Antique buyers have more types of buying options today than they did 15 or 20 years ago. The Internet and online auctions have revolutionized the antiques trade. However, that also means problems, such as age or identity misrepresentation and damaged merchandise from sellers who don’t know how to pack and ship safely.

Today, there are fewer live-market options to buy and sell as the antiques trade has consolidated and retracted over the past 20 years. Still, live sales in antique shops, live auctions, or antique shows are an actual advantage for dealers and buyers alike because buyers value the chance to see and handle the merchandise before committing to buy it.

It takes conscientious work to be successful in live sales of antiques and collectibles, though. Here’s some advice I’ve found helpful in my own sales as I’ve grown into the trade.

Do your homework.

If you don’t know what it is, don’t sell it ‘til you do (Ah, what self-discipline that takes!). Once you do know, clue the customer in: What is it? Who made it and when? Why might a buyer want to have it? Don’t insult the reader’s intelligence with tagging like this: “Glass dish, $20.” The customer can see it’s a glass dish without your belaboring the obvious. Your tag should give the browser a reason(s) to buy – and a reason to trust you as a preferred dealer.

Deal in decent merchandise.

There is still so much damaged, defective, and just plain inferior merchandise in the trade that any dealer with quality inventory will stand out. Savvy buyers may still want to buy items with some wear that are extremely difficult to find in undamaged condition. That shouldn’t be an excuse to use your trade displays as a means of divesting of readily available and marginal “stuff” of a type that your customers already have enough problems of their own knowing what to do with.

Keep it clean.

There’s a difference between “patina” and “grunge.” If an item is dirty and can be readily cleaned with a bit of soap and water or other non-abrasive cleaner without damage to the item itself, clean it before displaying it. Also, if you’re renting space in a multi-dealer shop, the staff is probably not going to dust your display. It doesn’t help your sales if the shelf itself is dusty or dirty.

Rotate your merchandise often.

If it’s been there for longer than three or four months, it’s already stale in the eyes of frequent shoppers. Move it out and replace it with something else. You can “recycle” it months later to attract a second look. At least move things around in your display. It’s remarkable how something overlooked in one position can suddenly acquire a new sales life when moved somewhere else in the display.

Display it like you care about it.

What doesn’t help sales is a place that looks like individual items have been tossed in there or stacked higgledy-piggledy rather than thoughtfully situated to their best advantage. Many displays are arranged so thickly and haphazardly that it’s hard even to see what’s there. If you don’t respect it, why should a buyer?

I generally prefer collecting Japanese to Chinese antique pottery and porcelain. This is because, in China, the practice of honorifics, in which late items are marked as being from earlier dynasties, is common. At least in their pre-Internet forms, these later honorifics were not intended to deceive; they were made as a kind of homage to the artists and eras that inspired them. Consequently, my efforts to date a piece of Chinese porcelain are fraught with problems that are beyond the expertise of an amateur collector like me (It’s also true that most of the worthwhile antique Chinese porcelain is in collections already, not seeking buyers on eBay). I found that Japanese porcelain was at least somewhat easier to date and authenticate as to age.

Japanese pottery and porcelain types most commonly seen on the secondary market include Kutani and Satsuma. They generally date from the Meiji (1868-1912) to the Showa (1926-1989) periods. The two types are usually clearly distinguished from each other. Most Kutani porcelain has painted surfaces (landscapes, flowers, and/or people) surrounded by scrolled red diapers (a red framing called Akae). Satsuma is a pottery often found with raised enameled paint on a crackled, cream-colored background although there are many other decorative variations as well.

More About Kutani Porcelain

Kutani is most often found marked with Japanese characters spelling that name. Sometimes, a piece will be marked with a painter’s signature (in Japanese characters), but dating can be complicated since both names and careers were often passed from father to son.
Experts generally divide the types of Kutani into “Old Kutani” (17th century ff) and the more frequently seen and newer (19th century ff). Old Kutani was made in a wide variety of styles, often with strong geometrical decoration (Nancy Schiffer, “Japanese Porcelain, 1800-1950,” Schiffer Publishing Ltd, 1999, p. 194).

Later Kutani items are plentiful on the secondary market here in the States. Kutani varies widely in the quality of its decoration, from very fine to slap-dash. For my own collection, I’m very picky about quality of the decoration and prefer painted motifs that are unusual rather than the small groups of Japanese women commonly seen on this ware.

Asian views of symmetry differ from those in the West in that the former are less hung up on a completely symmetrical match in tableware. Thus, an inexact match in cup and saucer, for instance, would not have troubled them. As a related point, a full “set” of tableware in the West is even-numbered, while, in Japan, a full set consisted of five place settings.

Satsuma Pottery

Satsuma was made in a variety of shapes and forms, e.g., tea sets, vases, boxes, and figurines. Like Kutani, Japanese Satsuma pottery was a multi-generational enterprise, and this can complicate efforts to date individual items. In Satsuma, there were 17 generations of potters in the Kozan family and seven in the Kobayashi (Kinkozan)!

Decoration in Satsuma may be of either a moriage (raised) type or simply painted on the flat surface. In some examples of the latter, the decoration covers nearly the entire surface. Gilt dotting in the background of painted scenes is a common feature in Satsuma. Even when just the slightest bit of pottery itself is visible amid the paint, the characteristic Satsuma crackles are evident.