Antiques Journal: In My Opinion

I’m not usually moved to say good things about TV. I dislike the way that it distorts whatever it touches, and that the distortion always panders to the advertiser. But, that’s the world we live in, and there’s no point wasting good grumbles on what’s inevitable (though I can’t stop myself thinking that football would be a better game if there were no commercials constantly interrupting its momentum).

TV’s so called “reality” shows generally have about as close a connection to reality as I have to the planet Mars. But maybe it’s time for me to take a deep breath and reconsider, particularly for the antiques-based reality shows of the sort that our own Judy Penz Sheluk reviews so admirably and popularly in our TV Review column.

According to USA Today there really is an upside: “Reality TV Shows Spawn American Collectible Craze” trumpeted a headline in its Nov. 5 issue. In the story, Greg Dove, of the National Flea Market Association (flea market sales are estimated at $30 billion a year!) claims that flea markets have boomed recently, in parallel with the popularity of these TV reality antiques shows. “Vendors,” he says, “are reporting stronger year-over-year sales across the board,” and this is partly due to a change in customer demographics that he attributes directly to TV: “We’re seeing more and more middle-class and upper-class folks coming to flea markets.”

Emmett Murphy, of the National Pawnbrokers Association, has a similar tale to tell: “These TV shows have created a boom time for the pawn industry and really made pawnbrokers cool. Our clients are becoming a little more affluent, and we’re opening shops in more upscale neighborhoods, such as Beverly Hills.”

eBay appears to be benefiting, too. In the third quarter of 2011, sales of collectibles were up 18 percent over 2010 to $557 million; its Antiques and Art category rose 17 percent to $263 million; and Coins and Stamps hit the jackpot with a rise of 47 percent to $415 million. The marketing director of Stanley Gibbons, which specializes in the $10 billion rare stamps market, is quoted: “There’s definitely a reality TV frenzy surrounding live auctions.”

But, hold your horses, warns Francis Lee of MediaVest in New York: “It’s hard to find reality shows that can maintain momentum year after year. The nature of these shows is that they have to keep finding a new formula.” The metaphors used by USA Today to describe the popularity of these shows – surge, frenzy, for example -- also suggest that they’re a short-lived phenomenon. Apart from Antiques Roadshow (16 years old, and still going strong, and the one I dislike most of all) these shows do seem to be products of the recession, and their enthusiastic reception may well be a sign of recession-based fears and desires.

Recessionary Reality
Popular culture only becomes popular if it resonates with widespread fears and desires that are operating just below the threshold of conscious thought. Shows that are popular are popular only because they tap into currents of feeling that are swirling through our culture.
Fairly obviously, the trash-to-treasure theme that pervades these shows will resonate with those who, in pre-recessionary times, loaded up on tchotchkes and things they didn’t need and now regret: In those days, not too long ago, it was consumerism that was surging and frenzied. Storage Wars is only possible because people bought more stuff than their houses could hold. Possibly, there are echoes of the underwater/foreclosed/abandoned houses mess that has become such an icon of our times: Buy cheaply what the market has rejected but was once expensive, and risk being able to make a profit on a price that is still below the value it seemed to have in the days of surge and frenzy.

Another recession-related theme is the appeal of a self-generated income. When the official employment structure is crumbling, there’s a real pleasure in watching, and identifying with, people who are generating income outside of it. The heroes (and they are mainly men) are working in an alternative economy in which they are in charge of their own destiny: Their smarts, and a dose of good luck, are why they prosper. You don’t need to look at the jobless figures to understand why these guys are the popular heroes of a recession.

Some of the fans are explicit about this. The comments on the online version of the USA Today article include, “…but there is money to be made for the professionals – as for us – but only if we get lucky.” Another takes a more jaundiced view, “Traveling Antiques Road Show (sic) is pretty good. The rest are just designed to tug at the heart strings of the greedy…” Substitute “needy” for “greedy”… Perhaps greed and need are simply different interpretations of the same desire.

All of these shows have an entrepreneurial or money-making thread running through them. Greg Dove is explicit about this. He claims that these TV shows have changed the perception of flea markets, and that people can now see them as “small business incubators, where sellers with a business concept can get started without a lot of cash.” When the economy was booming, and jobs were secure, starting a small business from scratch might have seemed dumb. Today, it may seem the only way forward.

And perhaps there’s a deeper meaning than that. Storage lockers and flea markets are full of the detritus of over-consumption (as well as genuine antique and vintage items.) The ability to turn things accumulated when credit was inexhaustible into the hard cash that is necessary today may be more than wish-fulfillment. It may contain a subtle acknowledgement that our values have changed, both individually and socially. It may be a symbolic way of putting credit-fuelled consumerism behind us, and of adapting to a more sustainable and realistic present.

An economy of antiques
If this is indeed the case, there will be some benefits for the antiques business that will outlast the popularity of antiques-based reality shows. Their longer-lasting lesson would seem to be, buy less, but better; buy only things whose appeal is durable and not trendy; buy only things whose value is time-tested and not fashion-created; buy only things that were created outside of throw-away consumerism, that is, things built for a sustainable economy, not a fantasy one.

The hopeful signs I’ve been discussing are largely at the more affordable end of the antiques business which is where, predictably, the response to the recession has been most immediate and imaginative. But the overall message seems to me to be much broader than this. We may be entering a time when an “antiques-based” economy can offer an attractive alternative to an economy of over-consumption. It will never replace the economy of mass production, but it may offer an increasingly viable alternative to it, just as the economy of “eat local” offers an increasingly attractive economy to that of factory farms and global distribution.
So what are the characteristics of an economy (i.e. a system for circulating goods and money) that I have called “antiques-based?” There are fewer goods in it, so people select thoughtfully instead of consuming mindlessly; this means that the goods have lasting values instead of short-lived, trendy values. It is an economy that provides for the needs of individuals and not the mass; an economy that is sustainable because it extends the life of objects through re-use, instead of making their first life as short and final as possible – as in a throwaway society identified by the scale of its landfills and the pollution of its air. It’s an economy in which the concept of a “healthy choice” leads people to think beyond the figures on the price tag, and to take account of the benefits and costs that a mass economy hides. It is, in the fullest, richest sense of the word, a “green” economy.

The fact that the upper and middle classes are now shopping flea markets is welcome. It’s a sign that such an antiques-based, green economy can be adopted by all people, irrespective of their wealth. In such an economy, there is something for everyone at every price point.
Some show promoters are already promoting their shows in ways that present them as alternatives to a mainstream, wobbly economy – I don’t need to name names, you will know the sort of managers I’m talking about. There is, I think, a general swing in this direction, and, as the old saying goes, “If you want to lead a parade, find one that’s on the move, and walk in front.” Let’s all think of ways in which we can walk in front, because that’s where the winners are.

This just in.
I should have predicted it! Spike TV’s new series Flip Men is about a couple of pickers who look for foreclosed houses to buy, rehab and flip. Makes Storage Wars look like small change.