Transcript
Speaker: Hello, welcome to Curious Objects, brought to you by the magazine Antiques.
Speaker: I'm Ben Miller.
Speaker: This is another special bonus episode looking at how the coronavirus is impacting people in the antiques world.
Speaker: If you've been listening to Curious Objects for a while, or even if you haven't, you may know the name David Shorsch, a longtime dealer in American folk art out of Woodbury, Connecticut.
Speaker: David was on the podcast back in 2018 to tell us about a rare Nantucket lightship basket from his inventory.
Speaker: Now he's back for this special episode to talk with Michael Diaz-Griffith.
Speaker: A few days ago, Michael came across a post that David had made on the Facebook group Americana Hub, reflecting on past hard times in the business.
Speaker: Michael wanted to interview David and speak in more depth about his reflections and experience.
Speaker: If your living is tied up in the antiques world, or even if it isn't, but you're feeling uncertain and anxious about what this event means for the future, I think you'll get some comfort out of this conversation.
Speaker: I certainly did.
Speaker: Oh, and apologies for the audio quality.
Speaker: We didn't have time to get a proper mic to everyone, so this is just recorded over the phone.
Speaker: Bear with us.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: Anyway, here's Michael.
Speaker: David's post addresses how the antiques trade has responded to past crises, and it appealed to me because of its uniquely upbeat tone.
Speaker: One of his points is that there will always be collectors, because some people just need to collect, whether the financial markets are up, down, or sideways.
Speaker: But it's a more specific, historical point I found really fascinating and that I want to follow up on today.
Speaker: Because of his unique background, which he'll tell us about, David knew or knew about some of the great figures in the 20th century antiques trade from a young age.
Speaker: All of these figures achieved great success in the end, you know, by the 70s and 80s.
Speaker: But it took some of them decades to get there, and they weathered episodes such as the Great Depression and World War II along the way.
Speaker: What made that scrappy, patient generation of dealers succeed?
Speaker: And what can the antiques world learn from them today as we face another generational crisis?
Speaker: Well, I called David to find out.
Speaker: David, thank you so much for speaking with me today.
Speaker: I, like many others, read your post on Americana Hub and was quite moved by it.
Speaker: And the list that you published was, you know, it reads like a list of legends.
Speaker: Albert and Harold Sack and Florin Mayne and Ben and Cora Ginsberg.
Speaker: I mean, these are legends of the field, but they're also people that you grew up
Speaker: talking to and knowing about through your parents' circle, which is remarkable.
Speaker: Well, very true.
Speaker: And, you know, these were people that went beyond just transactional business.
Speaker: You know, they were sort of family friends.
Speaker: And we went to their homes and we came to our home.
Speaker: And, you know, there was a lot of conversations that went on.
Speaker: And, you know, I was the funny little kid sitting on the floor listening.
Speaker: And I've always been an adept listener.
Speaker: And I have a pretty good memory for things that interest me.
Speaker: And I found these people to be, you know, fascinating.
Speaker: And they all had stories to tell.
Speaker: And if anyone, you know, has ever had any contact with people from that generation, you know, it was obviously the transformative thing of their life.
Speaker: And, you know, it never left them.
Speaker: even when they were, you know, at the top of their game.
Speaker: And that transformative thing that you're talking about is the Great Depression and the rather lean war years that many of them survived before achieving greater success later on in their lives, correct?
Speaker: That is correct.
Speaker: And, you know, it was about adaption and survival and, you know, dealing with
Speaker: auctions and house sales and, you know, creating alternative ways of doing business.
Speaker: And, of course, during the war, there was rationing and rationing of gasoline and tires and all sorts of things that would have made it difficult for antique dealers to get around, not too dissimilar to what's going on now in a different way.
Speaker: Precisely.
Speaker: I mean, you call these dealers smart, resourceful, hardworking, and perhaps a bit lucky, but the emphasis seems to be on how scrappy they were in developing ways to survive.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And I think you expanded on two examples, and I'd love it if you could just sort of repeat those.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: One had to do with Joe Kendig, one of the best known from this era.
Speaker: What did he do during and after the Great Depression and during the war years?
Speaker: Okay, well, to begin with, he was in an enviable position of having a fair amount of hard cash, which is a great advantage, of course.
Speaker: But he was strategic, and as other notable dealers like the Sacks and the Fladermans were forced to liquidate their
Speaker: inventories at auction at places like Anderson Galleries, you know, the predecessor to Park Bernay and the predecessor to now Sutherdies, as they were forced to sell some of their best things, Kindig was sitting in the audience snapping them up.
Speaker: And then he, rather than even selling them, he just stored them away like wine.
Speaker: and put them into cold storage and weighed it.
Speaker: And some of these pieces he held for, you know, 40 years until they, you know, the right person came along and he could get just the right price.
Speaker: And one of those pieces is the Masonic armchair.
Speaker: That's a Massachusetts Masonic armchair that ultimately went to the Kaufman collection that's sitting in the Met.
Speaker: And, you know, it was a transaction that took place, I don't know, in the 1970s.
Speaker: So he was a very patient guy.
Speaker: And at the same time, he went on buying forays down south where he had a group of pickers.
Speaker: And he would go to a certain town, town after town.
Speaker: And these pickers would take him to houses and bring him objects.
Speaker: And he would literally fill boxcars.
Speaker: full of great inventory that also included paneling that he would take back to his warehouse in York, Pennsylvania, and either sell it promptly to people like Harry DuPont or others, or just wait it out.
Speaker: And, you know, he made a fortune in the long run.
Speaker: And the long run was rather long.
Speaker: I mean, you're talking about a time span of decades.
Speaker: Decades and generations.
Speaker: Decades and generations.
Speaker: You write in your post that, you know, you've only seen our country screech to a halt twice with the terrorist attacks of September 11th and the credit freeze leading up to the Great Recession of 2008.
Speaker: Were any of your colleagues able to sort of mount creative ideas
Speaker: strategies to address those crises?
Speaker: Were you?
Speaker: Or is this something that we haven't necessarily worked at in a way that the old-time dealers did yet?
Speaker: I mean, what did you learn during those other two episodes?
Speaker: And how might that inform the way we move forward now?
Speaker: Well, the September 11th situation was clearly unprecedented in our country.
Speaker: So I think every American was just sort of frozen for a while.
Speaker: And, you know, it took weeks or however to get the wheels moving again.
Speaker: But they did.
Speaker: And the following January was the first year that I did what was then the Winter Antique Show.
Speaker: And they had to hold it in the Hilton.
Speaker: And quite surprising to me...
Speaker: was it was a bullish market and people were buying with great vigor.
Speaker: You know 2008 was different.
Speaker: This affected the financial structure.
Speaker: It affected you know people in a much more long-lasting genuinely financial way.
Speaker: Yeah structurally.
Speaker: Yes, and I think that that was actually the thing that jump-started the decline in the American antique market.
Speaker: And it had been declining since that time, and it had never really come back.
Speaker: I agree with you that it was starting to turn around, and there was an uptick, a discernible uptick, prior to this most recent pandemic.
Speaker: but I don't think that they're really anywhere near the same as what we're experiencing with this.
Speaker: This just has a different level of magnitude somehow.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So it will require a response that is similarly scaled, right?
Speaker: I mean, we'll adjust our behavior and adapt hopefully, but we'll have to do it
Speaker: Go ahead.
Speaker: No, I think you can see it now.
Speaker: I mean, if there hadn't been a tart and the bailouts from 2008, the ones that the government are forming now certainly wouldn't be moving as quickly and certainly wouldn't be accepted so readily by both sides of the aisle, so to speak.
Speaker: If you remember, that was a hugely partisan movement
Speaker: the issue of whether or not they should even be thinking about doing that, let alone doing it.
Speaker: And now it isn't a question of whether they do it.
Speaker: The question is how soon and how big.
Speaker: So, you know, we're in a different place now because of 2008 that, you know, may help them move faster to stimulate the economy and hopefully keep certain businesses going.
Speaker: And, you know, the antiques business is a small business.
Speaker: No, and the antiques business may be helped by some of the measures that are being discussed in government to aid and assist small businesses.
Speaker: But in general, we can expect that the antiques trade won't receive a bailout.
Speaker: So it will be up to the antiques trade to take –
Speaker: big, bold actions in order to weather this event, no?
Speaker: That's absolutely right.
Speaker: And, you know, in the last few days, you know, different organizations and publications have made efforts.
Speaker: I read that the Antique Dealer Association of America is going to be hosting one of their virtual shows where their members get to
Speaker: put objects up online for a period of time that are new to the world.
Speaker: And some of the publications are offering similar variations.
Speaker: And, you know, we'll see.
Speaker: One publication is offering a large slash in the price of advertising space in an effort to, you know, give everyone a jump start.
Speaker: And these are all good measures.
Speaker: And, you know, the main difference, of course, is the Internet.
Speaker: And just as people saw the Internet as the enemy of antique dealers because of the incursion of eBay and the way that auctions have sort of seeped into all corners,
Speaker: The Internet could very well be the thing that saves the antique business.
Speaker: Everyone has it.
Speaker: Yeah, which is, after all, a retail business.
Speaker: I mean, we can discuss the world of wholesale and dealer-to-dealer solidarity, but in the same way that the Internet disrupted the retail market for antiques earlier in this century, it could now...
Speaker: bring antiques with it as consumers become more and more comfortable buying a variety of objects online.
Speaker: I mean, it could be the... Go ahead.
Speaker: There's a difference between before now and after now that it was one thing when it was you had the option of possibly going and seeing the object.
Speaker: Now, if people are pinned down...
Speaker: you know, they have to make a choice.
Speaker: And if that's the only way they can do it, that will be the way they do it.
Speaker: And if an object is small enough and you can ship it to someone on approval or you can send lots of high-resolution photographs, you know, we're going to discover a new normal.
Speaker: And a new normal is going to come out of this in many ways, but there will be one for the protocols of the antique business.
Speaker: And I was excited to... Go ahead.
Speaker: There's going to be a shaking out.
Speaker: I mean, those that can adjust to this ultimately will survive it, and those that can't regretfully won't.
Speaker: I get the feeling, trawling Americana Hub, that a few who have resisted going online are finally accepting that they'll have to.
Speaker: And I thought that was a very helpful thing to read.
Speaker: Because some of those dealers are great dealers, and we don't want them to disappear just because the forum for sales has changed.
Speaker: It feels as if there's a dawning awareness that this is no longer an option.
Speaker: You know, the die is cast for the Internet, for sure.
Speaker: And that's a good note to end on as we all return to our Instagram account.
Speaker: And I think you're building a new website, right, David?
Speaker: We are.
Speaker: We're updating our website.
Speaker: It was 20 years old, and it needed to be optimized to the new devices.
Speaker: And I'm hoping it's going to be up and running soon.
Speaker: Well, we can't wait to look at it.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: And as we're doing so, I hope that we all remember the big picture here, which you point out so beautifully in your post, which is that that list of old-time dealers that went through several different difficult periods in American history and in the history of the trade lived to see the market rebound.
Speaker: And I think that's something that we all have to keep in mind.
Speaker: Whatever we face now doesn't necessarily represent
Speaker: what we'll be doing in five years or ten years if we stay the course.
Speaker: Exactly right.
Speaker: Well, in the meantime, see you online, David.
Speaker: Thank you very much.
Speaker: Thank you, Michael.
Speaker: Bye now.
Speaker: Thanks to Michael and David for that great conversation.
Speaker: Keep an eye on your podcast feed because we have another episode coming soon with Michael and me taking a deep dive into the stories coming out of our world during this very strange time and how people are coping and responding and reacting.
Speaker: If you have your own story of how COVID-19 is affecting your antiques-related job or business or hobby, tell us about it.
Speaker: Email me at CuriousObjectsPodcast at gmail.com.
Speaker: Today's episode was edited and produced by Sammy Delati.
Speaker: Our music is by Trap Rabbit.
Speaker: My co-host is Michael Diaz-Griffith, and I'm your host, Ben Miller.
