posted 05-21-2000 05:59 PM            

1.) Is it just me, or does it seem that dealers tend to give up too soon on a day with bad weather? Case in point: I attended the Gettysburg Antique show this weekend, here in historic Pennsylvania. It isn't a great show for silver, but you never know what you will find. Anyway, it was a miserable early morning, with quite few rain showers. Still, there was a lot of buying, judging from the number of umbrella-toting folks with bags in their hands. Unfortunately, as soon as the rains stopped around 11:00, the dealers started packing up to leave. The rest of the day was quite pleasant, actually, but the dealers were disappearing as fast as they could, despite the fact that the town was still full of shoppers. Those dealers who did stay were swarmed with customers.

I can certainly understand being wet and cold and wanting to get out of there, but there are always shoppers willing to be just as wet and cold in search of a good buy. Unfortunately, dealer defection seem to be contagious; as soon as one starts packing up most of the rest follow suit. This annoys the shoppers, some of whom travel a long way to these shows. I know it bugs me! Any thoughts?

2.) In retrospect, I usually find that I do a lot of buying from dealers who don't specialize in silver. Why? Because they often don't know what they have, and they don't know how to price it. For a lot of dealers, STERLING is STERLING, and there isn't a lot of difference between George Shiebler and Newport Sterling (Reinforced with Cement). It makes collecting fun to get something great for the price of ho-hum, so I look for silver where I don't expect it. Around me, it is Americana central, with dark wood, weathervanes and quilts as far as the eye can see. Fortunately, most of these dealers have a little case of smalls, often containing great little bits of silver. Today I found dealer of folk art with a French first-standard Art Deco era cigarette box. It was marked simply "Old Silver Box".

posted 05-26-2000 09:19 PM            

I agree with you, Brent, about dealers who don't specialize in silver. For instance, there is a lady who runs a general antiques shop near where I live. I found a Gorham Japanese ladle and Liberty & Co cup from her. Meanwhile, she alos has fairly pedestrian pieces of silver for similar prices. By not specializing, or at least reading little about silver, she has let by some real deals!

Paul