■ antiques WELCOME In My Opinion The Rebound At two of the higher end shows in August, a small handful of buyers bought big. Three of them “made the show” in Nantucket, and one did the same at Ellsworth. A sign of the beginning of the end of the recession? Perhaps, but let’s not get our hopes up too high too early. Let’s not forget that the majority of showgoers came, enjoyed, admired – and kept their hands in their pockets. As one art dealer (of good, moderately priced paintings) asked me, “Where are the middle classes?” Good question, to which the only answer is, for the moment, dispiriting. These big buyers were clearly not middle class, and perhaps recessions always end earliest for those at the top of the money pile. If this is the case, it still begs the question, will it trickle down? And if so, when? I’m not going to bet the farm on this one, not in the near future, at any rate. On inadequate evidence (there’s a little, but not really enough to ground my speculation securely), I’m going to guess that these big buyers are in the financial sector, or are heavily invested in the stock market. In other words, they and their money are living in those parts of the economy where some of the green shoots of recovery are starting to sprout. The Dow is creeping upward, and the finance houses are once again talking about paying huge bonuses to some of the most unpopular people in America. “One of the starkest patterns in the data on inequality is the extent to which the incomes of the very rich are tied to the stock market.” (NYT 8/21/09.) Meanwhile, however, unemployment keeps rising, houses are stuck on the market for years and consumer confidence is in the pits. So I have to ask the question (rhetorically, of course, because I’m going to answer it in my next breath): Which affects the core of the antiques market more – the stock market and Wall Street, or the housing market, the job market and consumer confidence? No, on second thought, there’s no need for me to answer that question, is there? The disappearing middle I’ve reported before on the “Antique Furniture Price Index,” compiled annually in Britain by John Andrews for the Antique Collectors’ Club. He excludes the statistically distorting very top and very bottom of the market, and concentrates on the solid middle of the Bell Curve – the area where, traditionally, most of the buying and selling of antique furniture takes place. Or used to. That Bell Curve - the core of our business and the core of our society. “Where are the middle classes?” Andrews finds a pattern that has been consistent over a 40-year span: the antiques market tracks the housing market and the consumer price index far more closely than the stock market. It is most affected by the factors that most affect the middle classes. I fully expect that the rest of 2009 and most of 2010 will prove him right once again. The well-being of the antiques business is tied to the well-being of the middle classes. But let’s leave the disappearing middle for the moment, and look at the two ends. Those who profited hugely from the boom years of funny money are not as super wealthy now as they used to be. In fact, according to a New York Times article (8/21/09), they’re hurting badly. For instance, John McAfee, he of the anti-virus software, has seen his net worth fall to $4 million from about $100 million. People like him, who got used to living on nine-figure wealth, now have to live on seven. And they’re going to have to for the immediate future. Continued on page 42 Page 12 ■ Antiques Journal ■ October 2009