They also lack the ability to track long-term trends.

Other guides attempt to avoid becoming completely worthless by making comparative generalizations. For example, in her Volume 3, Petra Williams graded all of the patterns in each of her flow blue categories a "+", "average" or "-", and then directed the reader to the appropriate range of prices for each category. The idea was that a "+" pattern piece’s value should be closer to the top of the price range, and so on. The problem with this scheme is that the information has gotten quite old. Petra probably didn’t anticipate that twenty years later her compendium of patterns would STILL be the reference of choice for most collectors of flow blue. Back in 1986, she graded the oriental "INDIAN" pattern an "A+" and the brushstroke "HEATH’S FLOWER" pattern an "A-". While those grades undoubtedly reflected the experience of her associates at the time, today they would be reversed. The market has changed.

So there’s no easy answer to the question "What’s it worth?" A wise collector will study the field BEFORE spending hard-earned cash. Where to start? Well, assuming that you have already done enough homework to know what you need to know ABOUT flow blue (what it is, who made it, how to tell a fake from the real thing, etc.) then you just need some direction in the pricing department.

It would be, well, "different", if there was some central "Flow Blue Exchange" that listed real prices. While the prices for some of the more common and popular pieces of flow blue actually DO behave similarly to the prices of commodities (such as soybeans and pork-bellies), they are not, and cannot be accurately reported in anything like a stock or commodity exchange. There are simply too many variables (color, amount of flow, distribution and amount of crazing, condition of the glaze, position of the decorations, quality of any restorations, etc.) affecting value. And only the common-piece prices behave "normally" - the prices for the exceptional stuff are all over the place. And it is usually the rare and obscure items that stimulate the question of value, anyway.

Now, Flow Blue doesn’t exactly fall into the "essential-for-life" category, no matter what you feel when you spy a nice piece at an antique show. It’s not food or shelter, and you cannot melt it down and pour it into ingots and sell them to your local precious metals dealer, either. (It has no intrinsic value.) Instead, it "charms" us, and we "create" demand for it. One visit to a good auction house will show you first-hand the out-of-control creation of demand. It takes only two determined bidders (or one plus a shill-bidder) to drive a price up WAY TOO HIGH, and remember that plenty of price guides get their numbers from auction houses!

According to Adam Smith, supply and demand play a key role in determining the value of our beloved flow blue. There simply is never enough of the very rare and desirable, and that’s why it’s so expensive. Just "HOW" expensive a piece "SHOULD" be is yet another silly question. Yes, greed plays a role, but this is trying to be a no-fault essay, so we’ll ignore greed. Instead, here are a few valuable points to consider:

1. Advanced collectors pay top dollar for the really rare stuff, regardless of condition. Sure, if it’s perfect it will be worth more, but if it’s the only one known and it has a restoration, who cares?

2. Common items that are damaged or restored are generally worth WAY less than corresponding perfect pieces, because a prospective buyer won’t have to wait very long before a piece in better condition comes along.

3. At the very top of the market, the addition or subtraction of any one player can drastically alter the market dynamics. (It’s a seller’s market when two rich guys slug it out over the cream of the crop. But when one of them dies, it becomes a buyer’s market for the other.)

4. In spite of the Global Economy and the Internet, markets are regional. Early Victorian flow blue tends to do better in the Northeast, while Late Victorian does better in the Midwest.

5. Experience is everything. Take your time. Learn the prices and the markets for your particular field of interest. Check eBay results, attend flow blue auctions and come to the annual FLOW BLUE INTERNATIONAL COLLECTORS’ CLUB conventions! One hundred price guides won’t begin to teach you what you’ll learn at your very first FBICC convention.